Judah lasts another of 133 years before bringing to an end the kingdom of Israel. by Rabbi Ken Spiro

Transcription

1 2008 Judah lasts another of 133 years before bringing to an end the kingdom of Israel. by Rabbi Ken Spiro Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, lasted 133 years longer than the northern kingdom. This was largely because it was nowhere near as unstable nor as corrupted by idolatry. In the north there was a king every dozen years on the average, but in the south the average reign lasted about twice as long. Unlike the kings of the northern kingdom, some of the kings of the southern kingdom were actually good and holy men. And the one king that stood out above the rest was the 14 th king after David, Hezekiah (who, incidentally, was married to the daughter of prophet Isaiah). The Bible says about him: And he did what was right in the eyes of God, like all that his [fore-] father David had done. And he trusted in the God of Israel. There 1

2 was none like him among all the kings of Judah who were after him nor before him. 1 Now that s pretty high praise. It is during Hezekiah s reign that the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians and the ten tribes exiled. So Hezekiah fortified Jerusalem in expectation of the Assyrian invasion of Judah. And some of his handiwork we can see today. By the time of Hezekiah s rule, the city of Jerusalem was no longer confined to the original city of David. A considerable amount of the population lived in a new neighborhood on the western side of the Temple Mount. But this part of the city was defenseless, so Hezekiah enclosed it with a wall, which has been excavated by archeologists and can be seen today it s called the Broad Wall. Another thing that Hezekiah did was enlarge the water supply system to the city (which, as we saw in class #18 depended on the Gihon Spring outside the city walls). To do so, Hezekiah organized two teams of diggers to dig a tunnel from Gihon to a reservoir within the city. One team started on one end, one on the other, and they met somewhere in between. Considering the limited technology of the day, the tunnel they dug is an amazing piece of work 533 meters long. Today you can go to the Arab village of Silwan, just outside the walls of Jerusalem s Old City, and walk through this tunnel (the water is only up to your ankles), and you can see the tool marks of the ancient diggers. You can also see where the two sets of marks meet. There used to be an ancient plaque there, but unfortunately it was removed by the Ottomans when they conquered Israel, and it s now in a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. 1 2 Kings 18:3-5. 2

3 The city was fortified just in the nick of time before the Assyrians, led by Sennacherib, came to lay siege. This was in the year 547 BCE. We mentioned in class #21 that many of the treasures of the Middle East now sit in the British Museum. One of those items is a six-sided clay prism describing Sennacherib s military campaigns. An inscription on the tablet reads: Hezekiah, King of Judah, I locked in Jerusalem like a bird in a cage. Noticeably absent is the description of Jerusalem falling, because it didn t fall. The Book of Kings 2 tells us what happened: The mighty Assyrian army besieged the city and things looked pretty grim, but the Prophet Isaiah assured the people that the city would not fall. True to Isaiah s prediction a plague hit the Assyrian camp, and their army was decimated overnight. Sennacherib packed up and ran back home to Assyria where he was murdered not soon after by his children. One can understand Sennacherib, the blood-thirsty emperor of Assyria, having bad children. But unfortunately, the saintly king Hezekiah did not fare much better in the off-spring department. Bad Seed The son of Hezekiah, Manasseh, assumed the throne after his father died. He was as bad as his father was good. Of him the Bible says: He did what was evil in the eyes of God... He erected altars to Baal... He passed his son through fire, practiced astrology and read omens, and performed necromancy and conjured spirits. He did much that was evil in the eyes of God to anger Him Kings Chapter Kings 21:2-6. 3

4 Manasseh was so bad that he even had the prophet Isaiah his own grandfather put to death. The ultimate downfall of Jerusalem was blamed by God on the evil behavior of Manasseh: Because Manasseh, King of Judah has committed these abominations and he caused even Judah to sin with his idols I will wipe out Jerusalem as one would wipe a plate thoroughly, and then turn it upside down. 4 The next king Amon was as bad as Manasseh. But then came Josiah, who truly loved God and brought about a round of impressive religious reforms. Unfortunately when he died, these reforms died with him and the spiritual decline continued. (There is a tradition that Josiah anticipated this and knew that the southern kingdom would soon be invaded and fall as had the northern, so he decided to hide the Ark of the Covenant in order that it not fall into enemy hands. 5 ) In the meanwhile, the Assyrian empire which had been such a great threat to Israel had been overrun by a new world power called Babylon. And it was the Babylonians who invaded Judah in 434 BCE. The Babylonians marched on Judah as part of their campaign to stake claim to the former Assyrian empire. Their aim was to impose their rule and make Judah a vassal state. In this, they largely succeeded. They pillaged Jerusalem though they did not destroy it at this time taking into captivity 10,000 of the best and brightest Jews. They also removed the king, whose name was Jehoiachin, and took him to Babylon. The exile of the 10,000 best and brightest seemed like a terrible disaster, but it turned out not to be so. In fact, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we shall see in the next class. 4 2 Kings 21: See Talmud, Tractate Yoma 52b for a description of Josiah hiding the Ark; also see Yoma 53b and 54a. And Kaplan, Aryeh, Jerusalem: The Eye of the Universe, p

5 The Babylonians appointed their own puppet king from among the Jews Zedekiah. Although Zedekiah was a weak ruler he was also foolishly ambitious, and eventually he decided to rebel against his Babylonian overlords. In instant response, Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar ordered a siege of Jerusalem. Make no mistake about it. This did not happen because Jews rebelled against Babylon. This happened because Israel rebelled against God. When the Jews had a good relationship with God as in the days of King Hezekiah or King Josiah they were invincible. Sometimes, they didn t even need to fight, as when God sent a plague to vanquish their enemies. But if they betrayed God, no matter how mighty the Israelite army, it could not withstand the enemy. But, as always, God gave the Jews plenty of time to mend their ways while the Babylonians laid siege to Jerusalem. The Prophet Jeremiah called for all to repent but his message went unheeded. Instead, he was beaten and thrown into prison! Years earlier Jeremiah had written the Book of Lamentations, which predicted in great detail the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem, but the king at that time King Jehoiakim (the father of Jehoiachin) cut it in bits and threw it into the fire. 6 Today we read the Book of Lamentations every year on the 9th of Av, the horrible day when these predications came true. This is the Jewish date that continues to live in infamy. As we saw in class #13, the 9 th of Av Tisha B Av is the catastrophic day in Jewish history when the spies sent by Moses to look over the Land of Israel came back advising the Israelites not to enter, and God doomed that generation to 40 years of wandering in the desert; when the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians; when the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans; when the Jews of Spain were given an ultimatum by the Inquisition leave, convert or die; when World War I, the prelude to the Holocaust, began; and when many other calamities were visited upon the Jewish people. 6 Jeremiah, 36:23. 5

6 Siege of Jerusalem There is clear archeological evidence for the siege of Jerusalem which lasted two years that you can see today in the Old City of Jerusalem. Near Hezekiah s Broad Wall, you can visit the Israelite Tower Museum. It s about 60 feet under ground, and you can see there the remains of a three-door gate in the northern defensive wall of the city. (Archeologists call it the E Gate. ) At this site, archeologists digging in the early 1970s found clear evidence of the Babylonian siege. Among the things they found there were Israelite and Babylonian arrowheads. How did they know? The arrowheads have names on them, because in ancient times, arrowheads were very valuable. They also found a layer of charred earth, attesting to the burning of the city as is related in the Book of Kings. 7 Other fascinating evidence was also found in area G of David s City including a clay seal inscribed with the name of Gemariah son of Shaphan, a scribe mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah. 8 After two years of siege, the Jews couldn t hold out anymore. They had been starved into submission as Jeremiah had so vividly predicted: The tongue of the suckling infant cleaves to its palate for thirst; young children beg for bread, no one extends it to them. Those who once feasted extravagantly lie destitute in the streets; those who were brought up in scarlet clothing wallow in garbage... Their appearance has become blacker than soot, they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones, it became dry as wood... Hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food when the daughter of my people was shattered Kings 25:9. 8 Jeremiah 36:10. 9 Lamentations 4:4-5,

7 On the 9 th of Tevet of the year 422 BCE, the Babylonians breached the walls of the city. They poured in and carried out a mass slaughter. A few months later, on the 9 th of Av, the Temple Mount fell into their hands. During the mayhem, Zedekiah tried to flee to the Dead Sea through a secret tunnel that led out of Jerusalem. But he got caught and it s very interesting how. According to the Midrash, 10 Nebuzaradan, Nebuchadnezzar s captain was out hunting while his men were pillaging the city. He saw a deer, and he began following it. The deer just happened to run above the tunnel. (This, of course, is God s way of assuring that Zedekiah was not going to escape punishment.) When Zedekiah came out of the tunnel, the deer was standing there, and Nebuzaradan was right behind the deer. This is how Zedekiah got caught. He met a horrible fate along with the rest of the Israelites, as the Bible relates: And they... put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him with fetters of bronze and carried him to Babylon. And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the 19th year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, to Jerusalem. And he burned the house of God [the Temple], and the king s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man s house burned he with fire. 11 With the destruction of the Temple, the special connection that the Jewish people had with God was severed. As with the fall of Israel in the north, there was a superficial cause for the destruction of Jerusalem (i.e. the revolt against Babylon), but the Bible makes it clear that the real cause was the immoral behavior of the Jews. 12 Here is when it all came crashing down. Where previously the Babylonians had been satisfied in making Israel into a vassal state, this time their punishment was much worse. They decide to carry on the Assyrian policy of exile and remove the Jews from the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey. 10 Quoted by Rashi and Radak in commentary on 2 Kings 25: Kings See Talmud, Tractate Yoma 9b. 7

8 KINGS OF ISRAEL KING REIGNED Saul 2 years Ishboshet 2 years David 40 years Solomon 40 years SPLIT OF KINGDOM KINGS OF JUDAH (RULING IN JERUSALEM) KINGS OF ISRAEL (NORTHERN 10 TRIBES) Rehoboam 17 years Jeroboam 22 years Abijam 3 years Nabad 2 years Asa 41 years Baasa 24 years Johoshaphat 25 years Elah 2 years Johoram 8 years Zimri 7 days Ahaziah 1 year Tivni 5 years Athaliah 6 years Omri 12 years Jehoash 40 years Ahab 22 years Amaziah 29 years Ahaziah 2 years Uzziah 52 years Jehoram 12 years Jotham 16 years Jehu 28 years Ahaz 16 years Jehoahaz 17 years Hezekiah 29 years Jehoash 15 years Manasseh 55 years Jeroboam 41 years Amon 2 years Zechariah 6 months Josiah 31 years Shallum 1 month Jehoahaz 3 months Menahem 10 years Jehoiakim 11 years Pekahiah 2 years Jehoiachin 3 months Pekah 20 years Zedekiah 11 years Hoshea 19 years EXILED 422 BCE EXILED 555 BCE 8