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A: The First Book of Kings gives two explanations for the split of the United Monarchy of Israel. First it says (1 Kings 11) that God told Solomon that his son would lose most of his kingdom because Solomon had committed the sin of worshipping other gods. Later, it says that after the death of Solomon, the northern tribes rebelled from the kingdom of Israel and created their own kingdom called Israel, while the former kingdom settled for the name Judah. According to First Kings, this came about because Solomon had unwisely imposed swingeing taxes on the northern tribes and his son and successor, Rehoboam, not only refused to lift them but insisted on increasing the burden on the Israelites. The Second Book of Chronicles entirely omits the story of Solomon's infidelity to God, instead emphasising Solomon's faithfulness and his commitment to constructing the Temple in Jerusalem. The nearest it comes to any threat of punishment for infidelity to God is found in 2 Chronicles 7:19-22, where God merely warns that if the Israelites turn away from him, he will pluck them out of the land. The remainder of this account until the death of Solomon is devoted to telling of the great luxury in which Solomon lived, but there is no suggestion that Solomon committed any sin for which the kingdom would be destroyed. As with the older account in 1 Kings, Second Chronicles says that because Solomon had unwisely imposed swingeing taxes on the northern tribes and Rehoboam not only refused to lift them but insisted on increasing the burden on the Israelites, they rebelled. However, some scholars believe that there never was a United Monarchy of Israel. They say that Israel and Judah were always separate, with their own pottery styles, culture and distinct dialects of the Hebrew language. On this view, there was no split.

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10y ago

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