But we've got a lot to discuss. This is a very difficult lecture for a number of reasons precisely because well This is the moment in which the northern and the southern kingdoms are going to be utterly destroyed So you might want to grab a glass of wine because it's it's some pretty depressing stuff How far Israel has fallen from God's grace because of their own sins and there is a lot that we can learn as well from these choices So just to begin here, let's just do a recap on what we've done before right? My methodology was to spend the last two lectures focusing first on the northern kingdom Why they split we look at the northern kingdom and all them there are various highlights of what happened leading up to the exile But we didn't discuss the exile then we did spent a lecture doing the same thing for the southern kingdom all the highlights the main points leading up to their exile It didn't discuss it And so now we're gonna bring it all together and first look at the exile the northern kingdom in our notes It then will go to the southern kingdom and then wrap it all together and learn some important valuable lessons So looking at the northern kingdom by way of super quick review If you remember Jeroboam was the first king of the north after Solomon died Jeroboam was given ten tribes only Judah and Benjamin were not part and were not included in his kingdom and right off the bat Immediately he introduces this worship of the two golden calves and Dan and Bethel and not just the golden calves He basically created his own religion his own quote unquote church his own calendar priests feast day his sacrificial system all of it He just created this whole new thing from his heart Which is a pretty bad sign that his heart is completely turned away from God here and every single king after him in the northern kingdom persisted In what's called the sin of Jeroboam this idolatry this reversal of the Exodus They're going back to their Egyptian roots and it's a whole echo of the golden calf scenario back in Exodus chapter 32 Okay, so that was atrocious These sins were grievous in of themselves Kings after them even introduced more sins like a haban Jezebel this famous couple of the northern kingdom You might remember this they were the worst kings of the north and they made worship of ball pretty much state sponsored idolatry state Funded idolatry on top of the golden calves They funded all the prophets the false prophets of all it was pretty dismal And so the rampant idolatry and immorality and violence and abuse and rebellion and sin continued and piled on higher and higher Despite the fact that God and his patience called for repentance for 200 years northern kingdom lasted from 930 to 722 BC So for 200 years God patiently called him to repentance he sent prophets to them famously Elijah and Alicia We did just a couple of highlights on those two prophets and of course our others we have the books of Amos and Hosea But God constantly said just repent turn back to me I will forgive you of your sins But they never did and that now brings us to the account of their exile now This account of the exile it really begins in second Kings chapter 15 because there are two moments of exile for the north The first wave of exile for the northern kingdom happened in the year 732 BC So the northern kingdom here had been in a lot of Difficulties with with Assyria and we find in chapter 15 verse 29 It says in the days of pakah king of Israel Tigleth Paleser king of Assyria came and captured basically a bunch of areas and territories and cities in the Northern districts of the kingdom But a couple of these are very familiar Galilee the land of naphthalae and elsewhere talks about zebulan So these territories and these tribes zeph the zebulan naphthalae in the whole region of Galilee This was conquered and defeated and plundered first Okay, so many of the top classes of peoples the educated the aristocracy They are exiled from the land here and only the region so these northern territories of the northern kingdom They're plundered they're defeated many of the top classes are exiled But you have to keep in mind farther down south where the capital city of Samaria was that was left standing It only stands for another 10 more years one more decade But the king of Assyria did not go as far south as Samaria and capture it All right, just basically defeated and plundered it Assyria is in charge make no mistake about it But they only plundered these top northern areas, okay? All right now This is really really important because this is the first tribes to have fallen into conquest And these are the first tribes of all 12 tribes really that have been carried off into exile And so this is a very very dark period the beginning of a very dark period of exile for the Israelites And the prophets are going to talk about how God will bring them back This is going to be a recurring theme this entire lecture and even next lecture as well God will bring them back He will restore them He will bring them into his kingdom once again and there's this great verse in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 1 and following That's going to be very very pivotal even for the time of Christ I'm going to make that connection for you right now But Isaiah chapter 9 verse 1 says there will be no gloom for her that was in English for in the former time He brought into contempt the land of Zeduin and the land of naphthole That's precisely this moment 732 we're talking about here when Assyria conquered these northern territories and these tribes And it says in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea the land beyond the Jordan Galilee of the nations The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light those who dwell in a land of deep darkness on them a light has shine And it goes on to talk about this beautiful passage of light shining on the darkness And it's the greater context is incredible because it talks to us the famous lines of verse 6 for to us a child is born to us Asun has given and it goes on his name Wonderful counselor mighty God everlasting father prince of peace etc one of the most beautiful prophecies But it's talking about how this child that's who's born to us will be light to these dark places zeduin after the Galilee Why are they in darkness?
Well because they were conquered they were conquered and yet God wants to bring them back to himself And so if you notice when you're reading the gospels like in Matthew chapter 4 for example after he is baptized after he goes into The wilderness to be tempted by Satan he begins his public ministry at that point And then it says in Matthew chapter 4 verse 12 now when he had heard that John had been arrested He was drew in a Galilee and leading Nazareth He went into a Capronian by the sea in the territory of Zebulun and naphthole That was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled and then he quotes Matthew quotes this exact passage from Isaiah 9 I just read to you the land of Zebulun the land of naphthole toward the sea across the Jordan Galilee of the Gentiles the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light and for those who sat in the region shadow of death a Light has dawn so what are the connections being made here? Well, Matthew was saying Jesus is fulfilling Isaiah chapter 9 and he is the light the light of the world that will go into the territory of Galilee's Evelyn and afterly to bring light to these these tribes that have been conquered And so it's very significant because he has Jesus brings light to the darkness But what's also very interesting is if he's ever wondered why does Jesus begin his ministry there up in Galilee up there in the north? Why wouldn't he start in Jerusalem Jerusalem's a capital city? That makes a lot of sense Well, the reason is because Jesus begins the restoration of the 12 tribes Precisely in the same area where the deportation of the 12 tribes began All right, so right where the deportation the exile the beginning of the end takes place for the 12 tribes and the conquest and the exile Right there in those northern territories That's where Jesus begins to reverse it all and so call everyone back to him and bring bring light to their darkness So it's a very important point even the geography my friends is extremely extremely important Okay, so all of this happens Let's go back to second Kings now all of this happens in the year 732 BC And as I said, Samaria was left standing for just a little while until ultimately 10 years later in 722 A Syria comes in and definitively destroys the rest of the kingdom and Samaria Okay, so Hosea we're gonna skip ahead to chapter 17 now second Kings 17 Hosea is the last king of Israel in verse two Of course he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him Which is not saying all that much of verse three against him came a new king of Assyria Shamin Israel and his and Hosea became his vast and paid him tribute But the king of Assyria found treachery and Hosea for he had sent messengers to sow king of Egypt and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria As he had done year by year Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison Then the king invaded all the land and came to Samaria and for three years he besieged it in the ninth year Hosea The king of Assyria captured Samaria He carried Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in all these various territories in the land of the meats Okay, so what's going on here is in 722 Hosea says I'm no longer paying tribute to Assyria I want to be autonomous I want to be independent and Hosea tries to make ironically an alliance with Egypt Now this whole thing fails the scheming falls completely apart Assyria is the new superpower It's very very strong as Egypt can't do anything to really assist the north of the northern kingdom And so Assyria comes in and just wipes it all out comes into Samaria Conquers the city destroys it and all the various adjacent territories I'm not calling them zip codes You know the various zip codes that are right around the territory of the region of Samaria And they were very thoroughly brutal about this They wanted to make sure that nobody would rise up again after they conquered these people So what did Assyria do?
They would kill many of the population Certainly many of the men who served as soldiers and destroy all of them killed them You're going to exile anybody from their democratic, educated or talented classes Alright, so anybody of worth who could contribute to society You're going to take them back to your your region of Assyria You're going to use those talents and also you want to try to prevent any uprising So you exile them and you leave only the poorest of the poor on the land To kill the land to be farmers to be shepherds and things like that So this is called selective deportation Deporting the very best, leaving the very poor in order to try to prevent any kind of uprising And that wasn't it they were much more thorough than this To further destroy any other sense of cultural or political religious identity of the people I mean you want to really strike them in the heart Not just kill them and then maybe they'll uprise again But you want to prevent any kind of uprising To select that deportation was just the first step The next step is to import other conquered nations into the region of Samaria So that way they would all intermarry with one another You would lose your sense of cultural identity but also your religious identity Because if you import these various other nations The poorest of the poor that were left behind of these 12 tribes Specifically around the area of Samaria They are now going to begin to worship these other gods of the people that haven't imported to the territory I hope that makes sense and we find this very very clearly laid out for us in chapter 17 verse 24 So the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kutha, Ava, Hamath And stuff are very even placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the sons of Israel And it took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities Then it goes on verse 29 But every nation stomated gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places Which the Samaritans had made Every nation in the cities which they had dwelt Then then of Babylon made all these same five cities brought their gods To the territory of Samaria They burnt their children to the fire They also feared the Lord and appointed from among themselves All sorts of people as priests to the high places Who sacrificed for them in the shrines the high places And so they feared the Lord but they also feared their own gods After the manner of the nations from whom they had been carried away And to this day they do according to the form of matter So what's going on here is they're blending the religions It's kind of polytheistic but it's also syncretistic The Samaritans we're worshiping the one true god of Israel But it was a false worship, it wasn't a worship as Moses had required And side by side they're worshiping all these other gods So it's this whole medley of worship of Yahweh and these other gods The five nations that were brought in completely polluting their religious identity And of course breaking the first commandment, okay Alright so that's a really important point Keep that in your mind for just a second here So Assyria brings in five different nations To intermarry with the Samaritans In order to pollute to their religious identity and spiritual identity Most of all, okay So let's make some important clarifications here in your notes in the outline So the Samaritans now are especially at this point on They're very syncretistic religion, they're worshiping Yahweh and worshiping all these other gods But by the time of Christ above Jesus in the first century A lot of that idolatry had been purged But the Samaritan religion was never the same We'll talk a lot more about the Samaritans in a couple of lectures When we look at the period before Christ But by the time of Jesus the Samaritan religion was never pure Never returned to the Mosaic ideal And as a result then the Jews of Jesus' time Not even by Jesus' time As we're going to see in the next lecture and the return from exile The Jewish people despised the Samaritans For their idolatry, for their impurity, for their corruption So there's a lot more to say on that later But this is the beginning of the Samaritan blending of their religion Okay Now the Assyrians did all of this to the region of Samaria But you have to note something They didn't import other nations into those northern territories And regions and zip codes of Galilee and Zebu and Aftali Back in the year 732 a decade prior They just squashed them and then basically let them be So this territory of Zebu and Natalie and Galilee They're pretty much the simple country folk You know the shepherds, the farmers, the fishermen You know around the Sea of Galilee But they pretty much were left to worship as they pleased And that's why in the time of Christ You have people like Peter's family And they're able to worship the one true God They go down to Jerusalem to worship in the temple But they're not as polluted as the Samaritans were Because Assyria didn't import any nations Into their territories Okay Alright, another important clarification here Is that these 10 tribes that had been conquered They're known as the 10 lost tribes from this point on Because they never returned from exile We're going to see in the next lecture how Just Judah and Benjamin with the sprinkling of the Levites They do come back from Babylon But in the north after Assyria conquers them And scatters them across the nations and imports other nations They're pretty much lost They never really come back I always think of Peter Pan the Lost Boys But they pretty much they don't They never come back And so that's why you have all these crazy theories Like with the Mormons So yeah, the lost tribes came to North America And that's the crazy connections with Mormonism They're going to have to google that on your own But they really are lost And as much as they're absorbed into the nations Where they had been exiled Okay Now the prophets will promise These 10 tribes will also be brought back Into the restored kingdom of David The restored kingdom of God by the Messiah And we'll talk about that later Because the question is How do you bring those 10 lost tribes Back into the restored renewed Upgraded heavenly kingdom of David When they're gone When they're absorbed into the nations So we'll talk about that when time comes Okay, so Excellent Now this is the situation with the North and with Samaria Before we move on to the South I want to make another connection with Jesus And the typological movement of what he's doing here With Samaria Because Jesus does want Samaria And the Samaria tends and these tribes to come back to him So I would like you to look at John chapter 4 I'm going to just summarize this quickly here Just for the sake of time But in John chapter 4 You have the very famous story of the woman at the well The Samaritan woman at the well Jesus sits down and begins to speak with her And asks for some water And she's blown away She's like how are you and you Talking to me as Samaritan And that kind of highlights the tensions Between the Jews and the Samaritans The Jews despise the Samaritans For their impure religion Okay So then Jesus begins to talk to her And at one point he says in verse 16 And following Hey, why don't you go call your husband She's like I don't have a husband He's like you're right You've had five And the one you're with now is not your husband either And she's all blown away Like oh you're a prophet Yeah, he's a prophet, all right He's a Messiah In fact, Jesus pretty much tells her Yeah, I'm a Messiah Okay, so this is really, really interesting Because there's a lot happening here at the well If you remember we've talked about this before Anytime someone goes to a well There's a love match That's about to happen You go to a well to pick up chicks You know we saw this with Moses We saw this with Isaac And it's a really beautiful thing Because the women go to collect the water So if you want to meet a woman You go to a well So Jesus here is going to a well Not to woo her He doesn't want to marry her But he wants to marry who she represents The Samaritan people Jesus is the divine royal bride room And his church His people is his bride So what he's doing is he's saying to Samaria Hey look You are going to be called into My restored church My restored kingdom I'm even reaching out to you here And all the symbolism of the well And all this stuff is very important But it's even more significant in the fact that she has She has had five men Five husbands who are not really her husband I told you a moment ago Think back How many nations Did the Assyrians import into the territory of Samaria? That's it five So Samaria Basically has five quote unquote husbands Who are not really her husband And the gods that Samaritans begin to worship Are not really her gods Samaria's gods And this is all being symbolized With a woman at the well She's also had five husbands Just like her people have Okay And the one that she's with now Is not yet her husband Now a lot of people will argue that scholars debate this But a lot of people will say She's with an actual person Like who's at home Waiting for her to return for water If you know what I mean right? So where are you? I want my water And that's the sixth person person But I also like the spiritual interpretation That Jesus might be simply saying here The one you're with now Like physically and this is very moment Namely me Because Jesus is saying I am the divine bridegroom I want to be your husband And not just you but your whole people So I hope you're picking up what I'm putting down here It's really a beautiful moment of Jesus Going after the Samaritan peoples Who are the descendants of these 10 tribes Okay All right, awesome Very good So that's enough then on the northern kingdom Let's look at the southern kingdom here