=Situation of Shechem.= The scene of the final breach between the north and south was the old Canaanite city of Shechem,^{(103)} in the heart of the territory of Ephraim, the most powerful northern tribe. The town was one of the most beautifully situated cities in Palestine and at the same time the least easily defended. It lay in a valley between one-half to a mile in width, between the two highest mountains in Samaria--Ebal Ebal and Gerizim. The mountain slopes on either side were clothed with vineyards and olive groves. From Gerizim on the south twenty-two springs burst from the rock, irrigating the gardens of the ancient town, which, like the present city of Nablus, clung close to the southern mountain. Because of its peculiar position, the city was long and narrow, extending from east to west. The open valley at each end offered no natural defence and the overhanging heights rendered it especially open to hostile attack. Its importance was due to the rich territory which encircled it and to the important highways which connected it with Jerusalem and Hebron in the south, with central Israel, Damascus, and Phœnicia in the north, with the coast plains on the west, and with the Jordan valley on the east. At Shechem all these great roads focused, making the city throughout all its history an influential commercial metropolis. =Significance of the Division.= The result of the fateful conference at Shechem was a division of the territory of Israel along the natural line marked out during the period of settlement and during the early Philistine wars. The boundary line followed the Wady Kelt up from the Jordan to the vicinity of Michmash and thence turned a little south of the Benjamite Ramah, running through Gibeon and westward to Gezer. To Northern Israel fell fully two-thirds of Palestine and at least three-fourths of its arable land. The division left Judah a complete geographical and political unit, and, thus dissevered from the more heterogeneous elements of the nation, free to develop its own life and faith. The division and the civil wars which followed inevitably weakened the strength of both kingdoms and prepared the way for that fate which overtook each in turn. In losing their strength and unity, they preserved, however, their two most distinctive and precious possessions--their democratic traditions and their undivided loyalty to Jehovah. XVIII THE NORTHERN KINGDOM