The monarchy in Israel was established by the people to check the destruction and ruin with which the land and population were threatened by the incursions of the neighbours on the east, by the dangerous arms of the Philistines. The first attempt to set up a monarchy in connection with the cities of the land was soon wrecked and swept away, without leaving a trace behind. In spite of his support in the wishes of the great majority of the Israelites, the monarchy of Saul had not succeeded in establishing itself securely by its simple and popular conduct. It was not till the monarchy had fortified the royal city and palace, established a body-guard and standing troops, magistrates and tax-gatherers, and had entered into close relation with the priests, that it obtained security and permanence. It had indeed fulfilled its mission and saved Israel; it had won power, glory, and respect for the nation, and imparted to it lofty impulses of the most important kind. It had at the same time gone far beyond the intention of its foundation. It was now a Sultanate, which, by filling the land with Syrian trade and customs, and allowing the growth of Syrian modes of worship, threatened in one direction the nationality with the same dangers which it had removed in another. The transformation which the manner of life in Israel underwent during the reigns of David and Solomon was so thorough that even under David a reaction set in. If in the time before David and Solomon the Israelites had led an unrestrained life, they were now ruled by a severe monarchy. In the place of the patriarchal authority of the elders and heads of tribes, whose decisions they had formerly sought, came the rule of royal officers, who could exercise their power capriciously enough. If hitherto they had lived unmolested, every man on his own plot, beneath his vine and fig tree, they were now compelled to pay taxes and do task-work. After the burdens Solomon had laid upon the people, this reaction must have been stronger than at the time when Absalom's rebellion shattered the throne of his father. Moreover, Solomon's reign, though it lasted full 40 years, did not give the same impression of vigorous power as David's strong arm had done before him, and the monarchy was not so old, nor so firmly established as an institution, that the Israelites could not remember the times which preceded it.