Levites, throughout the land, had remained faithful to the house of David and the service of the temple, and Shishak, it appears, captured and despoiled many of their cities, even those that lay in the kingdom of Israel. The names of all the towns subdued by him in this campaign are recorded on the walls of the temple at Karnak.
The hostility of the Levites to the rule of Jeroboam is easy to understand, as he set up a rival worship of his own at Dan and Bethel, and appointed priests of his own selection. The form assumed by the objects of this worship might very possibly have been adopted by Jeroboam in remembrance of what he had seen in Egypt, and even as a pledge of his alliance with its king. Never, indeed, had the worship of Apis reached so extravagant a pitch as under this dynasty. In the Serapeum, the burial-place of the sacred bulls, are still preserved the tablets which tell of their installation, death, and interment. 'On such a day of the month and year,' say the records, 'this great god was carried to his rest in the beautiful region of the west—at rest with the great gods—with Osiris, and with the gods and goddesses
