When was the kingdom of Israel divided?

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Accepted Answer

The kingdom divided about 931 BC, at the death of Solomon, when the northern tribes gathered at Shechem refused his son Rehoboam and made Jeroboam their king; 930 BC is also widely held, and some scholars put it at 922. The map uses c. 931 BC, the date of Thiele's chronology. Shechem, where it happened, lies about 49 km north of Jerusalem in a straight line. Rehoboam went to Shechem, “for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king”, and the people asked him to lighten the yoke of forced labour his father had laid on them. He took the advice of the young men: “my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.” The answer was the old cry of rebellion: “What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel.” Jeroboam, who had fled to Egypt from Solomon, was made king over all Israel, and “there was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only”; the Russian Synodal text adds Benjamin here. “So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day.” Jeroboam fortified Shechem and, so that the people need not go up to Jerusalem, set golden calves at Bethel and at Dan, about 16 and 168 km from Jerusalem in a straight line. The Bible gives no absolute year, so the date is reckoned backward from Assyrian records: Ahab fought at Qarqar in 853 BC and Jehu paid tribute to Shalmaneser III in 841, as the Kurkh Monolith and the Black Obelisk record. Adding up the reigns of Kings from there, with Israel and Judah starting their years in different months and sons sometimes reigning beside their fathers, Thiele arrived at 931/930 BC for the death of Solomon; Albright, who thought the figures needed more correction, gave 922. A second check comes from Egypt: “in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem”, and Shoshenq I recorded that campaign on the Bubastite Portal at Karnak, about 925 BC. The two kingdoms never reunited, and Israel fell to Assyria in 722 BC, Judah to Babylon in 586.