The Southern Kingdom

During the time of the ministries of Elijah and Elisha in the northern kingdom, in the south were Asa and Jehoshaphat and both were good kings who followed the Lord. It is during their reign and the reigns of Jehoram and Ahaziah that Obadiah prophesies. Obadiah basically brings judgment and announces that Edom on the southern border of Israel will go under judgment. This was about two centuries before it was fulfilled. The book of Obadiah was written during the time of Jehoram, as is Joel. During this time there was continuing apostasy in the north and God raises up prophets in order to warn them of divine judgment. God uses two nations during this period to discipline Israel. The first nation was the Aramaens to the north east of Israel, and the second nation is the Assyrian empire. The Aramaens began as rivals and later became masters. They had various victories over Israel and eventually reduce it to a very small section just around Samaria until God sends a deliverer, Ben-hadad the son of Hazael, 2 Kings 13:25. For a while there is a brief pause in the discipline on the northern kingdom. But Assyria is gaining in strength and there is an ominous cloud on the Horizon and everybody knows that eventually this storm is going to come their way. By 740 the Assyrian empire began to move to the west. The northern kingdom was eventually destroyed in 722.

During this time God raises up prophets such as Jonah, Amos and Hosea. Jonah was a popular prophet in the north because this just precedes the reign of Jeroboam II. According to 2 Kings 14:25 Jonah was prophesying that there would be tremendous prosperity in the northern kingdom. This was God’s grace before judgment. Then Jonah is told to go to Nineveh in order to warn them of impending divine judgment. The thing about Jonah was that he was an intense patriot and he realizes the threat of the Assyrians so the last thing he wants to do is go to the enemy to warn them. He would rather just go back and let God wipe them out. Jonah was used to preserve the Assyrians so they in turn could judge the northern kingdom. How Jonah fits into the overall scheme is that Israel is a blessing, as God told Abraham. We see a similar theme in Amos which shows a similar concern for the Gentiles and throughout the Old Testament thousands and thousands were saved as a result of Israel’s witness.

The six good kings in Judah: Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joash, Uzziah, Hezekiah and Josiah. Joash reigned in the south just after Ahab and Jehoram in the north. What happened for background is that Jehoshaphat entered into an alliance with Ahab and in order to seal that alliance his son Jehoram marry the daughter of Jezebel. Athalia’s agenda is to introduce Baal worship into the south and completely do away with all worship of Yahweh, and is almost successful. Jehoram is a wicked king and goes along with all of her policies. He was so wicked that when he became king he feared that there would be a coup led by his brothers so he had all of them executed. Remember this is the Davidic line. God had promised David that there never would be a time when he did not have a son on the throne, so the light begins to flicker a little bit here because there is only one left in the Davidic line now: Jehoram a Baal worshipper. He has a bloody and violent reign and is assassinated and succeeded by his son Ahaziah who is in turn killed in the battle of Ramoth-Gilead. Ahaziah doesn’t last long and the only person left in the monarchy who can reign is Athaliah. She decides this is her opportunity so she is going to wipe out every child in the king’s harem. She wipes out all the children in the line, but Jehoram had a daughter who was married to the high priest at the time. The infant Joash was hidden in the temple and raised by the high priest. He is eventually going to stage a coup when he is six years of age. He has been taught the Word of God and the Mosaic law, and by this time nobody else even knows what the Mosaic law consists of because all the copies had been destroyed except for one or two left in the temple. But there was no return to the Word. Even under Joash there is still not going to be the Word of God in the land. That won’t happen until Josiah. Under Joash and Josiah are two of the great revivals that take place in the southern kingdom during their history. One of the things that marks a true and genuine revival is not a lot of emotional, enthusiastic excitement and all of the other stuff, but that it is marked by the clear and concise teaching of the Word of God and people’s response to that teaching. It shows in their changed lifestyle. The sad thing about the story of Joash is that once his mentor dies, when Joash is in his twenties, he assimilates to the paganism in the country. What happens with these kings is they return the state religious emphasis back to the Mosaic law and the Mosaic emphasis, but the heart of the people does not go back to the Lord. Because of that they are eventually going to go out under divine discipline.

It is under Uzziah’s reign that Isaiah has most of his ministry. Isaiah is pronouncing judgment upon the southern kingdom, warning them that because of their idolatrous heart, because they have basically rejected God at the popular level, they will continue to come under divine discipline. The dates for Isaiah are roughly 750-680 BC. He operates from Uzziah to Hezekiah’s reign, but is primarily under Hezekiah. 2 Kings 18:5 ^NASB “He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor {among those} who were before him. [6] For he clung to the LORD; he did not depart from following Him, but kept His commandments, which the LORD had commanded Moses. [7] And the LORD was with him; wherever he went he prospered…” So Hezekiah was the greatest of all of the southern kings.

Isaiah is one of the great prophecies of the Old Testament and it is divided into three sections. The first section covers 35 chapters. This deals with the Assyrian background. Isaiah begins his ministry about 732 just prior to the destruction of the northern kingdom and he warns that Assyria will come all the way to the door of Jerusalem but they will not be able to take Jerusalem. The Assyrians come right to the gates of Jerusalem and then God wipes out the entire Syrian army. So the first 35 chapters deals with the Assyrian background. The second section chapters 36-39 is going to also deal in part (36 & 37) with the Assyrian invasion, and then the Babylonian invasion (38 & 39). Book three is predictive period which predicts that the Jews would go into captivity in Babylon and it focuses on the redemptive solution that God will send through the suffering servant.

From this point on (the northern kingdom goes out under divine discipline in 722) we come to Judah alone—722-586 BC. There is Hezekiah and then he is followed by Manasseh, his son, who reigned for 45 years. He was the most evil and wicked of all the kings. He undid everything that his father did and did more evil than the nations the Lord destroyed. But eventually God’s grace gets even Manasseh, and at the end of his reign Manasseh gives us an example of what repentance really means. He changes his mind and he turns back to the Lord. 2 Chronicles 33:12 ^NASB “When he was in distress, he entreated the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. [13] When he prayed to Him, He was moved by his entreaty and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD {was} God.”

The key: 2 Chronicles 33:15 ^NASB “He also removed the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, as well as all the altars which he had built on the mountain of the house of the LORD and in Jerusalem, and he threw {them} outside the city.” This is what true repentance looks like. It is not emotional, it is not feeling sorry for your sins; it is recognizing the truth and changing the way you do things on the basis of the truth. The problem is that a true revival can’t be instituted from the top down, it has to come from the bottom up and the people still have their allegiance to all of the idols. 2 Chronicles 33:17 ^NASB “Nevertheless the people still sacrificed in the high places, {although} only to the LORD their God.” That is, they continued to assimilate. It was like going to a place of pagan worship and calling Yahweh. Like many people today they wanted to believe that everything was true.

During this time was the prophecy of Nahum. It fits in at the end of Manasseh’s reign. Then there is one last sign of grace before the final judgment on the southern kingdom: the rise of Josiah. He leads the people in a true reform movement. They discover the law in the temple, rebuild the temple; yet it doesn’t have any effect on the nation as a whole because the people are still rejecting the Lord. Then there were the kings Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim (also called Coniah)—Coniah was so wicked that God announced a curse on his line: that His line would be cut off from the throne of Judah. Things come to a rapid close by 586. The last 100-year period into three sections: Manasseh and Amon from 687-640, then the period of Josiah, and then all of Josiah’s sons do evil and just lead the people into worse and worse examples of idolatry.

In reading the prophets, right through the Minor prophets, we can’t understand what is going on if we don’t have some understanding of the background of the history that is taking place. This is because they are grounded in what God is doing historically in the life of Israel. What is interesting to observe in this is that all of the things that happen in terms of the rise and the decline of power in the nations that surround Israel, e.g. the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Aramaens, the Egyptians. Their fortunes, whether they increase in power or decline in power, is directly related to what is happening spiritually in Israel. The point there is that the believer throughout history determines the course of history, because God is either going to be blessing or cursing in relationship to positive volition. When Israel was positive these nations went into decline. As goes the believer so goes the client nation, whether it is the covenant nation of Israel or client nations in the church age.

Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet because of his tremendous concern and compassion for the southern kingdom. He warned them but the people rejected him. The book of Lamentations is Jeremiah’s lament over the fall of Jerusalem. Jeremiah 3:10 ^NASB “Yet in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in deception,” declares the LORD.” In spite of the judgment of the northern kingdom, in spite of all the things that God did and all the prophets He sent. This is what happened after Manasseh; they didn’t return with all of their heart. They just had ritual without reality, and this was really the beginning of the whole Pharisaical movement: outward observance of the law without a true internal change of mind towards the Lord and submission to His authority.

Jeremiah 6:16 ^NASB “Thus says the LORD, “Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is [the path of doctrine], and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk {in it.}’ [17] And I set watchmen over you [the prophets], {saying,} ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not listen.’[18] Therefore hear, O nations, And know, O congregation, what is among them. [19] Hear, O earth: behold, I am bringing disaster on this people, The fruit of their plans, Because they have not listened to My words, And as for My law, they have rejected it also. [20] For what purpose does frankincense come to Me from Sheba And the sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable And your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me.” Ritual without reality is meaningless.

By the end of Josiah’s reign Jehoahaz comes to the throne. He does evil, he shifts his foreign policy, and it is at this time that Assyria is taken out in judgment. The interesting thing is that God will raise up a nation like Assyria, send Jonah to that nation to preach the gospel, they turn to the Lord, but they eventually become negative. God uses them to discipline the northern kingdom but in the process they become anti-Semitic. God is going to curse those who curse Israel (Genesis 12:3) and He takes out Assyria under divine discipline and replaces them with Babylon.

Now Judah is surrounded by Egypt to the south and Babylon to the east, and from 612 to 605 we see Egypt trying to take control of Judah, There are two or three battles with Nebuchadnezzar and Nebuchadnezzar finally defeats the Egyptians at the battle of Carchemish. The Babylonians rise up under Nabopolassar, they defeat the Assyrians, and his son Nebuchadnezzar is one of the greatest monarchs of all time and is the one who eventually invades Judah three times—605, 598 and finally in 586 when he completely destroys the southern kingdom. It was in 605 that he took the first group of captives back to Babylon, among them Daniel and his three friends. The nation eventually goes out in defeat, the last two kings are hauled off into captivity, and Jeremiah goes with one branch of captives to Egypt. So there is an Egyptian group of Jews. Another group is taken out to Babylon and the lower classes, the unskilled classes are left in Judah, but nothing is happening in the land for the next seventy years. That is designed in order to fulfill all of the Sabbaths. The Sabbatical that were mandated under the Mosaic law were never fulfilled, so in order to give the land its rest God takes them out for seventy years. That is called the Babylonian captivity. At the end of that He begins to return them in 536 BC. That is the end of the exile.