II Kings 21-25
According to the book of Kings after Hezekiah died his son, Manasseh age 15 at his coronation, and grandson, Amon 22 at the age of coronation, backslid into the idolatrous patterns of the previous kings. According to Assyrian records Manasseh was actually a respected ruler of Judah because he was such a loyal vassal of Assyria in the eyes of king Sennacherib, who had an awful time with Hezekiah. This relationship carried over to Sennacherib’s son who became the Assyrian King after his father died. Despite the criticism in the text of Kings regarding Manasseh’s religious policy archeological evidence shows that there was relative peace and prosperity during the reign of Manasseh. In fact he is credited with reviving the Judean economy. Because he had to gain the trust of the Assyrians as well as some of the more affluent countrymen Manasseh relaxed some of the reforms of his father, Hezekiah, and allowed the high places to come back along with other pagan practices. This is not the last we will see of this King. There is nothing outside of the Biblical Account for the reign of Amon. He only ruled Judah for two years before being assassinated. Since he followed in the ways of his father he probably was not a thorn in the side of the Assyrians and therefore not worth mentioning in their records.
Which brings us to the king that is credited with the origin of the Old Testament, Josiah. Josiah is the great grandson of the great reformer Hezekiah. He is eight years old when his father, Amon, was assassinated. From the beginning, according to the Book, he was a devoted follower of Yahweh and did what was right in His eyes just as King David had done. He even went so far as to tear down the shrines created by the first king of Israel, Jeroboam, after the split of Kingdom. In his eighteenth year as king, when he was 26, he ordered the Temple to be cleaned up and restored. He told his servants to give the priest, Hilkiah, as much money as was needed for the project. According to the Book, as well as other scrolls that have been found with the seal of Josiah stamped into it, during the renovation a very old collection of writings was discovered.
The name used to describe these writings that were discovered are called The Book of the Torah in II Kings 22:8 which is the same title given to the writings given to Joshua by Moses in the Book of Joshua 1:8 and 8:34. It is this text that was discovered in the reign of Josiah that is the source for the Deuteronomic Reform of Josiah and later used as the source for the Deuteronomical Historian who took the history of Judah and Israel and combined it with the warnings given in the Book of the Torah by Moses.
Josiah is portrayed as an even greater king than Hezekiah and turned to Yahweh with all his heart and soul and strength, just as his ancestor David had done. Unfortunately, it is too little too late. The sins of the previous kings and the people they ruled are too numerous for Yahweh and destruction is still imminent according to the words of II Kings. During this period the ancient world is in flux. The Assyrian Empire was in decline and the Babylonians were not yet at a powerful position to be a superpower. Egypt had just thrown off Assyrian rule, but were not a powerful nation by any means. This allowed the small kingdom of Judah to flourish without any disturbances.
But, all good things must come to an end and in the year 609 B.C. Egypt joined the Assyrians in a campaign to take over the region, including Judah. Josiah went to battle these forces and was killed. His successor, Jehoiakim, was only power for a few months, but he followed in the evil ways of the previous kings. He was imprisoned by the Pharaoh of Egypt who installed his uncle as the new King. It was this king that had the first dealings with the Babylonian invaders and his son Jehoiachin was the king of Judah when the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar invaded and ransacked Jersualem and the Temple of Yahweh. Another puppet king was put in place by the Babylonians, Zedekiah, who later rebelled against the Babylonians and brought their anger down on the Kingdom.
The events of the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar is not only recorded in the Bible, but has also been chronicled by the Babylonians themselves. Judah becomes just another city state within the Babylonian Empire. It will be a good long while that the children of Israel will be imprisoned in Babylon. However, when the Persian Empire takes over and they are allowed to return to Jerusalem one of the things they return with are the scriptures discovered during Josiah’s reign and around 520 B.C. the foundation for the first nine books of the Old Testament begins.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
King David 2.0
II Kings 18-20
Well, it has taken us roughly five months to get through the Deuteronomical History, Genesis thru Kings. It is within these final chapters of Second Kings that we catch up, so to speak, in time with the supposed author/s of the these first nine books of the Old Testament. The theory accepted by most biblical scholars says that these books were written during the period of Josiah’s reign and probably edited over the centuries after the exile in Babylon. But, lets not get ahead of ourselves.
The setting of these final seven chapters is after the Assyrian campaign that started with Samaria and eventually led to the total annihilation of Israel. After the destruction of Israel the surviving refugees would have scattered to the four winds. Some of them would have headed south and found a new life in Judah. They would bring with them their own stories of the heroes and Kings of their histories, helping to flesh out some more of the Deuteronomical History over time.
In chapter 18 we meet King Hezekiah. He is portrayed as one of the most loyal kings to Yahweh since David or Solomon. Remember that at this time there were no Holy Scriptures. There were only stories that had passed down over the generations and a vague understanding of the god Yahweh given by visions and messages from the prophets. The prophets were the ones that would lead the people back to the Yahweh and the Law, but usually the Kings didn’t like what they had to say and their messages fell on deaf ears. King Hezekiah restored the Kingdom back to the early days of Yahweh worship, undoing generations of pagan incorporation into Jewish life and religion.
According to this book, II Kings, when the king of Assyria (modern day Iraq) finally decided to invade Jerusalem he captured and destroyed a city close by called Lachish. After that he sent word to Hezekiah that Jerusalem’s destruction was imminent. He called out to the king mocking the god of Judah and the Temple made to worship that god. It is said that as retribution for these words against the God of gods, Yahweh sent an angel that slew 180,000 soldiers of the Assyrian King, Sennacherib. This is also where we meet a very famous prophet of this time period, Isaiah, who has a whole book dedicated to him later in the Journey.
What is so great about this story is that its not just a tale told in a very old book. This story happens to be one of the most famous accounts in Ancient History. There are a few different accounts of this ancient battle, but one of the most intricate tellings comes from the King of Assyria himself. In the mid 1800’s a discovery was made in the city of Nineveh, the capital of Ancient Assyria and now located in Northern Iraq. What was found in one of the rooms of the palace of Sennacherib was a set of large stone panels that covered the entire space of the walls in the room. It was deemed to be a waiting room for important figureheads from other lands and the story told on these stone tablets is the story that is contained in the second book of Kings.
The Lachish relief, as it known now, is the telling of how the King and his armies marched upon the kingdom of Judah, even naming King Hezekiah, and destroyed many important towns and cities of the region. The most important being the city of Lachish which is so close to the central power of the Judean Kingdom, Jerusalem. The relief does not mention the destruction of the troops by an Angel of Yahweh, but it is not a story about the destruction of Jerusalem, either, which would have been an extremely important and strategic victory in the land. To compare it to modern times it would be like capturing Chicago or New York instead of Washington D.C. The Lachish relief also shows that Judah would have been an important player in the region at the time of the relief’s construction, roughly 701-680 B.C.
Well, it has taken us roughly five months to get through the Deuteronomical History, Genesis thru Kings. It is within these final chapters of Second Kings that we catch up, so to speak, in time with the supposed author/s of the these first nine books of the Old Testament. The theory accepted by most biblical scholars says that these books were written during the period of Josiah’s reign and probably edited over the centuries after the exile in Babylon. But, lets not get ahead of ourselves.
The setting of these final seven chapters is after the Assyrian campaign that started with Samaria and eventually led to the total annihilation of Israel. After the destruction of Israel the surviving refugees would have scattered to the four winds. Some of them would have headed south and found a new life in Judah. They would bring with them their own stories of the heroes and Kings of their histories, helping to flesh out some more of the Deuteronomical History over time.
In chapter 18 we meet King Hezekiah. He is portrayed as one of the most loyal kings to Yahweh since David or Solomon. Remember that at this time there were no Holy Scriptures. There were only stories that had passed down over the generations and a vague understanding of the god Yahweh given by visions and messages from the prophets. The prophets were the ones that would lead the people back to the Yahweh and the Law, but usually the Kings didn’t like what they had to say and their messages fell on deaf ears. King Hezekiah restored the Kingdom back to the early days of Yahweh worship, undoing generations of pagan incorporation into Jewish life and religion.
According to this book, II Kings, when the king of Assyria (modern day Iraq) finally decided to invade Jerusalem he captured and destroyed a city close by called Lachish. After that he sent word to Hezekiah that Jerusalem’s destruction was imminent. He called out to the king mocking the god of Judah and the Temple made to worship that god. It is said that as retribution for these words against the God of gods, Yahweh sent an angel that slew 180,000 soldiers of the Assyrian King, Sennacherib. This is also where we meet a very famous prophet of this time period, Isaiah, who has a whole book dedicated to him later in the Journey.
What is so great about this story is that its not just a tale told in a very old book. This story happens to be one of the most famous accounts in Ancient History. There are a few different accounts of this ancient battle, but one of the most intricate tellings comes from the King of Assyria himself. In the mid 1800’s a discovery was made in the city of Nineveh, the capital of Ancient Assyria and now located in Northern Iraq. What was found in one of the rooms of the palace of Sennacherib was a set of large stone panels that covered the entire space of the walls in the room. It was deemed to be a waiting room for important figureheads from other lands and the story told on these stone tablets is the story that is contained in the second book of Kings.
The Lachish relief, as it known now, is the telling of how the King and his armies marched upon the kingdom of Judah, even naming King Hezekiah, and destroyed many important towns and cities of the region. The most important being the city of Lachish which is so close to the central power of the Judean Kingdom, Jerusalem. The relief does not mention the destruction of the troops by an Angel of Yahweh, but it is not a story about the destruction of Jerusalem, either, which would have been an extremely important and strategic victory in the land. To compare it to modern times it would be like capturing Chicago or New York instead of Washington D.C. The Lachish relief also shows that Judah would have been an important player in the region at the time of the relief’s construction, roughly 701-680 B.C.
Also discovered in ancient Israel is the underground tunnel Hezekiah built to transport water into the city without the Assyrian forces outside of town being able to stop it. This allowed them to stay within the city and survive by growing food.
Any other references to the events surrounding Hezekiah regarding his illness and miraculous healing are lost to time and history. The warning given to Hezekiah about the future of the country of Judah comes again from the prophet Isaiah and is a foreshadowing of the things to come. According to this book Isaiah is shown a vision of the fate of the future generations of Israel and its not pretty. Some believe this is one of the later additions added after the refugees came back from Babylon and first began recording their holy scriptures.
Because Hezekiah was so righteous and followed in the steps of David so completely, and with even less information regarding Yahweh than that former king had, the time of the destruction is extended into the days of the next generations. However, Hezekiah is introduced to the future conquerors of Judah, the Babylonians.
Any other references to the events surrounding Hezekiah regarding his illness and miraculous healing are lost to time and history. The warning given to Hezekiah about the future of the country of Judah comes again from the prophet Isaiah and is a foreshadowing of the things to come. According to this book Isaiah is shown a vision of the fate of the future generations of Israel and its not pretty. Some believe this is one of the later additions added after the refugees came back from Babylon and first began recording their holy scriptures.
Because Hezekiah was so righteous and followed in the steps of David so completely, and with even less information regarding Yahweh than that former king had, the time of the destruction is extended into the days of the next generations. However, Hezekiah is introduced to the future conquerors of Judah, the Babylonians.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Israel's Decline and Fall
II Kings 1-17
The second half of the book of Kings starts off with more or less a continuation of the rivalries between Israel and Judah as well as their surrounding neighbors. Rather than rewrite it all here I found a great site that has many informative links about the events in this book of the Bible as well as the characters within.
http://www.vtaide.com/gleanings/Kings-of-Israel/kings.html
This will also be helpful to come back and reference in the future when we get into the books of the prophets that were written during the reigns of these kings and will give us a more in depth look at some of them.
I want to break at this point in Kings because it deals with the end of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. We have the records here in this book of the Bible as one version of events that took place over a thousand years ago. There is indication that the events that were put in this version of the story were filtered through the lens of the Deuteronomical Historian who quotes his sources as being from various other Royal records.
The books of Genesis through Kings were completed roughly around 500-300 B.C.E. By this time Israel had been gone for a couple hundred years, lost to Assyrians, and Judah had been conquered by the Babylonians. The events that happened before were written in different records as well as kept through oral tradition. There are a few things that make the events in the Book a little more real in regards to history.
There is a story in chapter 3 concerning the king of Moab, Mesha, who revolts against Israel and sacrifices his son to his god and this turns the tide and he is victorious. In 1868 a stone stele was discovered that dated back to the 800s B.C.E. and was a record of King Mesha regarding his victory over the Kings of Israel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesha_Stele. This stele confirms that the Moab King sacrificed his son to the god Chemosh and this he credits for his victory over Israel.
Also, the story of the siege of Lachish when the Assyrians took control of the lands of the Philistines and many towns close to Judah, II Kings 18:13-14, is also recorded by the Assyrians themselves. The Taylor Prism, a recording of King Sennacherib of Assyria, gives us a slightly different version of these events but still indicates a similar fate for Judah. With their lands being eaten away by the superpower of the ancient world it was a choice between being conquered or keeping the land, but live under the authority of Assyria. Hezekiah, chose to be a vassal and keep the lands of Judah. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_and_Sennacherib_Prisms King Hezekiah is mentioned in this stele by name. This shows that he did indeed exist, although it is not as flattering a mention as the one in 2 Kings 18:5-8.
Unfortunately, the kingdom of Israel to the north was not so lucky. King Jehu had pretty much alienated himself from the surrounding peoples by outlawing their gods and killing their prophets. Later kings did no better to make peace with the neighbors and by the mid 700s Assyria invaded Samaria and kicked out most of the people and put in their own countrymen in hopes that the two would mix. This was how the Assyrians destroyed a culture and assimilated it into itself. This is where the animosity for the Samaritans in Roman Israel originated. These events are recorded also on a stone record of King Sargon II of Assyria, http://suite101.com/article/cuneiform-writing-from-the-palace-of-sargon-ii-a181523.
Eventually, Assyria comes in and wipes out the kingdom and refugees from the land scatter to the winds, just as the prophets warned, but some head south with warnings of the fate that could befall Judah if they don’t shape up, too.
Here’s a site with some great little pieces I found in my snooping.
http://www.bible-history.com/assyria_archaeology/archaeology_of_ancient_assyria_archaeological_discoveries.html
The second half of the book of Kings starts off with more or less a continuation of the rivalries between Israel and Judah as well as their surrounding neighbors. Rather than rewrite it all here I found a great site that has many informative links about the events in this book of the Bible as well as the characters within.
http://www.vtaide.com/gleanings/Kings-of-Israel/kings.html
This will also be helpful to come back and reference in the future when we get into the books of the prophets that were written during the reigns of these kings and will give us a more in depth look at some of them.
I want to break at this point in Kings because it deals with the end of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. We have the records here in this book of the Bible as one version of events that took place over a thousand years ago. There is indication that the events that were put in this version of the story were filtered through the lens of the Deuteronomical Historian who quotes his sources as being from various other Royal records.
The books of Genesis through Kings were completed roughly around 500-300 B.C.E. By this time Israel had been gone for a couple hundred years, lost to Assyrians, and Judah had been conquered by the Babylonians. The events that happened before were written in different records as well as kept through oral tradition. There are a few things that make the events in the Book a little more real in regards to history.
There is a story in chapter 3 concerning the king of Moab, Mesha, who revolts against Israel and sacrifices his son to his god and this turns the tide and he is victorious. In 1868 a stone stele was discovered that dated back to the 800s B.C.E. and was a record of King Mesha regarding his victory over the Kings of Israel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesha_Stele. This stele confirms that the Moab King sacrificed his son to the god Chemosh and this he credits for his victory over Israel.
Also, the story of the siege of Lachish when the Assyrians took control of the lands of the Philistines and many towns close to Judah, II Kings 18:13-14, is also recorded by the Assyrians themselves. The Taylor Prism, a recording of King Sennacherib of Assyria, gives us a slightly different version of these events but still indicates a similar fate for Judah. With their lands being eaten away by the superpower of the ancient world it was a choice between being conquered or keeping the land, but live under the authority of Assyria. Hezekiah, chose to be a vassal and keep the lands of Judah. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_and_Sennacherib_Prisms King Hezekiah is mentioned in this stele by name. This shows that he did indeed exist, although it is not as flattering a mention as the one in 2 Kings 18:5-8.
Unfortunately, the kingdom of Israel to the north was not so lucky. King Jehu had pretty much alienated himself from the surrounding peoples by outlawing their gods and killing their prophets. Later kings did no better to make peace with the neighbors and by the mid 700s Assyria invaded Samaria and kicked out most of the people and put in their own countrymen in hopes that the two would mix. This was how the Assyrians destroyed a culture and assimilated it into itself. This is where the animosity for the Samaritans in Roman Israel originated. These events are recorded also on a stone record of King Sargon II of Assyria, http://suite101.com/article/cuneiform-writing-from-the-palace-of-sargon-ii-a181523.
Eventually, Assyria comes in and wipes out the kingdom and refugees from the land scatter to the winds, just as the prophets warned, but some head south with warnings of the fate that could befall Judah if they don’t shape up, too.
Here’s a site with some great little pieces I found in my snooping.
http://www.bible-history.com/assyria_archaeology/archaeology_of_ancient_assyria_archaeological_discoveries.html
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