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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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”

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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

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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

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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

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He even destroyed the bronze serpents Moses had erected in the wilderness, because people had begun to worship them as gods

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Isaiah 11:1-2, 10-11Even though only a remnant

remained in Galilee, something great awaited them

Isaiah 9:1-3, 6

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Ezekiel 36:24-28The punishment was not revenge

but chastisementEzekiel 36:31-32Through the prophets, God forms his

people with the hope of salvation

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Daniel: Heroic Stories of the ExileNebuchadnezzar dreamedDaniel interpreted his dream

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Nebuchadnezzar dreamed he saw an enormous statue with a head of gold

The golden head was Nebuchadnezzar, the greatest of earthly kings

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The breast and arms of the statue were silver

After Nebuchadnezzar would come a kingdom inferior to his

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The belly and the thighs of the statue were bronze

After that would come another inferior kingdom

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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

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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

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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

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Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was an outline of future history

Nebuchadnezzar was very impressed with Daniel and Daniel became one of his top ministers

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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

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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

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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”

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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