Battle of Mount Zemaraim
| Battle of Mount Zemaraim | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Israelite invasion of Judah | |||||||||
 Map of the two kingdoms in the 9th century BC, prior to the battle. |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Kingdom of Judah | Kingdom of Israel | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| King Abijah of Judah | King Jeroboam of Israel | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 400,000 warriors | 800,000 warriors | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| unknown | 500,000 dead | ||||||||
The great Battle of Mount Zemaraim was reported in the Bible to have been fought in Mount Zemaraim, when the army of the Kingdom of Israel led by the king Jeroboam I encountered the army of the Kingdom of Judah led by the king Abijah I. About 500,000 Israelites were said to have lain dead after this single engagement, though most modern commentators consider the numbers to be either wildly exaggerated or symbolic, and some have even questioned its fundamental historicity. The modern calendar date is, of course, not given in the Bible, although in the chronology proposed by Edwin Thiele, it can be referred to around 913 BC.
The friction all began when the late king Rehoboam increased the royal taxes throughout the Kingdom of Israel after Solomon died in about 931 BCE. This created discontent among all the Israelite tribes of the kingdom, excepting Judah and Benjamin, and the people's discontent soon became a rebellion when the king, against the advice of the elders, refused to lessen the burdens of royal taxation. The ten northern tribes of Israel eventually broke up from the kingdom and made a new Kingdom of Israel with the former fugitive and exile Jeroboam as king, provoking a civil war. Rehoboam then went to war against the new kingdom with a force of 180,000 soldiers, but was advised against fighting his brethren, so he returned to Jerusalem.
Ever since the unified kingdom was divided, there has been constant border issues between the two parties, and both attempted to settle them. Abijah succeeded his father Rehoboam to the throne after the latter died, and attempted to reunite all of Israel, including Judah, under his rule. According to Biblical sources, Abijah has an army of 400,000, all of them handpicked or conscripted ones, and Jeroboam has 800,000 brave warriors with him.
Before the battle, Abijah addressed the armies of Israel, urging them to submit and to let the Kingdom of Israel be whole again. As written in the biblical narrative (2 Chronicles 13:4-12), Abijah then rallied his own troops with an address to all the people of Israel:
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