Judah

From CleanPosts

JUDAH

When David invaded the the land of the Geshurites, the Gezrites, and the Amalekites he left no man or woman alive. He conquered Rabbah and Ammon, and put the people of those cities under saws and harrows and axes of iron and made their dead bodies pass through a brick kiln.

David committed adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of a loyal officer named Uriah, and tried to cover it up. When this sin was in danger of being exposed, David him Uriah killed on the battlefield by other officers in order to obtain Bathsheba as his wife.

On his sick bed he ordered a beautiful young girl named Abishag the Shunamite to stay in bed with him and try to cure his sexual impotence. On David's death bed he broke his promise to Shimei not to kill him, and arranged to have him murdered.

After reigning over the House of Judah for forty years, and over all of the House of Israel for thirty-three years, King David died in 970 BCE, and he was succeeded by his son Solomon.

David's harem of forty women also passed to his son. And it was written in the chronicles of the kings of the House of Israel that King David did right in the eyes of El, that David was a man after El's own heart, that he was an angel with a heart perfect with El, and that evil had not been found in David all his days.

After David's son Solomon ascended to the throne, he unwisely came to love many foreign women, contrary to the commandment of El.

King Solomon unwisely had seven hundred wives with the stature of princess, and he had three hundred concubines. Most of these women were the daughters of foreign kings and noblemen, and using their sexual power they enticed Solomon's heart to unwisely follow after strange gods.

Solomon unwisely adored the goddess Astarte and Milcom the god of the Ammonites. Near Jerusalem, Solomon unwisely built a shrine to Chemosh, god of Moab, and to Molech another god of the Ammonites.

Solomon unwisely built a shrine for each one of his foreign wives who sacrificed to other gods, all to please them.

Solomon unwisely murdered his half-brother Adonijah for asking his mother Haggith to request Abishag the Shunamite, the young girl who was forced to try to revive David's virility, to be his bride, even though Solomon promised Haggith that he would grant any request she made.

Adonijah was cut down in the sanctuary of the temple where he fled for safety, mistakenly hoping that the awesome holiness of the site would be wisely observed.

When Solomon had reigned as king over the whole House of Israel forty years, he died in 931 BCE and was buried in Jerusalem. His son Rehoboam succeeded Solomon as king at the age of forty-one. And it was written in the chronicles of the kings of the House of Israel that Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived.

The ten tribes of the northern kingdom had many grievances they left unvoiced during the reign of Solomon, but now to his son they demanded many reforms.

Instead, Rehoboam promised to lay an even heavier yoke upon them than his father had. Apparently none of Solomon's wisdom was imparted to his son. So the kingdom went into a permanent schism, with the greater part of the tribes of Israel in rebellion against the house of David, but the tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to King Rehoboam.

The northern tribes refused to acknowledge Rehoboam as their king. They anointed Jeroboam as their king instead. The officials Rehoboam sent to Israel were murdered when they came north. And so war broke out between the northern and southern kingdoms where once they had been ruled as one, and the war continued all through the reign of Rehoboam.

King Abijam permitted a cult of male prostitutes to flourish in Judah.

King Asa reigned forty-one years over Judah, banishing all the temple prostitutes allowed by his father and even destroying all the idols set up by Solomon, Rehoboam and Abijam. After that El alone was worshiped in Judah. And there was war between Asa king of Judah, and Baasha, king of Israel, as long as they both reigned.

King Jehoshaphat stepped up to the throne when he was thirty-five years of age, and he reigned for twenty-five years in Jerusalem. When Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab of Israel and daughter of King Ethbaal of Tyre, brought priests of Baal into Israel, none of these priests were allowed to enter Judah during the whole reign of Jeshoshaphat. He began a campaign of judicial reform that installed fair judges across the land of Judah and set up a court of appeals in Jerusalem to watch over those judges.

Jehoram was thirty-two years of age when he became king of Judah, and he reigned for eight years in Jerusalem. Athaliah, daughter of King Ahab of Israel, became his wife. During his reign, Edom, a vassal province of Judah, revolted and named their own king.

After the death of her son, Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah had the entire royal line murdered except Joash, who was an infant spirited away by Jehosheba the sister of Ahaziah. For six years Joash remained hidden in the temple of El while Athaliah ruled Judah. She introduced the worship of Baal to Judah but was killed seven years later in a coup orchestrated by the high priest Jehoiada, the husband of Jeho-Sheba. And Joash, who was only seven years of age, was proclaimed king of Judah in 837 BCE.

Uzziah ascended to the throne of Judah when he was sixteen years of age. Uzziah restored Jerusalem to its former glory and built up many farms across the land. He reconquered territory formerly belonging to the house of Judah in the Negev region and regained control of restive Edom. But near the end of his life Uzziah became a leper and retired to a house apart from the palace while his son Jotham ruled Judah as regent.

Ahaz ascended to the throne of Judah when he was twenty years old. The capital city of Jerusalem survived a combined seige by the Arameans and King Pekah of Israel. Simultaneously, however, the Edomites conquered Elath, on the Red Sea, and drove the Judeans out of it. Ahaz paid the Assyrians to attack the Arameans and the northern kingdom.

At this time the Assyrian Empire seized Damascus and put King Rezin to death. After that, King Ahaz caused a copy of the pagan altar of bronze oxen he had seen in occupied Damascus to be constructed in Jerusalem, thus reintroducing polytheism to Judah.

Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign. He removed every vestige of polytheism in Judah, including the high places that had existed under every king since Rehoboam. He even destroyed the bronze serpent made by Moses, because it too had become an idol.

Hezekiah refused to serve the Assyrian king Sennacherib the son of Sargon II, the Assyrian king who destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel. Sennacherib therefore laid seige to Jerusalem and forced Hezekiah to pay a tribute of thirty talents of gold, eight hundred talents of silver, gems, antimony, and many jewels. Also paid in tribute was carnelian, couches and chairs inlaid with ivory, elephant hides and tusks, ebony, boxwood, and other rich treasures, along with Hezekiah's daughters, his wives, his musicians, men and women. All of these things were taken by King Sennacherib to Ninevah.

Later, to prepare Jerusalem in the event of another seige, Hezekiah constructed an aqueduct to bring fresh water into the Pool of Siloam inside the city.

King Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign. During his reign, the high priest, Hilkiah, reported to the king that he "found" a book hidden in the temple which restated the precepts of the law. This book later became the fifth book of the Torah, known as Deuteronomy.

Josiah used the occasion of the finding of the book to call the people to renew their covanant to God. And Josiah commanded all the religious items made for Baal, Asherah, and other gods to be burned outside the city. He tore down the apartments of the prostitutes in the cult of Asherah. He also destroyed the altar to the golden calf built in Beth-El by King Rehoboam.

When Pharaoh Neco went toward the River Euphrates to link up with the Assyrians in 609 BCE, Josiah went out to confront him, but he was slain at the plains of Megiddo. And his son Jehoahaz succeeded him.

Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned only three months in Jerusalem. Pharaoh Neco took him captive at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and demanded a tribute of much silver and gold. Jehoahaz died in captivity in Egypt, the first king of Judah to die in exile.

Neco then appointed Eliakim, another son of Josiah, as king of Judah. Eliakim changed his name to Jehoiakim. And Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign over Judah in 609 BCE.

After his defeat at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and serving as his vassal for three years, Jehoiakim revolted against Babylon. But Johoiakim died before the combined armies of Chaldeans, Arameans, Moabites and Ammonites could reach Jerusalem. He was succeeded by his son Jeconiah.

Jeconiah was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned only three months in Jerusalem. During his reign, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, personally laid seige to Jerusalem. Jeconiah surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE and was taken captive to Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar took all the treasures of the temple of El and deported the army, the craftsmen, and all the leading citizens of Jerusalem. Only the very poor remained behind to till the land. Nebuchadnezzar appointed Mattaniah, the uncle of Jeconiah, as king and changed his name to Zedekiah.

Zedekiah was twenty-one years of age when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. Then Nebuchadnezzar and his whole army advanced against Jerusalem and laid seige to it.

King Zedekiah attempted to escape the city but he was captured in 587 BCE and brought before Nebuchadnezzar. The sons of Zedekiah were slain before his eyes, and then Zedekiah was blinded, bound in chains, and taken to Babylon.

The Babylonians burned the temple of El and the palace of the king and every house in Jerusalem. The walls of the city were torn down and the surviving people of the city were taken into exile in Babylon. From that day forward the kingdom of Judah ceased to exist.

In exile, the scribes and priests maintained a continuous tribal identity for the House of Judah by meticulously maintaining the written genealogies and histories of the people.

When Cyrus the Great, emperor of Persia, conquered the Babylonians in 539 BCE, he instituted a policy of repatriating the Jews in Palestine. The first parties he sent began the task of rebuilding the temple of El. Because of this, many Jews in exile regarded Cyrus to be appointed by El.

In 458 BCE Ezra led a second group of Babylonian Jews to Jerusalem to reestablish the law of Moses. He compiled and redacted the Torah from a number of preexisting source documents and instituted very exclusive fundamentalist doctrines including a ban on Jews marrying Gentiles. Thus Orthodox Judaism as it is known to the present day was born.

In 444 BCE Nehemiah, a Jewish servant of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, was sent to Jerusalem with a third group of Jews to complete the temple, repair the royal palace, and rebuild the walls of the city. When he was finished, the older Jews with him wept with sorrow, for the second temple was a pathetic shadow of the glory that had been Solomon's original temple-palace complex.

Philip II, king of Macedon, conquered the Thebans and Athenians at Chaeronea in 338 BCE and brought all of Greece except Sparta under Macedonian rule. When he died in 336 BCE, his twenty year-old son Alexander succeeded him and freed all the Greeks in Asia Minor from Persian rule.

For the next twelve years, Alexander forged the largest empire the world had ever known.

After defeating King Darius at Issus in 333 BCE, Alexander subdued Egypt and founded the city of Alexandria. The following year, all of Palestine fell under his domination. But Alexander left no heir, and upon his death in 323 BCE, his generals, called the Diadochi, divided the empire between themselves and became rivals. The Diadochi put on royal crowns, and so did their sons after them.

Ptolemy I Soter, one of the Diadochi, claimed Egypt for himself and defended Alexandria from the other generals. He also founded the Library of Alexandria and became the first Egyptian king of the Macedonian Dynasty of Ptolemies.

Ptolemy II Philadelphus succeeded him in 283 BCE and brought Alexandria to its peak of power and influence. The Pharos lighthouse was constructed during his reign.

Ptolemy III Euergetes extended the Ptolemaic Empire to embrace Palestine, Asia Minor, and the islands of the Aegean. But after his death the empire gradually began to decline.

A rival Diadochi named Seleucus I Nicator founded a like empire centered in Asia Minor that ruled the lands conquered by Alexander from Thrace to India. 13 As the Ptolemies weakened, Palestine gradually fell under the rule of this Selucid Dynasty.

At this time many Jews began to adopt the ways of the Greek gentiles who dominated them. They tried to covered the marks of their circumcision, and built gymnasiums, and no longer observed the ordinances of the Mosaic Law. With some support of these secularized Jews, Antiochus IV Ephiphanes declared Judaism abolished, and dedicated the temple in Jerusalem to Zeus.

Many of the Jews were ready and willing to abandon their old religion and accept the doctrines of the Syro-Macedonian king. The priest Mattathias began a set of terrorist acts to deter Hellenized Jews from sacrificing to Zeus. Jews who were caught breaking the 613 precepts of the Law were killed, and boys were forcibly circumcised.

Eventually this campaign, which was based out of hiding places in the desert outside of the cities, became a full-scale revolution to return to the fundamentalist Yahwhist doctrines instituted by Ezra.

Upon the death of Mattathias, his third son Judas Maccabeus took over leadership of the revolt. He defeated Apollonius and Seron, and turned back Lysias who came with half of the army of King Antiochus IV Ephiphanes, and also he repurified the temple in Jerusalem. But Judas Maccabeus was killed on the field of battle confronting governor Bacchides.

Jonathan, fifth son of Mattathias, then led the revolt. He renewed battle against Bacchides and defeated Apollonius. After that Jonathan became the high priest of the Jews. Jonathan Maccabeus was taken prisoner and killed after an invitation to meet Trypho for peace negotiations.

Simon Maccabeus, brother of Jonathan, then began to lead the Jews. He too was the high priest, as was his son and grandson after him. Simon obtained independence for Judea from Demetrius II. He battled Antiochus VII and defeated him. Then Simon was betrayed and killed by Ptolemy the son of Anubus, governor of Jericho, at a banquet in the stronghold of Dok.

John Hyrcanus I, son of Simon Maccabeus, battled Ptolemy, the murderer of Simon, avenging his father's death. He rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and also battled Antiochus VII. Under his reign, Judah prospered much.

Aristobulus I Judah, son of John Hyrcanus, annexed the territory of Iturea to Judah. During his reign, some of the Jews began to teach a doctrine that everyone who ever lived on the earth would be raised to life again in a simultaneous general resurrection to witness to sovereignty of God, and after that, all life on earth would come to a violent end.

Alexander Jannaeus, brother of Aristobulus, was the first high priest of the House of Mattathias to call himself King, thus founding the Hasmonean Dynasty. An aggressive warrior, he died in battle. Under his reign the movement of the Pharisees came into existence, which means the "Separated Ones". The Pharisees opposed the Hasmonean innovation of combining the kingship with the high priesthood in one person. They also believed that the dead would be raised again, but they denied the world would end in a final apocalypse.

And the Pharisees built synagogues in every Jewish city and town where the people could study the Torah under the tutelage in the scribes, or Sopherim, and also offer prayers for the return of the House of David to power in Israel.

After that, Queen Alexandra, wife of Aristobulus, enjoyed a benevolent reign of nine years. During Queen Alexandra's reign a high priest was chosen from the landed aristocracy of Judea, also known as the Sadducees. His policy was to avoid rebellion at all costs, even to the watering-down of Jewish traditions with Hellenistic and Roman ideas, and this policy to accommodate with the world was much criticized by the Pharisees.

King Aristobulus II, son of Alexander Jannaeus, reigned until the intervention of Pompey after his conquest of Syria for the Romans.

King Hyrcanus II, son of Alexander Jannaeus, was named ethnarch of the Jews by Pompey and elevated over his brother. Thus Pompey maintained the Hasmonean Dynasty on the throne, but only has his clients.

King Antigonus, son of Aristobulus II, was decapitated by a pretender to the throne named Herod who was favored by Marcus Antonius and Queen Cleopatra after they defeated Pompey. Herod was subsequently declared king of the Jews by Mark Antony acting in his role of triumvir.

King Herod the Great conquered Joppa and Medeba and captured Jerusalem after a seige of three months. He occupied Samaria and restored the temple to its original glory.

In Egypt the last Pharaoh was Ptolemy XV Caesarion, son of Gaius Julius Caesar and Queen Cleopatra VII. Following the suicide of his mother in the wake of the battle of Actium, Caesarion was executed by Gaius Julius Caesar Octavius and Egypt was annexed by Rome.

Herod soon became a client of Octavius, who was later called Caesar Augustus. It was during the reign of Augustus and Herod the Great that El's only child, Bat-El, took possession of the body of Yeshua, the infant son of Yosef, son of Heli. And Yeshua was also the son of Miriam, daughter of Yochim.