ALLIANCES. From a dread lest the example of foreign nations should draw the Israelites into the worship of idols, they were made a peculiar and separate people, and intercourse and alliance with such nations were strongly interdicted (Lev. xviii. 3, 4; xx. 22, 23). The tendency to idolatry ' was in those times so strong, that the safety of the Israelites lay in the most complete isolation that could be realized; and it was to assist this object that a country more than usually separated from others by its natural boundaries was assigned to them. It was shut in by the sea on the west, by deserts on the south and east, and by mountains and forests on the north. Among a people so situated we should not expect to hear much of alliances with other nations.
By far the most remarkable alliance in the politi cal history of the Hebrews is that between Solomon and Hiram king of Tyre. It is in a great degree connected with considerations which belong to another head. [COMMERCE.] But it may primarily be referred to a partial change of feeling which originated in the time of David, and which con tinued to operate among his descendants. During his wanderings he was brought into contact with several of the neighbouring princes, from some of whom he received sympathy and support, which, after he ascended the throne, he gratefully remem bered (2 Sam. x. 2). There was probably more of this friendly intercourse than the Scripture has had occasion to record. Such timely aid, combined with the respect which his subsequently victorious career drew from foreign nations, must have gone far to modify in him and those about him that aversion to strangers which the Hebrews generally had been led to entertain. He married the daughter of a heathen king, and had by her his favoirite son (2 Sam. iii. 3) ;, the king of Moab protected his family (I Sam. xxii. 3, 4); the king of Ammon skewed kindness to him (2 Sam. x. 2); the Icing of Gath showered favours upon him (I Sam. xxvii.; xxviii. s, 2) ; the king of Hamath sent his own son to congratulate him. on his victories (2 Sam. viii. so) : in short, the rare power which David pos sessed of attaching to himself the good opinion and favour of other men, extended even to the neigh bouring nations, and it would have been difficult for a person of his disposition to repel the advances of kindness and consideration which they made.
Among those who made such advances was Hiram, king of Tyre ; for it eventually transpires that Hiram was ever a lover of David' (t Kings v. 1); and it is probable that other intercourse had pre ceded that relating to the palace which Hiram's artificers built for David (2 Sam. v. s). The king of Tyre was not disposed to neglect the cultivation of the friendly intercourse with the Hebrew nation which had thus been opened. He sent an embassy to condole with Solomon on the death of his father, and to congratulate him on his accession (I Kings v. r). The plans of the young king rendered the friendship of Hiram a matter of importance, and accordingly a league' was formed (1 Kings v. 12) between them : and that this league had a reference not merely to the special matter then in view, but was a general league of amity, is evinced by the fact that more than 250 years after, a prophet denounces the Lord's vengeance upon Tyre, because she ' remembered not the brotherly covenant' (Amos i. 9). Under this league large bodies of Jews and Phcenicians were 'associated, first in preparing the materials for the temple (I Kings v. 6-18), and afterwards in navigating the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean (I Kings ix. 26 28) ; and this increasing intercourse with the heathen appears to have considerably weakened the senti ment of separation, which, in the case of the Hebrews, it was of the utmost importance to main tain. The disastrous consequences of even the seemingly least objectionable alliances may be seen in the long train of evils, both to the kingdom of Israel and of Judah, which ensued from the mar riage of Ahab with Jezebel, the king of Tyre's daughter. [AHAB ; JEZEBEL.] These consequences had been manifested even in the time of Solomon ; for he formed matrimonial alliances with most of the neighbouring kingdoms, and to the influence of his idolatrous wives are ascribed the abominations which darkened the latter days of the wise king (I Kings xi. I-S).