Ahijah of Shiloh

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Ahijah of Shiloh ( Hebrew אֲחִיָּה הַשִּׁילֹנִי) was an early biblical prophet .

He appeared after the 1st Book of Kings since the reign of Solomon . He had financed the construction of the Jerusalem temple , the armament of his army and the fortification of Jerusalem as well as his palace buildings with forced high taxes from the Israelites . This and his religious policy, which relied on syncretism with the Baal cult in order to involve the Canaanite urban population, generated considerable social tension and a series of initially unsuccessful attempts at revolt.

Ahijah gave Solomon's opponents in his civil service and army a leader and a target by anointing the royal servant Jeroboam as the future king . Thus he caused ten of the Twelve Tribes of Israel to turn away from Solomon's rule and to refuse allegiance to Rehoboam, his heir to the throne . After Solomon's death around 930 , the great kingdom of Israel created by King David was divided into the northern kingdom of Israel under Jeroboam and the southern kingdom of Judah under Rehoboam.

Ahijah was thus the first prophet in the early history of Israel to openly oppose a royal dynasty and to specifically fight it. His success was helped by the fact that he followed up symbolic acts from the pre-state judicial era: he tore his new cloak into twelve parts and gave Jeroboam ten of them as a symbol of his coming royal rule. With similar actions earlier judges had the old militia of Israel to defend against external attacks on the tribal confederation called ( Ri 19,29f  EU ).

Since Natan , another individual prophet working at David's royal court, whose hereditary succession to the throne had previously been legitimized theologically ( 2 Sam 7  EU ), biblical historians corrected Ahija's contradiction to the Davidic royal dynasty: They allowed Natan's dynasty promise to continue in Ahija's message, but limited their scope the southern kingdom of Judah.

Ahijah committed Jeroboam, who was designated king of northern Israel, to YHWH's Ten Commandments , especially the first. His intervention in favor of parts of the population exploited by the royal court was intended to give the Torah political validity. Later biblical scriptural prophets followed this procedure.

A second story in the books of kings ( 1 Kings 14  EU ) tells of a visit by the wife of Jeroboam to Ahijah: She went to him in disguise to ask him about the healing of her sick son, the desired heir to the throne, for a fee. Even before she could ask him, he had sent her the dire news: God had withdrawn the kingship from Jeroboam and Jeroboam would die because he had worshiped strange idols even more than his predecessors . With this, Ahijah once again criticized the syncretism that had now also spread in the northern kingdom: images of bulls had been set up at old cult sites Bet El and Dan in order to connect the Baal cult with the YHWH cult.

Biblical historians considered this to be the "sin of Jeroboam", which in the long term caused the downfall of the northern kingdom (722 BC). Like those of other early prophets who did not leave any written works, Ahija's messages were passed down orally, collected after this fall and incorporated into the royal chronology.

See also

literature

  • Gerhard von Rad: Theology of the Old Testament Volume 2: The theology of the prophetic traditions of Israel. (1st edition 1956: Christian Kaiser Verlag) Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 10th edition, Gütersloh 1975, ISBN 3-579-05003-6

Web links

Commons : Ahija  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Ahijah of Shiloh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION biblical prophet
DATE OF BIRTH around 10th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH around 10th century BC Chr.