002_cudworth_co_498_523 13/02/15 11:26 Pagina 509 THE DIVISION OF ISRAEL’S KINGDOM IN CHRONICLES 509 reign (cf. 2 Chr 12,6.7.12) where the king penitently humbled him- self ([nk), but that terminology does not appear here 34. To summarize, the Chronicler accentuates Rehoboam’s complic- ity in the division of Israel into two separate kingdoms with the in- tegration of his “all Israel” theme into 2 Chr 10,1 – 11,4. The Chronicler takes a major interest in demonstrating the importance of the temple cult for post-exilic Yehud through the retelling of Is- rael’s history wherein this theme of all Israel functioned as one crit- ical component of its operation. While David won the full support of all Israel by means of his faithfulness to YHWH (cf. 1 Chr 12,17- 19) and Solomon maintained it throughout his reign with his pious devotion (cf. 2 Chr 1,1-6; 7,4-10), Rehoboam’s poor decisions con- demn him more in Chronicles. Since he did not seek the welfare of all Israel, his callousness became the chief reason for why they split. III. Solomon and the Temple Such a conclusion with regard to Rehoboam, however, seems to leave an awkward tension with the Chronicler’s thoroughly positive evaluation of Solomon. If all Israel could make the valid claim, “Your father made our yoke heavy” (2 Chr 10,4), would not that plea to Rehoboam also reveal a charge against Solomon as another suspect at the same time? After all, both kings receive blame in 1 Kings. Nevertheless, since the time of Braun and Mosis, scholars have recognized the remarkably favorable light in which the Chron- icler has put Solomon. Of course, they never claimed that Solomon did everything perfectly, but they demonstrated how the Chronicler exalted him for his part in establishing the cult. Accordingly, though Mosis did not persuade many with his paradigms set for Saul, David, and Solomon, he did correctly see the temple’s successful comple- tion as the primary focus of Solomon’s reign in Chronicles 35. Around the same time, Braun asserted that scholarship had paid too much attention to the figure of David in Chronicles to the ne- 34 For the importance of the word [nk to the Chronicler’s history, see D.A. GLATT-GILAD, “The Root knʻ and Historiographic Periodization in Chroni- cles”, CBQ 64 (2002) 248-257. 35 R. MOSIS, Untersuchungen zur Theologie des chronistischen Ge- schichtswerkes (Freiburg 1973) 162-169.