History of the Israelites from David to 150..

Thursday, 12/22/16

Today we will run over the history of the Israelites from the time of David down to 150 B.C.

Now, David had promised his throne to Solomon, son of Bathsheba, even though Solomon was not a forceful man. But Adonijah, a son by another wife, was very forceful and he had raised a private army, and he had begun acting as though he were the next king.

When Bathsheba informed the dying Davis about this, David called for the priest Zadoc;  and he ordered him to immediately take Solomon to the spring of Gihon, and to there anoint him as king. Now, Zadoc knew that Adonijah would certainly kill him if he obeyed David in this, but out of reverence for David, he anointed Solomon king. And then, against all expectations, the whole nation began shouting, “Long live king Solomon,” and Adonijah had to run for his life.

After forty years of Solomon’s reign the crown went to his son Rehoboam; but he behaved so badly that ten of the twelve tribes broke away, forming the Kingdom of Israel that was swallowed by he Assyrians in 722 B.C.. The remaining two tribes were left as the Kingdom of Judah that was guided first by Isaiah, then by Jeremiah.

The people of the Kingdom of Judah ignored the warnings of Isaiah and Jeremiah, so for seventy years from 600 to 530 they were imprisoned in Babylon.

In 530   King Cyrus II of Persia freed the people of Judah, sending them back to rebuild the Temple and Jerusalem. They dedicated that temple in 515, but afterwards they fell into bad ways. In 450 the king of Persia sent two noble Jews, Ezra and Nehemiah, to Jerusalem to decide on a way for straightening out the people. What they recommended was that Jerusalem should take the Law of Moses as their present Civil Law.

The people went along with that. But, since the Law of Moses was so ancient, they proposed taking amendments to bring it up to date. The proposal was accepted, and three amendments were added. First, they had to give the temple a third of a shekel each year. Second, they could not marry foreigners; and third, they would not buy food brought into the city on the Sabbath.

That was fine, but then they took to adding so many amendments that no one could keep them all.

Now, for eight hundred years the Jews had honored the heroism of Zadoc by allowing only one of his direct descendants to be High Priest. Then in 150 B.C. the only living descendant of Zadoc was a complete idiot, so the leaders chose the brother of the deceased of Judas Maccabeus to be High Priest, but the ultra conservative Jews would not accept him.