On Earth as It Is in Heaven. Eric Atcheson

considered as a social obligation, becomes a commodity, an abstract quantity to be offered for sale in the market.”7 Eventually, the kings of Israel and Judah conscripted labor for their various projects, cutting out the sale of labor in the market altogether.

       The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom’s Chief SlaveOverseer (1 Kings 11–12)

       Now Jeroboam was a strong and honorable man. Solomon saw how well this youth did his work. So he appointed him over all the work gang of Joseph’s house. (11:28)

      At first glance, the story of Jeroboam’s revolt against Solomon’s son and heir Rehoboam may appear to be a tale of palace intrigue and eventual idolatry, with the upstart Jeroboam becoming king, crafting two golden calves to present to his northern kingdom of Israel as their new gods, and being condemned by an anonymous prophet for doing so. Jeroboam was not just any upstart, though. He had been identified as a young man for his gifts and talents and went on to serve as the unified kingdom’s head of forced labor. He fell out of favor with Solomon when the prophet Ahijah prophesied that Jeroboam would inherit ten of the twelve tribes of Israel as king. After Solomon attempted to have Jeroboam assassinated, Jeroboam fled to Egypt and remained there until Solomon died.

      This forced labor that Jeroboam oversaw grew out of families losing their ancestral land from the families that would otherwise keep and utilize it for their own livelihoods. Though the Year of Jubilee was designed to prevent such a land grab, land theft was repeatedly and systemically used by Hebrew kings as a way to create a supply of forced labor for the wealthy elite. This conscripted workforce was called the corvee. Solomon began utilizing the corvee for his building projects, including the first Jerusalem temple. The corvee functioned as a means for “the state’s dominant class (to) provide for its security and luxury . . . (Meanwhile) agricultural production suffers because the peasants expend their energies in military service and forced labor.”8

      By instituting the corvee, Solomon added to the stratification of wealth that had taken place through the concentration of landed wealth in a small economic and political elite. Once permanently separated from their familial land, the only remaining means to generate their own income for a peasant was their labor. When Rehoboam took the throne of Judah, he made the corvée even weightier and more painful on those conscripted to work than it already had been under his father, Solomon. As far as Solomon had fallen in God’s sight by the end of his reign, Rehoboam was determined to fall even farther.