Jerusalem Saga
The First Saga
The First Saga
General Eleazar was King Saul's strategist and the architect of his military victories.
But Eleazar never agreed to go after David.
Tired of Saul's paranoia, he decided to resign his position and go into exile in the Judean desert.
After a time of living in this quiet and peaceful wilderness, one day the figure of three riders appeared on a ridge. As the sun shone down upon them, the reflection of the bronze was striking.
They were armed men.
When the horsemen approached him and noticed his tension, they asked him to relax as they were not there to harm him.
Then they introduced themselves as messengers and told him that King David had requested his presence.
Eleazar thought he had heard wrong. "King... David...?" he asked.
And there he learned that Saul and his sons had died fighting the Philistines, and that the tribes of Judah had gone to Hebron and anointed David as their new king.
Now the new king asked him to return to his side and help him unite the Jewish tribes into one united kingdom in Jerusalem.
After uniting the tribes into a unified monarchy from Jerusalem, Eleazar led military campaigns to pacify the kingdom against the Moabites, Assyrians, and Philistines.
The military challenges of his neighbors were not the only challenge David faced.
When Solomon was chosen as his successor, David's son, Absalom, first killed his older brother, Amnon, and then rebelled against his father, starting a civil war.
David confronted and defeated Absalom's rebellion in the forests of Ephraim, but he would never be the same.
Because he was a man of war, God did not allow him to build a temple to house the Ark of the Covenant, which would be built by his successor, Solomon.
Solomon began his reign in dramatic fashion, executing those who openly defied him by conspiring against him, his older brother Adonijah, and his cousin Joab, who had previously commanded his father's army. In contrast to his father's time, his reign was one of peace and prosperity.
Jerusalem, which during David's time had not changed much from the former Jebusite city before it became the capital of the united monarchy, underwent dramatic changes under Solomon and was a time of building.
Eliezer ben Ari arrived in Jerusalem when he was 14 years old, the same age as the new king. His father, Ari, had been commissioned to decorate the new Temple that Solomon had built on Mount Moriah with bronze, stone, and gold. The Ark of the Covenant finally had a permanent home, making Jerusalem the place closest to God.
When his father died, Eliezer became the chief builder of the kingdom.
Solomon lived a lustful and promiscuous life with too many foreign wives, including an Egyptian princess.
For Solomon, Eliezer built, in addition to the fortified cities of Megiddo and Gezer, a palace for his Egyptian wife in Jerusalem itself, very close to the Temple, which many people considered a challenge to God Himself.
The dramatic growth of Jerusalem and its commercial and international transformation also attracted the attention of the Queen of Sheba, who had to come herself to verify the stories told about Solomon.
To finance his luxurious lifestyle, Solomon imposed heavy taxes on the people.
During the reign of his son, Rehoboam, discontent again divided the kingdom.