David's son and successor, Solomon, extends the…

China’s Zhou Dynasty is at its peak during the reign of Mu Wang, perhaps the most pivotal emperor of dynasty.

He is reputed to have lived until the age of one hundred and five and reigned nearly sixty-six years, from about 1023 BCE to about 957 BCE.

He liked to travel, and in particular visited the Kunlun Mountains several times during his reign. (The actual place for Kunlun Mountains would be somewhere close to today's Jiuquan County, Gansu Province. Mount Kunlun, extending for almost two thousand miles, from Kara-Kunlun bordering Tibet in the west to Qilian Mountain in the east, is a source of many Chinese myths and legends.)

King Mu, more ambitious than wise, had tried to stamp out invaders in the western part of China and ultimately expand Zhou's influence to the east.

In the height of his passion for conquests, he led an immense army against the Jung tribes, supposedly native to India, that had colonized the western part of China.

His visits and travels allowed him to contact many tribes and swayed them to either join under the Zhou banner or be conquered in war with his mighty army.

This expedition must have been more of a failure than a success, proven by the fact that he brought back only four white wolves and four white deer.

Unintentionally and inadvertently, he thus sowed the seeds of hatred, which will culminate in an invasion of China by the same tribes in 771 BCE.

Tiglath-Pileser II has been King of Assyria since 967 BCE, when he succeeded his father Ashur-resh-ishi II, Little is known of his reign.

He dies in 935 BCE, and is succeeded by his son Ashur-dan II.

Egypt’s Twenty-second dynasty, which rises from long-settled Libyan mercenaries, begins in 945 with Hedjkheperre Setepenre Shoshenq, or Sheshonk, or Sheshonq, identified as Shishak in the Hebrew scriptures.

The king is based in the north and his sons rule key centers elsewhere.

Prior to his reign, Shoshenq had been the Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Army, and chief advisor to his predecessor Psusennes II, as well as the father-in-law of Psusennes' daughter Maatkare.

He also held his father's title of Great Chief of the Ma or Meshwesh.

His ancestors were Libyans who had settled in Egypt during the late New Kingdom, probably at Herakleopolis Magna, though Manetho claims Shoshenq himself came from Bubastis, a claim for which no supporting physical evidence has yet been discovered.

Significantly, his Libyan uncle Osorkon the Elder had already served on the throne for at least six years in the preceding Twenty-first Dynasty; hence, Shoshenq I's rise to power is not wholly unexpected.

Shoshenq’s campaign in the east is attested, in part, by the discovery of a statue base bearing his name from the Lebanese city of Byblos.

Rehoboam, Solomon's son, is forty-one years old when he ascends the throne, according to 1 Kings.

Under his father, the people had been taxed heavily to pay for all the building projects undertaken during his reign.

Solomon's act of building a place over the Millo, formerly an open area providing convenient access to the Temple for those coming from the north, may have been perceived as apathy for the tribes of the north.

Therefore, there was great unease immediately after the death of Solomon, people being afraid that he would pursue a high-taxation, (supposedly) pro-southern policy like his father.

Solomon had also accumulated several prominent enemies during his later reign, notably Hadad, the Egyptian-backed heir to the Edomite throne; Rezon, the son of an Aramaean army captain, now the de facto ruler of Damascus; and Jeroboam, a rising young Ephraimite who, encouraged by the prophet Ahijah, was increasingly outspoken against Solomonic policy.

The nation demands that the coronation ceremony be held at Shechem, a decidedly pro-northern stronghold, to crown Rehoboam.

The weak Rehoboam complies, and the people immediately demands relief from heavy tax burdens.

Rehoboam asks and is granted three days to receive counsel before announcing his decision to the masses.

The elder counselors formerly of Solomon's kingship advise that he lower taxes to gain favor among the people, while the younger counselors, cronies of the new king, exhort that he raise taxes to express his authority.

Rehoboam sides with the young counselors and says to the people, "my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions."

As a result, the northerners retract their recognition of the legitimacy of the rule of the House of David and declare independence.

Jeroboam is appointed as king over them, and their breakaway state becomes known as the Kingdom of Israel.

Jerusalem becomes the capital of the Kingdom of Judah while the Kingdom of Israel locates its capital at Shechem in Samaria when the Kingdom of Judah splits from the larger Kingdom of Israel (which the Bible places near the end of the reign of Solomon in about 930 BCE, although Israel Finkelstein and others dispute the very existence of a unified monarchy to begin with.

Thomas L. Thompson argues that it only became a city and capable of acting as a state capital in the middle of the seventh century.

Rehoboam, not taking seriously the secession of the northerners, dispatches Adoram (possibly identical with the Adoniram of Solomon's reign), the chief tax collector, to collect taxes from the north.

Adoram is stoned, and Rehoboam, who had apparently followed him throughout his journey, has to flee in haste to Jerusalem.

Rehoboam returns to Jerusalem and organizes a sizable army to suppress what he still sees as a rebellion against the crown.

Its size is given as one hundred and eighty thousand men by I Kings and by II Chronicles.

Shemaiah the prophet proclaims that it is God's will that the United Monarchy be divided, and Rehoboam immediately abandons his plans.

Rehoboam will nevertheless skirmish against the forces of Jeroboam throughout the remainder of his reign.

A vast majority of the Levites depart the Kingdom of Israel for the Kingdom of Judah because they are being recruited as pagan priests by Jeroboam.

King Solomon, a figure described in Middle Eastern scriptures as a wise ruler of an empire centered on the united Kingdom of Israel, was supposedly born in Jerusalem about 1000 BEC and reigned over Israel from 971 BCE 931 BCE.

The scriptural accounts identify Solomon as the son of David.

He is also called Jedidiah in the Tanakh (Old Testament), and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah split; following the split his patrilineal descendants ruled over Judah alone.

The Bible accredits Solomon as the builder of the First Temple in Jerusalem and portrays him as great in wisdom, wealth, and power.

Solomon is the subject of many other later references and legends.

The association of Solomon with the city of Jerusalem may have preceded this period.

The name Jerusalem, attested since the time of Ebla, 2350 BCE, by some etymologies means "The City of Solomon" (=Uru Sholom/Shalim).

The Ugaritic texts refer to "Shalim and Shachar", as two beneficent Gods, sons of El and Asherah, divine figures of the sunset and sunrise respectively.

They were associated with two mountains that were located on the Eastern and Western rim of the world, respectively.

According to the Bible, Solomon entered into an alliance with Hiram I, king of Tyre, who in many ways greatly assisted him in his numerous undertakings.

For some years before his death David was engaged in the active work of collecting materials for building a temple in Jerusalem as a permanent abode for the Ark of the Covenant; Solomon is described as completing its construction, with the help of an architect, also named Hiram, and other materials, sent from Hiram king of Tyre.

The description of the temple is remarkably similar to that of surviving remains of Phoenician temples of the time, and it is certainly plausible, from the point of view of archaeology, that the temple was constructed to the design of Phoenicians.

After the completion of the temple, Solomon is described as erecting many other buildings of importance in Jerusalem; for the long space of thirteen years he was engaged in the erection of a royal palace on Ophel (a hilly promontory in central Jerusalem); Solomon also constructed great works for the purpose of securing a plentiful supply of water for the city, and the Millo (Septuagint, Acra) for the defense of the city.

However, excavations of Jerusalem have shown a distinct lack of monumental architecture from the era, and remains of neither the Temple nor Solomon's palace have been found (although it should be noted that a number of significant but politically sensitive areas have not been extensively excavated, including the site that the Temple is traditionally said to have been located).

Although the Old Testament describes Solomon as surrounding himself with all the luxuries and the external grandeur of an Eastern monarch, some archaeologists consider the kingdom of Israel at the time of Solomon to have been little more than a small city state.

According to the Hebrew scriptures, Solomon is also an author and a patron of literature (although many of the writings attributed to him—for example, the “Book of Proverbs,” “Ecclesiastes,” and the “Song of Solomon”—are not his work).

Rehoboam fortifies Bethlehem after the division of the state between Israel and Judah. (II Chronicles 11)

Jeroboam, according to 1 Kings 11:26-39, was born the son of Nebat an Ephrathite of Zereda whose mother's name was Zeruah (who later became a widow, and could have been leprous as her name translates).

While still young, he had been promoted by Solomon to be chief superintendent of the "burnden", i.e., the bands of forced laborers.

Influenced by the words of the prophet Ahijah, he began to form conspiracies with the view of becoming king of the ten tribes; but these having been discovered, he fled to Egypt (1 Kings 11:29-40), where he remained for a length of time under the protection of Shoshenq.

On the death of Solomon, the ten tribes, having revolted, send to invite him to become their king and he is accordingly proclaimed "king of Israel" (1 Kings 12:1-20).

He rebuilds and fortifies Shechem as the capital of his kingdom.

He at once adopts means to perpetuate the division thus made between the two parts of the kingdom, and ...