Shishak

“ Ye have forsaken Me, therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak.' 6Then the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said: 'The Lord is righteous.' 7And when the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, saying: 'They have humbled themselves; I will not destroy them; but I will grant them some deliverance, and My wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. 8Nevertheless they shall be his servants ”

“ King Shishak of Egypt invaded the land with a powerful army, conquered all the fortified cities, penetrated to Jerusalem, and would probably have put an end to the kingdom of Judah, if God had not had compassion upon him, and saved him from destruction, in consequence of the humiliation of the king and of the chiefs of the nation, caused by the admonition of the prophet Shemaiah, so that after the conquest of Jerusalem Shishak contented himself with withdrawing, taking with him the treasures of the temple and of the royal palace. ”

“ This glittering and entrancing treasure intrigued the greed of every conqueror of antiquity, but no man was able to take it from the House of God while His protection and care were upon it. It is not to be wondered that Shishak considered the capture of that treasure as the highest achievement of his reign.
The second reason for Shishak’s invasion, however, was mainly political. After the death of Solomon, the kingdom was divided. Rehoboam, possessing the Southern kingdom, 254 was a weakling who was, moreover, under the influence of vicious, untrustworthy counselors. ”

“ It is an old trick of aggressive nations to side with a pretender to the throne of a country which they covet, and benevolently to strengthen him that he may weaken it. No doubt it was as Jeroboam's ally that Shishak invaded Judah in the fifth year of Rehoboam, and plundered the Temple and the palace. It was a bad beginning for a king of Israel to be a pensioner of Egypt. ”

“ Judah had natural connexions with Edom and southern Palestine; Israel was more closely associated with Gilead and the Aramaeans of the north. That Israel was the stronger may be suggested by the acquiescence of Judah in the new situation. A diversion was caused by Shishak’s invasion, but of this reappearance of Egypt after nearly three centuries of inactivity little is preserved in biblical history. Only the Temple records recall the spoliation of the sanctuary of Jerusalem, and traditions of Jeroboam I. show that Shishak’s prominence was well known. ”

“ His designs reached the ears of Solomon, and he sought to put Jeroboam to death. The young man, who had probably betrayed his secret ambition, and may even have attempted some premature and abortive insurrection, escaped from Jerusalem, and took refuge in Egypt. There the Bubastite dynasty had displaced the Tanite, and from Shishak I., the earliest Pharaoh whose individuality eclipsed the common dynastic name, he received so warm a welcome that, according to one story, Shishak gave him in marriage Ano, the elder sister of his Queen Tahpanes (or Thekemina, LXX.) and of Hadad's wife. ”

“ Shishak’s chief concern was not over the idolatry of the people, however, but over the effect of their dereliction upon the development of the kingdom. In order to protect his possible rights of succession in Palestine, he moved to make Rehoboam a vassal, and brought him under the yoke of bondage, making him a governor for Egypt.
A more comprehensive account of this invasion is given in the twelfth chapter of II Chronicles. A great many people have raised the question as to why we have the duplication of the record in the books of Kings and Chronicles in the Scripture. ”

“ The faces of the prisoners who surmount the cartouches are worthy of attention. The Egyptian artists were skilled delineators of the human features, and an examination of their sculptures and paintings has shown that they represented the characteristics of their models with wonderful truth and accuracy. For ethnological purposes their portraits of foreign races are of considerable [pg 110] importance. Now the prisoners of Shishak have the features, not of the Jew, but of the Amorite. ”

“ These Shishak reduced and made over to Jeroboam, thus giving him a firm hold on the northern kingdom. Having done this, he was content to receive the mere submission of Rehoboam, and allowed him to retain the southern kingdom, perhaps not wishing to make Jeroboam too strong. It was the constant practice of the great monarchs of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, to maintain, on dependent thrones, a large number of petty princes, who were checks upon each other, and could easily be dealt with, if they shewed any inclination to rebellion. ”

“ The real cause of all these wars was the contest whether Palestine should be held by the Hamitic race, or by the Shemitic, who were bearing rule. Keeping this in mind, let us note how perfectly natural is this description of those who composed the army under Shishak. The troops first collected would be from among his own immediate people, the Egyptians. The next, those who lived beyond him from the point of attack, to wit, the Lubims, who lived to the west of Egypt. ”

“ Of other actions of Jeroboam, we only know that he built, i. e. fortified, Peniel in the land beyond Jordan; no doubt in order to be able to maintain his supremacy over the Ammonites. The severe blow which had fallen on the kingdom of Judah by the incursion of Shishak secured him from any serious attack on the part of Rehoboam. The petty warfare on the borders of Judah and Israel naturally did not cease during his reign (p. 231) . ”

“ It was given me by the father of my wife, Queen Astis,—by Shishak, the Pharaoh of Ægypt, into whose hands it came through a captive king. Thou seest,—it is not beautiful; yet is its value beyond computation, for but four men on earth possess the stone Mgnadis-Phza. It possesses the unusual property of attracting silver to it, just like a covetous man that loveth the metal. I give it thee, my beloved, for that thou are not covetous.
“Gaze upon these sapphires, Sulamith. Some of them resemble in colour corn-flowers among wheat; others, an autumn sky ”

“ The first king of Judah as a separate kingdom had an Ammonite mother, and bore an Ammonite name, while the portraits which surmount the names of Shishak's conquests in southern Palestine show that the old Amorite population was still predominant there. It was religion and history that made the Jew, not purity of race.
That Egypt must have exercised an influence upon Israel has long been known. The Israelites were born as a nation in the land of Goshen, and the Exodus from Egypt is the starting-point of their national history. ”

“ Excavations have brought to light much evidence as to the houses, high places, and the mode of life of this time, [125] as well as evidence of how Shishak fought against Rehoboam, Shalmaneser III against Ahab and Jehu, Tiglath-pileser IV against Menahem and Pekah, Shalmaneser V and Sargon against Hoshea, and Sennacherib against Judah. It has also told us much about Nebuchadrezzar. [126]
10. The Exile and After.—The Babylonian Exile was brought by Cyrus to a possible end in 538 B. C. This is also illuminated by that which exploration has brought to light. ”

“ A new dynasty arose in the Delta. In the south the government was practically in the hands of the Theban [pg 173] high-priests. With a divided kingdom the strength of Egypt passed away.
It was restored by a foreigner, Shishak I., the captain of the Libyan mercenaries. The Pharaoh whose daughter was married by Solomon must have been the last king of the old dynasty. Perhaps he sought to strengthen himself against his enemies in Egypt by an alliance with his powerful neighbour. At all events, the King of Israel allowed his army to march through Palestine as far as Gezer. ”

“ In Joel it seems to stand as a general representative of the distant countries reached by the Mediterranean (in contrast with the southern Arabians, Sabaeans, ch. iii. 8) , the farthest nation reached by the fleets of the Red Sea. This is precisely the geographical standpoint of the post-exile author of Gen. x. 4, where (assuming that Elishah = Carthage and Tarshish = Tartessus) Javan includes Carthage and Tartessus.
Finally, the allusion to Egypt in Joel iii. 19 must on Credner’s theory be explained of the invasion of Shishak a century before Joash. ”

“ The Sikh never shaves or trims his hair or beard, parting the latter and twisting and tucking it behind his ears and under the turban. He always wears a sword, if only the miniature tulwar in his turban, and he terrorizes the timid babu, the limp Bengali, and the cowardly Kashmiri as he does the Chinese, and in general is the first man one meets in India.
The heart of the Sikh city and the soul of its people is the Golden Temple in the center of the sacred tank, the Pool of Immortality, and for beauty and impressiveness this Amritsar shrine is second only to the Taj Mahal. ”

“ So it was only to be expected that Little Shikara's mother should laugh at him. The idea of her son being an attendant of Warwick Sahib, not to mention a hunter of tigers, was only a tale to tell her husband when the boy's bright eyes were closed in sleep.
"Nay, little man," she told him. "Would I want thee torn to pieces in Nahara's claws? Would I want thee smelling of the jungle again, as thou didst after chasing the water-buck through the bamboos? Nay—thou wilt be a herdsman, like thy father—and perhaps gather many rupees." ”

“ Not till he had proved his superiority over the numerous chieftains, who with their feudal followers formed the force of the Khalsa, did the Sikhs rise to that political and military prominence in which we found them in 1838, when the tripartite alliance was made, which led to the first Afghan war, for the restoration of the Durrani kingdom of Kabul in the person of Shah Suja, who, with his brother Shah Zaman, from whom Ranjit Singh wrested the Punjab, had by an ironical stroke of fate been driven out of Afghanistan to take refuge in the country which the Durranis had so often subdued. ”

“ Ahmad Shah returned to Kabul, leaving his son Tymur at Lahore as Viceroy of the Punjab. The confusion and tumult arising from these repeated invasions enabled the Sikh associations to acquire fresh strength by preying on both Moghul and Afghan. No other course was now left to them but to conquer or be conquered. It was war to the knife between them and their new and more robust masters, the Afghans. No quarter was given or asked. Time after time was Amritsar captured, but after each defeat Sikh enthusiasm rose with unabated vigour. ”

“ They have taken part with us in many a "far-flung battle-line" in Asia and Africa, and become the symbol to India of all that is loyal and courageous. Wherever there has been hard fighting to be done, there they have been found in the forefront, maintaining their high reputation for steadfast fidelity, dogged tenacity, and dauntless courage,—the undying heritage of the Sikhs. As they fought for their Gurus and for their Maharaja, so they have fought for Britain. Loyalty is in their blood.
The Punjab—the land of the five rivers, as the name signifies—is the home-land of the Sikhs. ”

“ All order had now vanished in the Punjab, where Afghans, Moghuls, Mahrattas, and Sikhs were contending for power. The successes of the Mahrattas and Sikhs brought back Ahmad Shah with a numerous army. He drove out the Mahrattas, and following them up, disastrously defeated them at Panipat, near Delhi, in 1761 in one of the most sanguinary battles ever fought in India. He returned to Kabul the same year, leaving a governor shut up in Lahore, the Sikhs having continued active in his rear, swarming round Amritsar and the capital. ”

“ King and political head of the Punjab, as well as chief of the Khalsa, he aimed at reconciling the varied divisions of race and creed among his subjects by employing all in his service. He kept up, however, the theory of the Khalsa, attributing every success to the favour of the Guru in the name of the Lord. "God the helper—Ranjit Singh," was his sign-manual. The Sikhs retained special privileges as the ruling race, the heart and soul of the military nation—the favoured of the State. ”

“ Of all the many peoples of India none possesses for us greater or more varied historical interest than the Sikhs, a people who four hundred years ago as a reformed religious sect sprang from the ranks of the Jats, a numerous as well as the most important agricultural tribe in the Punjab, descended from the ancient Scythian Getæ. They stand out prominently as men of action, who have preserved inherited racial characteristics foreign to Orientals, and evolved themselves by the strength of their own arms into one of the finest military types to be found anywhere. ”

“ It is said that no instance was known of a Sikh then captured consenting to abjure his religion. Death was the martyr's crown on such occasions. Henceforth the character of the Sikh resistance completely changed. To defend themselves against the Mahomedan invaders they formed organised confederacies of fighting men, each under one head chief. The necessity of fighting, how to resist, how to practise plunder, was the one law recognised.
In 1748 Ahmad Shah, the Afghan king, aspired to found an Indian Empire, invaded the Punjab, and crossed the Sutlej after capturing Lahore. ”