![]() | This article uses texts from within a religion or faith system without referring to secondary sources that critically analyze them.(June 2024) |
Battle of Mount Zemaraim | |||||||||
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Part of Jeroboam's Revolt | |||||||||
![]() Map of the two kingdoms in the 9th century BC, prior to the battle. | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
Kingdom of Judah | Kingdom of Israel | ||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
King Abijah of Judah | King Jeroboam of Israel | ||||||||
Strength | |||||||||
400,000 warriors | 800,000 warriors | ||||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||||
unknown | 500,000 dead |
The great Battle of Mount Zemaraim was reported in the Bible to have been fought in Mount Zemaraim, when the army of the Kingdom of Israel led by the king Jeroboam I encountered the army of the Kingdom of Judah led by the king Abijah I. [1] About 500,000 Israelites were said to have lain dead after this single engagement, though most modern commentators consider the numbers to be either wildly exaggerated or symbolic, and some have even questioned its fundamental historicity. [2] A chronology proposed by Edwin Thiele suggests the battle would have taken place around 913 BC.
The friction all began when the late king Rehoboam increased the royal taxes throughout the Kingdom of Israel after Solomon died in about 931 BCE. [3] This created discontent among all the Israelite tribes of the kingdom, excepting Judah and Benjamin, and the people's discontent soon became a rebellion when the king, against the advice of the elders, refused to lessen the burdens of royal taxation. [4] The ten northern tribes of Israel eventually broke up from the kingdom and made a new Kingdom of Israel with the former fugitive and exile Jeroboam as king, [5] provoking a civil war. Rehoboam then went to war against the new kingdom with a force of 180,000 soldiers, [6] but was advised against fighting his brethren, so he returned to Jerusalem. [7]
Ever since the unified kingdom was divided, there had been constant border issues between the two parties, and both attempted to settle them. Abijah succeeded to the throne after the death of his father Rehoboam, and attempted to reunite all of Israel, including Judah, under his rule. According to Biblical sources, Abijah had an army of 400,000, all of them handpicked or conscripted, and Jeroboam had 800,000 warriors. [8]
Before the battle, Abijah addressed the armies of Israel, urging them to submit and to let the Kingdom of Israel be whole again. As written in the biblical narrative (2 Chronicles 13:4-12), Abijah then rallied his own troops with an address to all the people of Israel:
Listen to me, Jeroboam and all Israel: 5 “Do you not know that the LORD God of Israel gave the rule over Israel forever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt? 6 “Yet Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, rose up and rebelled against his master, 7 and worthless men gathered about him, scoundrels, who proved too strong for Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, when he was young and timid and could not hold his own against them. 8 “So now you intend to resist the kingdom of the LORD through the sons of David, being a great multitude and having with you the golden calves which Jeroboam made for gods for you. 9 “Have you not driven out the priests of the LORD, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, and made for yourselves priests like the peoples of other lands? Whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bull and seven rams, even he may become a priest of what are no gods. 10 “But as for us, the LORD is our God, and we have not forsaken Him; and the sons of Aaron are ministering to the LORD as priests, and the Levites attend to their work. 11 “Every morning and evening they burn to the LORD burnt offerings and fragrant incense, and the showbread is set on the clean table, and the golden lampstand with its lamps is ready to light every evening; for we keep the charge of the LORD our God, but you have forsaken Him. 12 “Now behold, God is with us at our head and His priests with the signal trumpets to sound the alarm against you. O sons of Israel, do not fight against the LORD God of your fathers, for you will not succeed.
Abijah's phrase "God is with us as our head (or leader)" became famous since that event.
However, his plea to Jeroboam was not heeded. Jeroboam had set up an ambush to come from the rear of Abijah's army, so that the latter's army would be fighting on his army's front and rear, [9] executing a giant pincer movement. All of the soldiers of Judah pleaded to God for help, and then the priests blew the trumpets. [10] Abijah was quick in countering this move made by Jeroboam; he ordered his warriors to fight bravely and countered the pincer movement executed by Jeroboam to his warriors, almost utterly crushing the latter's huge army.
The king Abijah and the warriors of Judah who were under his command had won the day, killing 500,000 Israelite warriors in the process. [11] The rest of the Israelite army fled from the battlefield heading back north, and the forces of Judah then staged a relentless pursuit against them, taking the cities of Bethel, Jeshanah and Ephron during the ensuing pursuit. [12] The factor for Judah's success in the battle is mainly attributed to Abijah and his troops' devotion to their God. [13]
Jeroboam was crippled by this severe defeat to Abijah and thus posed little threat to the Kingdom of Judah for the rest of his reign; [14] however, despite being victorious, Abijah also failed to reunify Israel and Judah. To conclude, despite the battle being decisive for both sides, this only deepened their division of each other, and these two kingdoms would be engaged in severe border wars for almost two centuries until the Kingdom of Israel's conquest and destruction by Assyria in 720 BC.
Abijah is a Biblical Hebrew unisex name which means "my Father is Yah". The Hebrew form Aviyahu also occurs in the Bible.
The Book of Kings is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It concludes the Deuteronomistic history, a history of ancient Israel also including the books of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel.
Jeroboam I was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first king of the northern Kingdom of Israel following a revolt of the ten tribes against Rehoboam that put an end to the United Monarchy.
The Kingdom of Judah was an Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands of Judea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem.
Rehoboam was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first monarch of the Kingdom of Judah after the split of the united Kingdom of Israel. He was a son of and the successor to Solomon and a grandson of David.
Abijam was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the fourth king of the House of David and the second of the Kingdom of Judah. He was the son of Rehoboam and the grandson of Solomon. The Books of Chronicles refer to him as Abijah.
Shishak, also spelled Shishaq or Susac, was, according to the Hebrew Bible, an Egyptian pharaoh who sacked Jerusalem in the 10th century BC. He is usually identified with the pharaoh Shoshenq I.
According to the Torah and the Quran, the golden calf was a cult image made by the Israelites when Moses went up to Mount Sinai. In Hebrew, the incident is known as "the sin of the calf". It is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus.
Iddo was a biblical prophet. According to the Books of Chronicles, he lived during the reigns of King Solomon and his heirs, Rehoboam and Abijah, in the Kingdom of Judah.
Shemaiah was a prophet in the reign of Rehoboam. He is venerated as a saint in the liturgical calendar of the Eastern Orthodox Church on January 8.
The Assyrian captivity, also called the Assyrian exile, is the period in the history of ancient Israel and Judah during which several thousand Israelites from the Kingdom of Israel were dispossessed and forcibly relocated by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. One of many instances attesting Assyrian resettlement policy, this mass deportation of the Israelite nation began immediately after the Assyrian conquest of Israel, which was overseen by the Assyrian kings Tiglath-Pileser III and Shalmaneser V. The later Assyrian kings Sargon II and Sennacherib also managed to subjugate the Israelites in the neighbouring Kingdom of Judah following the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in 701 BCE, but were unable to annex their territory outright. The Assyrian captivity's victims are known as the Ten Lost Tribes, and Judah was left as the sole Israelite kingdom until the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, which resulted in the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people. Not all of Israel's populace was deported by the Assyrians; those who were not expelled from the former kingdom's territory eventually became known as the Samaritan people.
Biblical Egypt, or Mizraim, is a theological term used by historians and scholars to differentiate between Ancient Egypt as it is portrayed in Judeo-Christian texts and what is known about the region based on archaeological evidence. Along with Canaan, Egypt is one of the most commonly mentioned locations in the Bible, and its people, the Egyptians, play important roles in the story of the Israelites. Although interaction between Egypt and nearby Semitic-speaking peoples is attested in archaeological sources, they do not otherwise corroborate the biblical account.
According to the First Book of Kings and the Second Book of Chronicles of the Hebrew Bible, Jeroboam's Revolt was an armed insurrection against Rehoboam, king of the United Monarchy of Israel, and subsequently the Kingdom of Judah, led by Jeroboam in the late 10th century BCE. The conflict, referring to the independence of the Kingdom of Samaria and the subsequent civil war during Jeroboam's rule, is said to have begun shortly after the death of Solomon lasting until the Battle of Mount Zemaraim. The conflict began due to discontent under the rule of Solomon's successor, his son Rehoboam, and was waged with the goal of breaking away from the United Monarchy of Israel. Though this goal was achieved very early on in the conflict, the war continued throughout the duration of Rehoboam's reign and well into the reign of his son, Abijam, who defeated the armies of Jeroboam but failed to reunite the kingdoms.
2 Chronicles 11 is the eleventh chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles the Old Testament in the Christian Bible or of the second part of the Books of Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible. The book is compiled from older sources by an unknown person or group, designated by modern scholars as "the Chronicler", and had the final shape established in late fifth or fourth century BCE. This chapter belongs to the section focusing on the kingdom of Judah until its destruction by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar and the beginning of restoration under Cyrus the Great of Persia. The focus of this chapter is the fallout from the unified kingdom of Israel's division in the beginning of Rehoboam's reign.
2 Chronicles 13 is the thirteenth chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles the Old Testament in the Christian Bible or of the second part of the Books of Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible. The book is compiled from older sources by an unknown person or group, designated by modern scholars as "the Chronicler", and had the final shape established in late fifth or fourth century BCE. This chapter belongs to the section focusing on the kingdom of Judah until its destruction by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar and the beginning of restoration under Cyrus the Great of Persia. The focus of this chapter is the reign of Abijah, king of Judah.
1 Kings 12 is the twelfth chapter of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the First Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a Deuteronomic compiler in the seventh century BCE, with a supplement added in the sixth century BCE. 1 Kings 12:1 to 16:14 documents the consolidation of the kingdoms of northern Israel and Judah: this chapter focusses on the reigns of Rehoboam and Jeroboam.
1 Kings 14 is the fourteenth chapter of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the First Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a Deuteronomic compiler in the seventh century BCE, with a supplement added in the sixth century BCE. 1 Kings 12:1 to 16:14 documents the consolidation of the kingdoms of northern Israel and Judah: this chapter focusses on the reigns of Jeroboam and Nadab in the northern kingdom and Rehoboam in the southern kingdom.
1 Kings 15 is the fifteenth chapter of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the First Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a Deuteronomic compiler in the seventh century BCE, with a supplement added in the sixth century BCE. 1 Kings 12:1-16:14 documents the consolidation of the kingdoms of northern Israel and Judah. This chapter focusses on the reigns of Abijam and Asa in the southern kingdom, as well as Nadab and Baasha in the northern kingdom.
War in the Hebrew Bible concerns any military engagement narrated or discussed in the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Tanakh or Old Testament of the Bible. Texts about war in the Hebrew Bible are part of the broader topic of The Bible and violence. They cover a wide range of topics from detailed battle reports including weapons and tactics used, numbers of combatants involved, and casualties experienced, to discussions of motives and justifications for war, the sacred and secular aspects of war, descriptions and considerations of what in modern times would be considered war crimes such as genocide or wartime sexual violence, and reflections on wars that have happened, or predictions, visions or imaginations of wars that are yet to come.