Letters about letters

Reader Bill Halsey blames King Solomon for the division of the kingdom (“A look at Solomon...,” Letters, July 18). But this did not occur during that monarch’s reign.

“My little finger is thicker than my father’s thigh” and “My father chastised you with whips – I shall chastise you with scorpions” are but two of the extreme comments ascribed to Rehobo’am, Solomon’s son and heir. It was he who threatened the already heavily taxed populace of the kingdom.

A consequence was the secession of the (northern) Kingdom of Israel, where idols were erected at Dan and Bethel to divert the people from their periodic visits to the Temple in Jerusalem, assisted by the efforts of Jerobo’am, their new king (and sometime adviser to Solomon before his banishment). STANLEY COHEN

Jerusalem

There is much in reader Mordechai Spiegelman’s letter “Complex situation” (July 13) that is pertinent and relevant to our current political crises. However, he ignores the real message when he refers to the religious model contained in the Book of Exodus (18-21) outlining the requisite qualities of capability and a fear of God for good governance.

In fact Moses, our illustrious leader and the Lord’s appointee, settled for capability alone – a clear inference to the danger of allowing politics and religion to be intertwined. AUSTEN SCIENCE Herzliya