many more adventuresome exploits David died and his son named Solomon became king. He succeeded in quieting his brothers and ruled in peace and prosperity for forty years. During these years he completed his father’s plan to build a permanent temple to house the ark on Mount Zion, which still rested within the portable tabernacle built in the wilderness. His kingdom was now considered the center of the world and the construction of this temple was Solomon’s greatest achievement.
His father David had secured Israel’s borders by conquest or treaties and now Solomon had centralized their religious and political parties, but Solomon’s heart and head became divided as he tried to placate and accommodate the other nation’s gods. He even allowed and accepted the cults of his foreign wives and built sanctuaries to honor their gods. The king now even assumed and performed the rites reserved for the Levite priests including symbolic reactualizations of the creation.
As God, Abraham, and Moses had warned the promised people to put no other gods before Him or face the loss of their country, the descendants again forgot these words of warning and at Solomon’s death the nation became divided into the northern and southern kingdoms. The south was ruled by Solomon’s son Benjamin, and the north was ruled by the remaining rebellious tribes.
But because the ark was housed in Jerusalem, which was the southern nation’s capital, all of the religious festivals and animal sacrifices that Moses had instructed must take place were held only there. The northern nation did not want their citizens going to the south’s city-states kingdom to celebrate their faith, so their king ordered that a pair of golden calves be placed at the border and his citizens would worship there instead of the south’s temple. This innovation violated the prohibition against false or foreign images and further aggravated the feud between the divided nations.
Thus, not only was the nation re-divided politically but religiously too. During the following decades many prophets came and went, and many were sent to challenge the king’s authority, but none stopped their self-serving bad behavior. Then the Levites tribe and priests defected to the south and still the situation was not rectified. The fortunes of both nations were predestined to decline and ultimately being split and divided the north was defeated by the mighty nation of Assyria, and about 150 years later in 586 B.C. the south also was conquered by Babylon.
It now seemed as if God’s chosen people were doomed to forever discover, forget and rediscover the presence of God. Man was originally created in God’s image. Although the commandments proclaim us to behave in accordance to right and wrong, and sin always brings the loss of God’s blessing yet we are predestined and doomed to fail because sin is part of the human condition.
To true believers there is no doubt that Satan exists, for in the book of Job the celestial accuser puts to task the man Yahweh was most proud of who maintained his devoted faith despite many forms of cruel and unusual punishment. This Biblical story may prove that even God can be tempted by Satan by one of the seven deadly sins known as vanity. On the other hand, God in his mysterious ways allows that Job loses his children, wealth and is then maimed with ulcers from head to toe because he cannot identify the nature of his crime against God. Even when three of his best friends berate him for not admitting his guilt, he still stands on his integrity. Only when Job recognized he was guilty towards God for assuming that the Creator’s mode of understanding was something other than incomprehensible, does God recant his original actions, redouble his possessions, gives him more children, and lets him live to be one hundred forty.
It may be that since God’s will is impenetrable and it is impossible to judge his actions, that all good or evil acts are wrought with religious meanings and the mystery of iniquity will never be known to mankind. What is, is. And what will be, will be. Who can decipher God’s will? The innocent die young and the evil live long, maybe to only atone for their sins? No one really knows.
It was during the period of around 1000 B.C. to 900 B.C. that the time of the prophets had arrived. These seers with their ecstatic experiences announced the classic prophecies.
Elijah made his announcements about 850 B.C. that Yahweh was the sole sovereign in Israel and that all other gods were powerless against him. His successor was Elisha who told of God’s great and marvelous acts and assembled a group of prophets around him.
Religious wars now sprang up regularly between the wandering diviners and royal visionaries and the court prophets who were connected with the king’s sanctuaries and the ruler’s favorites were against the false prophets. These messengers of God didn’t represent any clans or kingdoms, but declared their vocation was a call from God Almighty to communicate His messages to the masses.
These seers’ divine possession was obtained by the ecstasy of exaltation and magical trances brought about by the presence of God. These prophets were endowed and displayed magical powers of divination such as restoring the dead to life, making others fall ill, foreseeing people’s future fates or feeding the masses with but a loaf of bread. The one thing in common with all, is that they announced that God was angry with Israel and would send conquerors to destroy the sinners and only the chosen people would survive the catastrophe and form the new covenant with the creator.
During this two hundred years of waiting for His people to wise up God was growing bitter over his people’s betrayal. Then about 750 B.C. He sent a shepherd named Amos to prophesize to the people of Israel. Amos wasn’t an educated rabbi who made his living prophesying. He was tending his flock when God commanded he go forth and announce that now not only Israel, but all nations were under the jurisdiction of Yahweh.
Israel had become unfaithful. The social injustices, religious infidelities and ingratitude made their worship cheap and debased. Although Israel had forgotten its history, Yahweh still treated His chosen children with more love than anger.
As the great prophets of Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel continued to attack the kings of the world, the kingdoms now started to attack each other. It is said that the Lord’s left hand directed these enemies’ destruction and catastrophes while His right hand promised the forthcoming regeneration of his people.
Although the kings and their courts never believed the prophets’ announcement that the gates of Jerusalem would fall to their enemies, in 587 B.C. the temple was burned and a large portion of the population deported. Many who witnessed the fall of the city now doubted the might of Yawheh and converted to the gods of the conquerors.
As Jerusalem was torched and burned the Babylonians captured the king, killed his sons before his eyes, plucked his eyes out from his head so he would never see another sight except the deaths of his beloved sons, and then placed him in chains and taken to Babylon for display.
Again, as God’s words had prophecies warned His promised people to remain true to His words, now the tribes of Moses had lost their land and were exiled due to their own sins of not providing justice to each other and the worshipping of false idols.
But for the faithful, the catastrophic capture of the chosen people’s land was the ultimate proof of God’s wrath and the validation of the words of the prophets who foretold of the loss of their lands and liberty.
The Diaspora of the exiled Israelites was cast into all other nations. The fallen faith now had to meet together in buildings called synagogues to discuss their plight and problems. For seventy years the Israelites, who were now called Jews, were kept in exile from Jerusalem until a kindly Persian king whose armies had defended the Babylonians granted permission for the tribes to return from exile.
Ezra was the priest who led the first contingency of Jews back to the Promised Land. The tribe had been reduced from hundreds of thousands to now but a fraction of their original force, but the small groups who did return spoke with the volume of millions about how God would deal with faithless people and false idols.
Nehemiah
