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Scripture StudiesScripture StudiesChapter 13Chapter 13
Conquest and ExileConquest and Exile
Conquest and Exile
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Judah, not like the old covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant which they broke . . .” (Jeremiah 31:31-32)
Conquest and Exile
Many people misunderstand the role of a prophet
A prophet’s job is to speak the truth even when it’s not popular
A prophet’s job is to speak the truth especially when it’s not popular
Conquest and Exile
A prophet’s job is to warn in advance of coming difficulties and offer concrete moral solutions
Conquest and Exile
Isaiah 6:1-8Isaiah 7:10-172 Chronicles 33:1-132 Chronicles 34:14-33Jeremiah 31:31-34Daniel 3:1-30
Conquest and Exile
To grasp the full meaning of Christ the Messiah, we must study the foundations of Messianic thought and prophecy found in the writings of Isaiah
Isaiah speaks of a leader, sent and anointed by God
Conquest and Exile
Isaiah speaks of a Messiah (in Hebrew, “the anointed one”)
This leader would deliver the Jewish people from the cycle of sin and conflict in which they were caught
And bring them to a state of peace and uprightness in the sight of God
Conquest and Exile
For Christians, the prophecies of Isaiah comes to full realization in Jesus Christ
Isaiah 7:14But Isaiah’s prophecies also speak
of people and events in Isaiah’s own time
Conquest and Exile
Isaiah’s perspective is shaped by four major periods in Jewish history
The combined attack of Israel and Syria against King Ahaz in Judah
The Assyrian attack of the area around Jerusalem
The Babylonian invasion and exileThe return to Jerusalem under King Cyrus
of Persia
Conquest and Exile
The Assyrian conquest marked the end of the Northern Kingdom of Israel
All the leading citizens (I.e., the potential troublemakers) were deported
Those who remained were mostly poor farmers
Conquest and Exile
Most of the Ten Tribes of the Northern Kingdom were dissolved
Only Zebulun and Naphtali remained in their homeland
In addition to deporting the leading citizens, the Assyrians resettled the empty cities of central Israel
Conquest and Exile
The new settlers brought their gods with them
But after a while they learned to worship the God of Israel
They supposed him to be a territorial deity who needed to be appeased
Conquest and Exile
They intermarried with the Israelites who had been left behind
They worshipped God, but also worshipped the foreign gods from the Assyrian Empire
They settled in the towns around Samaria and were called “Samaritans”
Conquest and Exile
All that was left of the old kingdom of David was Judah, the Southern Kingdom
It included the tribe of Judah, the tiny tribe of Benjamin, and the Levites who had not lived in Israel
Conquest and Exile
While Israel was declining, Judah was enjoying a temporary rebirth under good King Hezekiah
Hezekiah was determined to do what was right in the sight of God
He had as his guide one of the greatest prophets of all time: Isaiah
Conquest and Exile
Hezekiah was a serious reformerHe pulled down pagan altars and
“sacred poles”He tore down the high places” where
people worshipped God in the wrong way
Conquest and Exile
He even destroyed the bronze serpents Moses had erected in the wilderness, because people had begun to worship them as gods
Conquest and Exile
Isaiah was Hezekiah’s spiritual guideHe had been a prophet through the
reigns of three previous kingsBut during their reigns, the people of
Judah had been increasingly seduced by the evil practices of the Canaanites
Conquest and Exile
Isaiah was sent to call Judah to repentance
And to warn of the destruction to come if Judah did not repent
But Isaiah was not just a prophet of doom
Conquest and Exile
He also looked forward to a time when Jerusalem would be the spiritual capital of the world
Many scholars today think that the Book of the prophet Isaiah was the work of at least three individuals
The first part (Chapters 1-39) is probably the work of Isaiah himself
Conquest and Exile
The rest was compiled later on, by people responsible for collecting prophecies attributed to Isaiah, especially for the exiles living in foreign lands
The book as a whole was put together by a very talented editor
The same themes run all through it
Conquest and Exile
One of the main themes is repentance
But God made unconditional promises to David
At some time to come, the impossible-sounding promises will come true
Conquest and Exile
Isaiah 11:1-2, 10-11Even though only a remnant
remained in Galilee, something great awaited them
Isaiah 9:1-3, 6
Conquest and Exile
During the reign of Ahaz, the wicked pagan king, the future did not look promising for Judah
Isaiah 7:10-36But even after the reign of the good
king Hezekiah, things got worse
Conquest and Exile
When Hezekiah died, Manasseh became king
Manasseh reversed most everything good that Hezekiah had done
He brought back all the foreign godsHe even burned his own sons as
sacrifice to the false gods
Conquest and Exile
He massacred his own citizens and forced the worship of the one true God underground
The Assyrians attacked and took Manasseh away in chains
But then . . .2 Chr 33:12-13
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The Prayer of Manasseh is preserved in non-canonical sources.
When he came back to Jerusalem, Manasseh took away all the pagan altars and threw out all the foreign cults
He hade sacrifices and reigned a long time
Conquest and Exile
Under Manasseh’s son Amon, Judah briefly returned to paganism
He was assassinated, and Josiah became king
During his reign, the lost book of Deuteronomy was found and promulgated
Conquest and Exile
Josiah made a commitment to do what was right
But his sons were worthless and Judah reverted to paganism
One by one, Josiah’s sons were carried away by more powerful kings
Conquest and Exile
Puppet kings were set up in their place
Zedekiah ended up ruling as Nebuchadnezzar’s vassal
Still there was no repentanceJerusalem suffered one raid after
another
Conquest and Exile
There were plenty of false prophets to flatter the king and tell him what he wanted to hear
The great prophet Jeremiah was beaten and thrown down a well
But he stuck to the truth, and Zedekiah consulted him in secret
Conquest and Exile
Zedekiah decided to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar
He was relying on help from EgyptThis was the same mistake Hoshea
(the last king of Israel) had madeJeremiah tried to warn him
Conquest and Exile
Jeremiah was a powerful and respected prophet, even though he frequently gave prophecies against the king and said things people didn’t want to hear
Jeremiah predicted total destruction, tantamount to the end of the world
Conquest and Exile
Jeremiah was unflinching and resolute
He railed against wrongdoing by the people and those in power alike
Jeremiah saw a destruction so complete that the work of creation itself would be undone
Conquest and Exile
But creation will not entirely be undone
As with the Flood, a remnant will be saved
Creation will begin anew, and Israel will be brought back together under a Davidic king
Conquest and Exile
Jeremiah 23:3-6There will be a new covenantJeremiah 31:31-34Israel will be forgiven and redeemed
like an unfaithful brideHosea’s own marriage was a
metaphor for the sin of Israel
Conquest and Exile
Hosea 3:1-2No matter how unfaithful she had
been, Hosea redeemed his wife from slavery and degradation
God would do the same for IsraelEzekiel also foresaw destruction and
redemption
Conquest and Exile
Ezekiel 36:24-28The punishment was not revenge
but chastisementEzekiel 36:31-32Through the prophets, God forms his
people with the hope of salvation
Conquest and Exile
The Chosen People had been warned in Deuteronomy against returning to slavery in Egypt of their own free will
Deuteronomy 28:58-68The Chosen People were
conquered, scattered, dispersed, in poverty, begging for jobs in Egypt
Conquest and Exile
One of the lessons from the Babylonian exile is that God can bring good out of adversity
They had strayed far from the commands of the covenant
They were taken to Babylon, removed from the essential elements of their identity as a people
Conquest and Exile
They gradually came to realize what had happened
They remembered God’s promises of punishment for their infidelity
They began to see the hand of God in it all, and to rediscover their religious and cultural heritage
Conquest and Exile
Synagogue worship probably came into existence about this time to provide for communal worship in the absence of the Temple
The ideas that emerged from this period of Jewish exile formed the basis for all subsequent Jewish history
Conquest and Exile
Daniel: Heroic Stories of the ExileNebuchadnezzar dreamedDaniel interpreted his dream
Conquest and Exile
Nebuchadnezzar dreamed he saw an enormous statue with a head of gold
The golden head was Nebuchadnezzar, the greatest of earthly kings
Conquest and Exile
The breast and arms of the statue were silver
After Nebuchadnezzar would come a kingdom inferior to his
Conquest and Exile
The belly and the thighs of the statue were bronze
After that would come another inferior kingdom
Conquest and Exile
The legs were iron, the feet partly iron and partly clay
Then a fourth kingdom would arise that would crush the first three, as iron crushes everything
But the kingdom would be partly strong and brittle, like potter’s clay
Conquest and Exile
Then, in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, a rock was cut from a mountain by a human hand
It struck the statue and broke it to pieces
The rock then became a mountain and filled the entire earth
Conquest and Exile
Daniel interpreted this to mean that God himself would set up a final kingdom which would never be destroyed
But like the rock, it would fill the whole earth
Conquest and Exile
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was an outline of future history
Nebuchadnezzar was very impressed with Daniel and Daniel became one of his top ministers
Conquest and Exile
Daniel insisted that it was God, not Daniel, who had provided the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream
But Nebuchadnezzar didn’t understand the difference between the one true God and the other false gods
Conquest and Exile
Then Nebuchadnezzar decreed that everyone should bow down to an idol he had made
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (Daniel’s companions) refused to do so
Nebuchadnezzar ordered them thrown into a fiery furnace
Conquest and Exile
Daniel 3:24-25The three were seen waling around
in the fiery furnace, unhurtAnd there was a fourth individual
with them, one like “a son of the gods”
Conquest and Exile
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego emerged from the furnace unscathed
Stories like these encouraged the Jews to be faithful to God during their fifty-year exile in Babylon