THE TWO HOUSES OF ISRAEL (9): What Happened to Judah?

 

We already saw hoe the people of Israel was divided into Two Houses: The House of Israel (the 10 Northern tribes also know as Ephraim) and the House of Judah (the 2 Southern tribes). The northern Israelites were taken captive by the Assyrians, when Tiglath Pileser III, king of Assyria conquered Samaria, the capital of Israel (Northern Kingdom). They were exiled and dispersed in the year 722 B.C.  By this time they had already lost their Hebrew identity and they were therefore easily assimilated to wherever each of them was taken.

On the contrary, the House of Judah remained faithful to God… for a while. About one hundred years later, they also turned away from God’s ways. They were also given words of warning and temporarily repented, only to fall back again.

JUST LIKE HER SISTER

Jeremiah and Ezekiel were the prophetic voices at that time. They warned Israel not to imitate their brothers from the North, since they would end up just like them. It was a strong warning, comparing the idolatry they were practicing to spiritual adultery.

(Jeremiah 3:6-10)  The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: "Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore?  (7)  And I thought, 'After she has done all this she will return to me,' but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.  (8)  She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.  (9)  Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.  (10)  Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the LORD."

Israel collapsed first, followed by Judah.

(2 Kings 17:13-20)  Yet the LORD warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, "Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets."  (14)  But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God.  (15)  They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them.  (16)  And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal.  (17)  And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.  (18)  Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only.  (19)  Judah also did not keep the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced.  (20)  And the LORD rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight.

CAPTIVITY

As a consequence for her sin and lack of repentance, the House of Judah was also conquered. They were all taken captive, but not by the Assyrians. They were conquered by Babylon. In contrast to their Israelite brothers, the House of Judah safeguarded their identity. Even though they were captive in Babylon they stayed together. They established synagogues and continued living in their religious beliefs as much as they could. No doubt some of them were assimilated, but many continued keeping the laws and traditions of their fathers. Today they are known as the Jewish People.

After being 70 years in captivity, God modified their history. In one day, Babylon fell and the Mede-Persians took their place of supremacy (Daniel 5). The Lord moved those political pieces to allow the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem.
Ezra 1:1-4)  In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing:  (2)  "Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.  (3)  Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel--he is the God who is in Jerusalem.  (4)  And let each survivor, in whatever place he sojourns, be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem."

Nevertheless, the Bible tells us that not all the Jews returned to Jerusalem. There was only a remnant that actually returned (about 5%), and the rest of them stayed behind in Babylon. This remnant fought to reconstruct the Holy City and rebuild the Temple. However, the Holy Land was no longer completely free from foreign oppression. After the Persians, the Greek and later the Romans took control of the region.

In the year 70 AD the Roman Empire again destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the Temple. The Jewish people were expelled from the Land of Israel and were dispersed throughout the world, in what is known today as the Diaspora.

Does this mean that God has no longer anything to do with the remnant of His People, Judah (the Jews)? Did he forever forget about the House of Israel when it was dispersed and assimilated among pagan people?  In the following lessons we will see what the prophets have to say about this, and we will find there many vary revealing answers…