At first, perhaps, there may have been few signs of weakness in a fabric so vast and so magnificent. In the figurative language of the sacred record, _silver was in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar-trees as sycamores; Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking and making merry_; in the enjoyment of profound peace, _every man dwelt safely under his vine and under his fig-tree_. Princes administered the government of various portions of the empire (1 K. iv. 1–6); officers deputed for the purpose provided victual for the royal table, and barley and straw for Solomon’s 40,000 chariot-horses, his 12,000 war-horses (1 K. iv. 26), and his swift mules; kings and princes of subject-provinces brought in their tribute at a fixed rate year by year (1 K. x. 25); and when the queen of Sheba came with her great train from distant Yemen in Arabia to prove the king with hard questions, and beheld his palace, _and the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cup-bearers_, and the ascent from his own palace to the Temple[336], there was no spirit left in her, and she confessed that the half of his fame and magnificence had not been told her (1 K. x. 1–9). Before long, however, clouds began to gather portending the coming storm. Once at Gibeon, on the occasion of his accession, again after the dedication of the Temple (1 K. iii. 5; ix. 2), the Lord had appeared to Solomon, and on condition that he continued to walk in the ways of his father, had promised to crown him with prosperity, and establish his dynasty, but at the same time had warned him that any apostasy would bring down severe punishment. But promise and warning had been alike forgotten, and when the Lord appeared for the third time, it was to announce that the kingdom should be rent from him (1 K. xi. 9–13). i. The quarter, whence danger first threatened, was on the south, in the land of Edom. When Joab invaded that country during the late reign, and for six months directed an indiscriminate massacre of the male population, HADAD, who was of the blood royal, and at that time a little child, was carried off into Egypt, where he was hospitably received by the reigning Pharaoh, and rapidly rising in the royal esteem, obtained the hand of Tahpenes, the sister of the Egyptian queen. On the death of David and of Joab, he returned from Egypt, and thirsting to break off the hard yoke of Jacob from the neck of Esau, organized a revolt in his native land, and began to threaten Solomon’s communication with the Elanitic Gulf (1 K. xi. 15–22).