While the kingdom of Israel so rapidly went into idolatry, the kingdom of Judah became idolatrous more slowly. This was due to the fact that it had the temple, where the worship of the true God was preserved. Still idolatry entered. Ahaziah the sixth king of Judah married Athaliah the daughter of Ahab and a rival of Jezebel in wickedness. The worship of Baal and Astarte was introduced. On the death of Ahaziah, Athaliah assumed the throne reigning six years. She had all the royal family put to death except Joash, a babe, who was hidden by his aunt, the wife of Jehoiada the high priest. When Joash was seven years old the priests and the Levites rose against Athaliah and put her to death. They then placed Joash, though a boy on the throne. For twenty three years under the pious influence of Johoiada, he remained true to God. But later idolatry was introduced again by the princes of Judah, who persecuted the prophets, stoning Zachariah, Jehoiada's son to death between the altar and the temple. SECTION 3. THE DECLINE OF THE KINGDOM. (2 Kings 10-15.) NORTHERN Under Jehu the northern kingdom undermined by idolatry, began to prosper again and it reached its climax later under Jeroboam II, the thirteenth king, who reigned longer than any other king of Israel, forty one years. During his reign the Minor Prophets began to appear. Jonah, who tried to disobey God's command to go to Nineveh, was swallowed by a fish, and then miraculously delivered. He went to Nineveh, warned it of its impending destruction. But it repented and was saved. King after king follow each other in rapid succession in the northern kingdom. All the while the great empire of Assyria was becoming greater in the east, preparing to destroy Israel. It was now too late to save the northern kingdom. It had rotted under its idolatry.. God's favor had been lost. The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold. First the tribes east of the Jordan had been carried away captive, Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh by Tiglath Pileser. Shalmaneser IV. made the northern kingdom tributary. And when Hoshea, the last king refused to pay tribute, Shalmaneser threw him into prison and besieged Samaria for three years. During that time Shalmaneser died and his successor Sargon carried Israel away captive to Mesopotamia and colonized northern Palestine with other races. The ten tribes were so completely blotted out that they have never been certainly found. So it is with those that forget God. SECTION 4. HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN KINGDOM. (2 Kings 15-25.) The southern kingdom lasted about 140 years longer than the northern kingdom. During the period of the northern kingdom, Judah had a few good kings. But it was during its later history, especially the reign of Hezekiah and Josiah, that its piety shone. Hezekiah's father, Ahaz, had been a wicked king, subject to Assyria. He had cut into pieces the sacred vessels of the temple and sent them to Assyria. He closed the temple and allowed heathen altars to be set up in the streets of Je rusalem. He himself set up an altar patterned after one at Damascus. But this king had a good son, Hezekiah, who changed everything in the first year of his reign. He reopened the temple and kept the passover again. He so zealously destroyed the idols that even the brazen serpent, that had come down from Moses' time, he destroyed because it had become an idol of the people. During his reign he was ably supported by a number of the prophets, as Micah, Hosea, Nahum and especially Isaiah, who was a statesman as well as a prophet. When Hezekiah was sick unto death and turned his face to the wall and prayed, God heard his prayers and added fifteen years to his life, giving him as a sign the going back of the sun's shadow ten degrees on the dial. Sennacherib, the king of Assyria attacked Hezekiah in his war with Egypt. He captured the fenced cities of Judah and finally after pressing the siege of Lachish he sent three officers to summon Hezekiah to surrender. Hezekiah laid their letter before the Lord in prayer and Sennacherib's army was smitten by the angel of God with awful slaughter. Thus Jerusalem escaped surrender. Good Hezekiah was succeeded by Manasseh. Under him idolatry increased until now for the first time an idol was set up it the temple itself. When the prophets denounced this, Manasseh persecuted them most severely, probably sawing Isaiah asunder. So great was the persecution, that for a whole generation, the prophets seem to have been silent. But captivity at Babylon brought Manasseh to repentance and he came back and repaired the defences of Jerusalem. Josiah was the next good king. Like Joash, he became king when a boy, - only eight years old. By Zephaniah, Jeremiah and Habakkuk the prophets, the awful decline of Judah is revealed in their books. Then the book of the law was discovered in the temple by the high priest. When it was read before Josiah and the people, it led to a new revolt against idolatry. Josiah held a solemn assembly and when eighteen years of age kept the greatest passover since Moses' time. But the efforts of Josiah came too late. Idolatry had already undermined the kingdom too far to save it. He was mortally wounded in a battle against the Egyptians. He Under the four remaining kings, Judah rapidly declined. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the rising kingdom of Babylon in the east carried away the vessels of the temple to Babylon and also carried into captivity many of the Jews, as Daniel and the three Hebrew children, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. When the last king, Zedekiah joined himself with Egypt against Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem. took Zedekiah to Riblah and put out his eyes. He then carried him to Babylon, where he died. Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple burned. The miserable remnant left in the land, among them Jeremiah who had wept out his soul in tears over the sins and sorrows of his people, was afterward carried to Egypt. Thus fell the southern kingdom under the power of Babylon just as the northern kingdom had fallen under Assyria. The cause of the fall of both kingdoms was sin and idolatry. Only when righteous, can a nation live and expect God's blessing. Chapter VII. THE CAPTIVITY AND THE RES TORATION. (586-400 B. C.) SECTION I. THE CAPTIVITY OF BABYLON. There was really two captivities. The first colony of captives was carried away in the reign of the eighteenth king, Jehoiakim, when Daniel and his companions were carried off. About twenty years later, the rest of the Jews were carried away. This is sometimes called the second captivity. The captivity lasted seventy years, beginning with the beginning of the first captivity. The two great prophets of the captivity were Daniel and Ezekiel; Daniel was the interpreter of dreams, Ezekiel the man of visions. Daniel refused to drink wine and gained permission that he and his young Hebrew companions, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be allowed to live without eating pulse and drinking wine. At the end of ten days they were in better health than the rest of the children of the king. They, especially Daniel, grew in wisdom and in favor with the king. Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a dream of the great image destroyed by the stone but forgot the dream. As he was a very superstitious idolater, he was greatly troubled about it. His own wise men were unable to reproduce the dream so he ordered them to be slain. Then Daniel went to the king and revealed to him his dream and interpreted it. For this the king made him ruler over Babylon. Later the king dedi |