Solomon’s ancient kingdom has some history lessons that are relevant to the present day.
For example, when it comes to dividing a country, and using one portion of that country’s hard work to benefit another portion, who increasingly doesn’t produce anything, but considers itself superior to the portion that does do the producing, and benefits from the producers, we find a good example of this in ancient history, in the nation of Israel under the reign of King Solomon.
Because he was such a prestigious king in his day, was considered very wise, and brought glory and splendor to his nation, many of the nations around him wanted to cement alliances with him, and one of the ways this was done back then, as in medieval European history, was by sending a princess, from a nation’s royal family, to be Solomon’s bride – alliances were oftentimes formed by marriages. There were so many of these royal marriages that took place that, over time, Solomon collected a whole harem of wives and concubines, totaling about 300 wives and 700 concubines.
All these people, and their helpers and aides, became part of Solomon’s royal court. As his royal court grew, so did the cost to the ancient Israelite “taxpayer,” who had to support an increasingly heavy burden to support the ever-larger court. The best example of this can be seen in the giant palace Solomon built for one of his wives, who was the daughter of the Egyptian Pharaoh. Solomon took 7 years to build the Jewish temple, but a full 12 years to build a palace for Pharaoh’s daughter. And that was just one of Solomon’s wives.
Besides, Solomon ruled with absolute power and without concern for the ancient social and religious traditions of Israel, caring little for the well-being of the people, and only using them for his own benefit, and thus, over time, became increasingly oppressive. Many people don’t know this side of Solomon.
Now add to this the way Solomon divided ancient Israel into 12 districts, without any regard for the traditional tribal boundaries. Each of these twelve districts had to support the royal court, the royal officials and the military, and all the king’s construction projects, which were many, providing supplies for one month of the year. As you already saw, Solomon’s expenses became increasingly enormous, and greatly burdened the 12 districts, to the point where the people living in them could hardly take care of themselves because they were giving more and more of the product of their hard work over to the state.
For example, we see in 1 Kings chapter 4 that “The daily food requirements for Solomon’s palace were 150 bushels of choice flour and 300 bushels of meal; oxen from the fattening pens, 20 pasture-fed cattle, 100 sheep or goats, as well as deer, gazelles, roe deer, and choice poultry.” That’s a lot of provisions, and that was just one day’s worth! Solomon’s taxation program sucked away much of the wealth being produced by small farmers in that ancient agrarian society in order to provide for his vast government bureaucracy, and by doing so placed a severe strain on the traditional social and economic structures of families and villages – those that did the producing.
Add to this the fact that some Israelites, as well as other people groups living within Israel’s borders, were conscripted by Solomon into forced labor, being treated no better than slaves – that, along with the oppressive taxation program going on, fueled outrage and anger among the ancient Jews.
There’s one other element to this that I haven’t mentioned yet – Solomon was from the tribe of Judah, one of the most southernmost of all the tribes of Israel, and Solomon gave Judah a special status, administering it independently of the other districts. That tribe was granted special immunity from much of the taxation system that the rest of Israel was paying for.
And there’s more. Judah also got most of the benefits from the taxation system, from all the goods and supplies coming in from the other tribes, since the capital, Jerusalem, was in Judah. Almost all of the royal officials came from Judah. Proximity to, and connection with, the capital put the people of Judah in a privileged position. As the massive tax burdens were impoverishing the rest of Israel, Judah was becoming wealthier and more privileged, on the back of the rest of the country. The rest of Israel were the producers, whereas most of Judah became privileged nonproducers. And the rest of Israel became embittered and outraged at Solomon’s oppression of them, while favoring his own tribe.
Solomon had basically divided his nation into two regions, the larger region that was the producing region, that was being taken advantage of, and becoming impoverished and enslaved, and the people of Judah, the nonproducers, who felt that they were better than the rest. Judah was basically taking all the benefits from the rest of the country’s hard work.
So, what became of ancient Israel? When Solomon died, and his son Rehoboam took over as king, the people of Israel told the new king that they could no longer carry the weight of such excessive tax burdens, and being conscripted into forced labor, and needed that burden reduced. That new king, instead of listening to wise counsel, instead listened to his stupid and arrogant young friends who gave him bad advice. Rehoboam told the people of Israel that he would enslave them more, and tax them even more than his father did.
That ended up being the last straw, leading to revolt, and the division of Israel into two kingdoms, otherwise know as the “Divided Kingdom,” with most of the tribes being in a kingdom still called Israel, and Judah, along with the tribe of Simeon, since its tribal lands were basically surrounded by Judah, being a kingdom all by itself. And that division stayed that way for centuries, until both kingdoms eventually got swallowed up in later Middle Eastern empires. That’s what happens when you divide a country like that, taking advantage of one region for another region’s benefit – only division.
Comparison to Today
We see this dynamic, this division, taking place today in our country, albeit in a different way – really along partisan lines. Hard working Americans, who are the producers, are required to pay more and more and more taxes to the coffers of the state. They tend to want less taxes, less government, and less control by the government over their lives – because of that, they tend to identify as conservatives and vote Republican.
And the money from those coffers? It goes generally to three different groups of people: a) people that work directly for the ever-larger government, and get their income, their “provisions,” from that tax money; b) people who work for firms that do work for the government, and thus benefit from their proximity to the state; c) people who are dependent on the government’s social welfare programs, who, in many cases are chronically dependent on those programs over a long period of time.
You’ll find that these three groups of people almost always vote for the Democratic party. They almost always lean politically towards the left, which makes sense, because it’s the left that wants to increase the size of government and keeps pushing our social welfare programs on which many people become or are dependent. They need both of these to keep getting their “provisions.” The first and third group of people can be labeled as “nonproducers,” because they don’t produce any goods or services that have any value, which can be deemed to be “wealth,” and in fact are a burden to the portion of our country that does do the producing.
The second group of people sometimes are nonproducers, and sometimes are producers, but in those cases where they are producing things of value, its about helping the state practice more power and control over us – for example, they may build new buildings to house new agencies and departments of our government, or may be working to develop new, more advanced technologies that allow the state to surveil and control us to an even greater extent than they already do. If you look at this second group of people, they’re almost never working to help strengthen our freedoms and liberties as individuals, but are almost always working in the opposite direction, so, even in this case, it could be very easily argued that this group of people is up to no good.
Compare that to people in our country that don’t benefit from proximity to the government. They tend to be the producers, producing goods and services that are of value, improve the quality of our lives, and improve our prosperity as a nation. They get increasingly taken advantage of by the nonproducers, who consider themselves to be superior to the producers, and who look down on them in a condescending way.
Many More Examples, Including Venezuela
This division in ancient Israel between the producers and nonproducers is only one of many examples of this division taking place throughout the entirety of written human history. Over and over again, one group takes advantage of another group, and doesn’t know when to stop, and keeps making things worse until the group being taken advantage of says “Enough is enough!” Sometimes, at this point, someone comes along and fixes the situation for a while, like Solon did in ancient Greece. Many times though, at this point, revolt happens. It happens so much that it makes a great story line for fiction writers – think of the Hunger Games and the division between the districts, who were the producers, vs. the capital, which was full of nonproducers who considered themselves superior to the producers being impoverished and suppressed in the districts.
And this division helps us understand what’s going on presently in Venezuela. You may wonder why, as Venezuela continues its collapse into oblivion, why so many Venezuelans continue to support the very regime responsible for bringing so much misery and destitution to this beautiful country that a few decades ago was considered the wealthiest nation in Latin America. Remember a few paragraphs ago I gave a list of three groups of people that benefit from this division between the producers and nonproducers? Well, it’s those same three groups of people that benefit in Venezuela from their hell-bound regime. They are the ones that continue to benefit at the expense of the producers, and continue to support the regime in power.
And as the nonproducers – those with connections to, and dependency on, the government – continue to demand more and more and more control over everyone and everything, it will get to the point where the producers can no longer even sustain themselves – causing economic collapse. And yet, their government continues to take over whatever is left in the producing sectors, replacing competent managers with state cronies that have been nonproducers for so long that they take viable businesses and industries and run them into the ground with their stupidity and incompetence, thus helping to destroy any production capabilities that are left in the country. And this won’t end until even any semblance of society is completely destroyed, everyone is destitute, and roving gangs extract any trace remains of what’s left until they destroy each other. They are truly working to destroy themselves, and they’re not far off from accomplishing that goal.
So, let the ancient kingdom of Israel, under the control of King Solomon, be a lesson to our present day. Let’s not let history repeat itself in present-day America. And, let’s not follow in the footsteps of present-day Venezuela – that is definitely not a situation we need to find ourselves in.
