its use among their vassals.  “Now”, the Biblical narrative sets forth, “there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel; for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords and spears; but all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock".[420] “We are inclined”, says Professor Macalister, “to picture the West as a thing of yesterday, new fangled with its inventions and its progressive civilization, and the East as an embodiment of hoary and unchanging traditions.  But when West first met East on the shores of the Holy Land, it was the former which represented the magnificent traditions of the past, and the latter which looked forward to the future.  The Philistines were of the remnant of the dying glories of Crete; the Hebrews had no past to speak of, but were entering on the heritage they regarded as theirs, by right of a recently ratified divine covenant."[421]

Saul was the leader of a revolt against the Philistines in northern Palestine, and became the ruler of the kingdom of Israel.  Then David, having liberated Judah from the yoke of the Philistines, succeeded Saul as ruler of Israel, and selected Jerusalem as his capital.  He also conquered Edom and Moab, but was unsuccessful in his attempt to subjugate Ammon.  The Philistines were then confined to a restricted area on the seacoast, where they fused with the Semites and ultimately suffered loss of identity.  Under the famous Solomon the united kingdom of the Hebrews reached its highest splendour and importance among the nations.

If the Philistines received the support of the Hittites, the Hebrews were strengthened by an alliance with Egypt.  For a period of two and a half centuries no Egyptian army had crossed the Delta frontier into Syria.  The ancient land of the Pharaohs had been overshadowed meantime by a cloud of anarchy, and piratical and robber bands settled freely on its coast line.  At length a Libyan general named Sheshonk (Shishak) seized the throne from the Tanite Dynasty.  He was the Pharaoh with whom Solomon “made affinity",[422] and from whom he received the city of Gezer, which an Egyptian army had captured.[423] Solomon had previously married a daughter of Sheshonk’s.

Phoenicia was also flourishing.  Freed from Egyptian, Hittite, and Assyrian interference, Tyre and Sidon attained to a high degree of power as independent city States.  During the reigns of David and Solomon, Tyre was the predominant Phoenician power.  Its kings, Abibaal and his son Hiram, had become “Kings of the Sidonians”, and are believed to have extended their sway over part of Cyprus.  The relations between the Hebrews and the Phoenicians were of a cordial character, indeed the two powers became allies.