Ahijah the Shilonite

Ahijah of Shiloh was an early biblical prophet.

He resigned after the first book of the kings on since the reign of Solomon. This had financed the construction of the Temple, to upgrade its army and fixing of Jerusalem and its palaces with high taxes forced the Israelites. This and his religious policy, which was based on syncretism with the cult of Baal, to include the Canaanite city's population, generated considerable social tension and a number of initially unsuccessful uprising experiments.

Ahijah was Solomon's opponents in the civil service and the army a leader and a goal by anointed the king Jeroboam officials on the future king. So he brought that ten of the twelve tribes of Israel from Solomon's reign turned away and his heir Rehoboam refused allegiance. So it came after Solomon's death around 930 for dividing the set up by King David Kingdom of Israel in the northern kingdom of Israel under Jeroboam and the southern kingdom of Judah under Rehoboam.

Ahijah was thus the first prophet in the early history of Israel, who appeared open to a royal dynasty and fought against these targeted. For success helped him that he anknüpfte to symbolic actions from the pre-state period of the judges: He tore his new cloak into twelve parts and gave Jeroboam ten of them to sign for his coming kingdom. Using similar procedures, previous judges had the old militia of the Israelites for defense against external attacks on the tribal confederation called (Ri 19.29 f EU).

As Natan, another, acting at the royal court of David single prophet whose hereditary succession to the throne legitimized theologically previously had (2 Sam 7 EU) resembled biblical historian Ahijah contradiction to the Davidic royal dynasty: they were Natanz dynasty commitment in Ahijah message continue to apply, limited its scope but the southern kingdom of Judah.

Ahijah obliged the king of northern Israel, Jeroboam to designate YHWH's Ten Commandments, especially the first. His intervention on behalf of exploited populations from the royal court should therefore politically enforce the Torah. This procedure was followed later biblical writing prophets.

A second story in the Book of Kings (1 Kings 14 EU ) tells of a visit to the wife of Jeroboam when Ahijah you have sought him dressed to interview him for a fee to cure her sick son, the desired heir to the throne. Even before she got him to ask, he had her sent to the disaster message: God has withdrawn Jeroboam the Kingship and this will die, as he had worshiped more than his predecessor foreign idols. This Ahijah again criticized the syncretism that had now resorted to also in the Northern Kingdom: An ancient cult sites Bet El and Dan had been set up bull pictures to join the cult of Baal with the YHWH cult.

This was true biblical historians as " sins of Jeroboam ", which the downfall of the northern kingdom had (722 BC) causes long-term. Ahijah messages were like the other earlier prophets who left no written works, oral, may collected by this doom and incorporated into the king chronology.

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