Chapter IV

ANALYSIS OF THE REIGNS OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL.

=1. Of the twenty sovereigns of Judah=, Manasseh reigned the longest, namely fifty-five years. He was the fourteenth king and began to reign at twelve years of age, B. C. 698.

The shortest reigns in Judah were those of Jehoiachin and Jehoahaz, who reigned only about three months each, near the close of the kingdom, B. C. 600 and B. C. 610. Both of these kings were deposed by foreign kings.

=2. Of the nineteen sovereigns of Israel=, the one who continued longest upon the throne was Jeroboam, the second of that name. His reign continued forty-one years, from B. C. 825 to B. C. 784. He was the thirteenth king.

The shortest reign was that of Zimri, who committed suicide by burning himself in his palace at Tirzah, with all its riches, B. C. 930, when he found he was about to be taken. He usurped the throne and held it only seven days. He was the fifth king.

MORAL CHARACTER OF THE KINGS.

=3. Of the twenty sovereigns of Judah=, twelve were continually idolatrous. They seemed to be entirely unmindful of the previous history of the nation and of the claims of Jehovah upon their reverence or gratitude. The Temple service seems to have been continued by the priests at Jerusalem, but, from the warnings of the prophets, it appears that even the priests proved faithless and frequently allowed themselves to be led in accordance with the passions and violence of the kings, so that irreverence and sacrilege were common.

The treasures of the Temple, those vessels, ornaments, and trophies which were sacred to its use, or placed there in commemoration of victories and in honor of the Lord, were repeatedly seized by the kings and given to their enemies, or used for private purposes, and, in some instances, removed to give place for idolatrous practices. Parts of the Temple considered sacred to the name of Jehovah were desecrated by altars built for the worship of the hosts of heaven, and graven images were erected upon the Temple grounds, in defiance of the law.

=4. The kings themselves= frequently gave public examples of their contempt for Jehovah by the service and worship of the gods of surrounding nations, by erecting temples and altars and by planting groves upon high places and setting up images of Baal and Ashtoreth throughout the land and in prominent towns, so that the people were constantly drawn into idolatry and their children made to dwell in the presence and under the influence of idolatrous emblems, as seen throughout the kingdom.

=5. The above mentioned facts= are specially applicable to twelve kings out of the twenty of Judah, but the character of the reigns of Israel was even worse. Of its nineteen kings, not one was free from idolatry. At the very beginning of their history the first king, Jeroboam, who had spent about five years in Egypt at the court of Shishak, erected a golden calf at Bethel and one at Dan in the north, and invited the people to worship at these shrines in preference to the “house of the Lord,” the Temple, at Jerusalem.

=6. This worship of the golden calf= was a repetition of the same worship which was performed 500 years before at Mt. Sinai, soon after the Israelites came out of Egypt, and Jeroboam the king in instituting it repeated the words which were uttered at Mt. Sinai,[94] namely, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,” Exod. 32:4.

=7. The selection of the calf= was suggested by the prominence which that animal,[95] as the symbol of divine power, attained in Egypt. The costly adornment and preservation of the sacred living bull, or Apis, and the magnificent funeral ceremonies and entombment of the dead Apis are frequently alluded to on the monuments of Egypt. Long before the departure of the Israelites from Egypt the veneration of the sacred bull had been exhibited in services and obsequies, so general throughout Lower Egypt, and so imposing, that the effect upon the population must have been far more solemn and impressive than anything we can conceive of at the present day. The costly burial places, called “Serapeums,” some of which yet exist, and the granite sarcophagi show beyond any question how reverent and imposing the worship of the bull must have been.

=8. In the expression used at Mt. Sinai= and by Jeroboam the word “gods” has the force of the singular number, being that word sometimes applied to Jehovah and always used in the plural number, called “the plural of excellence;” so that while translated in this phrase “gods,” to the Hebrew it was the same as “god;” hence there was only one calf-image at any place.

It is both remarkable and memorable that notwithstanding the bold and careless manner in which Jeroboam’s contempt for the worship of Jehovah was exhibited, yet in the later history of his life, when a bitter sorrow was coming upon him, he acted the part of Saul and applied for help to the prophet whose counsel he had abused. The results were the same and the record is in 1 Kings 14.

=9. It should be remembered= that while the kings and many of the people departed from their covenanted service of Jehovah, and the land was full of idolaters, there were, at all times, those who in the privacies of their homes were faithful servants of the Most High.

This fact was brought out in the time of the prophet Elijah; for when the prophet in his despair supposed he was the only surviving worshipper of God, the Lord revealed to him the truth that at that very moment there were 7,000 in Israel who had never bowed the knee to Baal, but were faithful to Jehovah, 1 Kings 19:18. Even in the household of the idolatrous Ahab there was one who held so persistently to the ancient faith in Jehovah, that, despite the cunning, power, and vengeance of Jezebel, he succeeded in hiding and feeding one hundred of the prophets of the Lord, probably in several caves. This man, Obadiah by name, was governor of Ahab’s house, 1 Kings 18:3, and not the prophet, who lived about 587 B. C.

=10. Frequently, during the darkest times= of the two kingdoms, there suddenly appeared an antecedently unknown messenger of God, who bore with him the evidence that he was a member of a reserved force of faithful ones whose existence had never been published in the annals of the kingdom; and these unknown servants existed in both kingdoms alike, and were of both sexes, as we find in the cases of Huldah, whose knowledge of the law made her worthy of consultation by the king, and of Hannah before her, and of that nameless woman dwelling in the walled city Abel, who, although “peaceable and faithful in Israel,” had power enough simply by her wise counsel to turn back the fierce army of Joab, 2 Sam. 20:19.

ABEL.

This place was also called Abel-beth-maachah. It was upon the level land twelve miles north by west of the waters of Merom, lake Huleh, and is now called Abl. Abel means “meadow.” The village is over 1,000 feet above the lake Huleh (1,074 feet), and is a Christian village.

=11. It is, therefore, reasonable= to suppose that although at court and by the kings the law of the Lord was little known and read, it might yet have been thoroughly studied and observed by many in private.