The lesson nine is entitled, The Exile of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. We're gonna tackle chapters 14 through 17. In the last lesson, that was entitled, Approaching Exile. And we saw the ministry of Alicia, the first spiritual, firstborn son of Elijah, and all the efforts that he made to call Israel to repent.
Well, Israel didn't repent, has spoiler alert. And so now, as the title says, they're going to be destroyed, defeated, and exiled. And it's gonna be pretty ugly, and it's pretty sad. But of course, the scriptures give us reasons for why that took place.
And it's very, very significant for us to meditate on the reasons for the exile that chapter 17 gives us. And the spiritual application and typology that helps us in our relationship with God to repent of sin. So there's a lot to say there. Now, Alicia, just make a little quick hook with our last lesson.
He died in chapter 13. And now we're continuing in chapter 14 with the continuing of the kings of the north and the kings of the south. So looking at your notes here, Romanum, we're one, we're gonna look at the northern and southern kings leading up to the Assyrian conquest. And so first we'll start with Judah.
In chapter 14, verse three, it mentions the king of Judah was Amaziah. Well, let's go to verse two. He was 25 years old and he began to reign. And he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem.
His mother's name was Jehoedin of Jerusalem. That's a good sign, by the way, that the queen mother, the Gebbirah, the great lady, is not a pagan. She is from Jerusalem. That's a good sign.
In verse three, it says, he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, yet not like David as father, he did. In all things, as Joash's father had done. But the high places were not removed. The people still sacrificed and burnt incense on the high places.
And this happens all the time. I give or take half of the kings of Judah from Solomon all the way down to the last king. Is that a kind of half of them? You could say are good, but only two of them are really good.
So they all, the good ones, I would say a B. They get a B, maybe a B minus. They don't quite go all the way. They don't get an A grade because none of them, except for two, we'll see in the next lesson, as Akai and Josiah.
None of them remove these high places. Now we've talked about high places many times. Essentially, they are places that alter shrines throughout the countryside, where sometimes Yahweh would be worshipped and usually the pagan gods of the region, the territory would be worshipped. And these kings do not eliminate those.
They just don't go quite far enough. They don't seal the deal in eliminating idolatry in the land. So these high places are called Bama. I'm actually gonna read you, I have a footnote for you.
You can go to your Catholic Bible dictionary for more on what high places are. Your ancient Catholic study Bible. But here's a quote from the study Bible, because this is what we're gonna see over and over and over again that they just don't go all the way. So here's what the high places are, quote, in the majority of cases, the term Bama, high place refers to cultic structures or shrines, traditionally called high places.
These are places where sacrifices are made and instances offered. In some instances Yahweh is worshipped at high places, however, they are usually places of idolatry. Pakened gods, such as Kimosh, Molak, and Balar, venerated there, sometimes by child sacrifice. Stone pillars and wooden ash or roll poles stand erect to the high places, and the priests to officiate are often times illegitimate, and that's especially between the north where they don't have the Levites.
For these reasons, the high places angered the Lord. Demolition to the high places is required by Deuteronomy in order to protect Israel from idolatry. The worship of Yahweh, by sacrifice and incense, was to take place exclusively at the central sanctuary of Jerusalem. So that's a little definition.
There's a little word study there in your Neuscholic study Bible. You can see what these are. It's a little bit of syncretism, polytheism, worshiping God, but usually it's worshiping all the bad stuff. And certainly, as this quote says, back in Deuteronomy 12, you're not supposed to worship God at these high places because it's going to be corrupted so easily.
You must only worship God in Jerusalem. So these kings, then, of Judah, certainly all the kings of the north worship of the high places, that is ubiquitous, and that is a pandemic of idolatry. But in the south, even the good kings just don't go all the way now. The reflected on this before, and it's really, really significant for us in our spiritual lives to give everything to God and to cut all sin out of our lives.
So we, oftentimes, can be like these kings that are good. We've got rid of the shrines and the idols in Jerusalem, metaphorically, spiritually speaking. We remove a lot of these pagan influences, but then the high places remain. That's what we do, too.
We have our pet sins. We have the attachments, the disordered attachments, two earthly goods and earthly pleasures that we just don't want to give up. So the question, then, spiritually speaking is, what are your high places? What are the things that you left in your life that you're leaving standing there?
You tend to, or you're drawn to go back to from time and time again, those things that are keeping you from the utter purge and purgation of all things, obstacles that stand in the way of your perfect relationship with God. So the kings are constantly failing in that regard, only to succeed as we're going to see as a kind of just, and that is a good spiritual reflection for us. I'll just leave that question there for you. What are your high places?
What are those things that you're leaving in your life and you're unwilling to tear down as God grays to tear down those high places for you to go all the way and get the A great, right? Now, these kings are getting Bs and not A's, but high places often we do the same thing. So just think about that. I find it really, really helpful in prayer and meditation to ask God to reveal those high places of our own and our souls to us.
All righty. So Emesai, we say, is good. He gets a B. And he goes through, as chapter 14 will say, he reclaims some territories from Edomites used to be under the authority, the dominion of King David and King Solomon, but since sin has entered into the kingdom, there's unrest in the land.
Everybody's falling away. So Emesai has this claim to fame that he goes back and fights against Edom, and he wins. Well, that gives him a little bit of overconfidence and he pridefully and arrogantly decides, I want to go fight the king of Israel, whose name was Jehoash. I'm going to go fight Jehoash and Jehoash, and Jehoash warns him, don't do this.
Just be content with your victory over Edom and let sleeping dogs lie. And of course he doesn't do it and he loses. So Jehoash from the north captures Jerusalem, destroys much of the walls around the city, and seizes the temple's treasury gold-silver precious metals and the rest of it. It was a very, very ugly defeat for Amazaya, King of Judah, to try to pick a fight with the king of Israel.
And he suffered tremendously and so did the king of Judah and the city of Naturally. So as a result down the line, he's assassinated, just like his father was. I have the reference here in your notes. Like father like son, Amazaya's father was assassinated and so too is he.
And that is the end of the story of Amazaya. Now going up to the north, Jeroboam. Now this is not the original Jeroboam, it's Jeroboam the second. He is king of Israel and he is evil, but still in his story we're going to see God has compassion on him and really the people of Israel because he is a compassionate, merciful God and he honors the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
So let's skip down to chapter 14 verse 23, which says in the 15th year of Amazaya, the king of Judah, Jeroboam, the king of Israel began to reign in Samaria and he reign for 41 years. And he did what was evil in the side of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of the bot, which he made Israel to sin. So his namesake is the original king of the north who made those two golden calves.
And I said this to you before, one of the defining characteristics of the kingdom of the north is what's called the quote unquote sin of Jeroboam, which are the two golden calves. Well, Jeroboam the second now persists in that sin, brings other sins as well into the territory, but still Jeroboam the second here now has a lot of success due to God's mercy. Let's keep reading in verse 25. He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamah as far as the sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah, the son of Amatai, the prophet who was from Gath Hephur.
For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left, bond or free, and there was none to help Israel. But the Lord had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, and so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash. What a very interesting line here that God still has compassion on Israel, that the full weight of judgment will not come upon them, not quite yet, not for another, depending on when this happens here, that 40 years give or take up until the destruction of the kingdom. Just if you look at your chart of all the kings, Jeroboam the second reign from 793 to 753.
So it's after his death, there's 30 more years left of the northern kingdom. I think that's really beautiful. God has compassion on Israel, and over and over and over again delivers Israel from foreign threats. That's the whole story, remember with Alicia.
When Alicia was on his deathbed, he helped the king of Israel through this prophetic act of making the king hit the arrows if you remember this on the ground. Many times it only ended up being three times, therefore they would have three victories over Syria. It's amazing. Time and time again, despite their sin, God has compassion.
And that's very reassuring, very affirming for me individually, where of course, when you turn away from God all the time and he has compassion on me and on all of us. So that's a really beautiful thing. There's a little interesting tidbit here about a reference to Jonah, the prophet. And you might have caught that, and that is indeed the same Jonah as the prophet Jonah, the whole Jonah and the belly of the whale, mixing the words there together, or the big fish.
It doesn't actually say a whale, it's a big old fish. That's the exact same prophet. So this is interesting how God sent Jonah at this particular point, some 30-40 years before the destruction of Israel to help the kingdom of Israel. Now Jonah is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, one of the earliest canonical prophets that we have.
And you could of course read his whole story. The story is actually interesting because if you think about it, there's some real irony here. And this makes me really excited to read the prophets in light of the history of Israel. You can't read the prophets if you don't know salvation history.
You don't spend some time looking at the actual story of what went on and the dates and the places and things, because then it doesn't really make sense and it'll come alive if you do. So Jonah, you know, really, really quickly, I'm just going to take some time to clarify this and to refresh your memory. Jonah's the same Jonah who is called to call by God to go preach repentance to Assyria, the capital of Assyria being Nineveh. And he ran away because he didn't want Nineveh to repent.
He wanted God to bring judgment and chastisement and punishment and death to the capital city of Israel's arch enemy that's growing at this time. It's in Jonah being a prophet knows that Assyria is a big power player, right? So Jonah, because he's a patriot, he runs away and that's why he gets on that ship in sales like Spain, basically. And the whole whale's official story takes place and he goes and he does preach to Nineveh, they believe, and they repent.
So it's so fascinating that right now Assyria is a growing superpower becoming Israel's arch enemy and Jonah doesn't want them to repent. They do and then some give or take 40, 45 years later, depending on how you calculate that. They come and squash Israel. You're like, Oh man, Jonah, Jonah knew what was going on.
So I find it very ironic. And this is part of the big story of Jonah that here in this history, Jonah pops up on the scene and helps Israel and that's all Jonah wants Israel to be saved. And yet Jonah goes and preaches repentance to the very nation that's going to come and utterly destroy Israel down the line. How ironic is that?
So there you have it. There's the connection with the Prophet Jonah. Now just to conclude Jeroboam here, there's a quote from your, on the bar Bible that I like and I want to share with you. It says, Jeroboam the second rained longer than any other king of the north and he extended Israel's territory further than it would ever go, reestablishing the borders that it had at the times of David and Solomon.
It was a prosperous time. So quickly here, that's significant. So Jeroboam reigns longer than any other king of the north and he reclaims and extends Israel's boundaries. That's his claim to fame.
He accomplished a lot again. Descriptures tell us because of God's compassion. All right. So it's a prosperous time.
And the quote goes on to say, the sacred writer is at pains to point out that this is due not to the conduct of the king, but to the will of God manifested by the Prophet Jonah and to God's mercy on his people who had been sorely afflicted. Jeroboam's reign was a time when God was still giving the north a chance to mend its ways and to be saved. And that's the great point of this quote. Jeroboam's reign is a time like basically a last gasp effort, a last chance to repent and turn to God.
And that's the irony again with Jonah. So Jonah is trying to help Israel and Israel ultimately doesn't repent and they're destroyed. But their enemy, Assyria and the capital of the city of Nineveh, they do repent and they became the instruments of punishment against Israel. That's a huge reversal of the Gentiles repent in our say, but the Israelites themselves do not repent and they're destroyed by those very Gentiles.
All right. So that's enough about Jeroboam the second. Now let's go to point C Azariah is also known as Uzziah, which confuses a little bit more. Azariah is the son of Amaziah, the king of Judah.
We just talked about the Amaziah just a moment ago, how he lost that battle against Israel. So his son Azariah becomes king of Judah. And he's pretty good, but it's the same refrain over and over and over again. Here we are, chapter 15, verse two.
He was 16 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 52 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jacobia of Jerusalem. So again, a good queen mother here who was actually a Jew. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all his father, Amaziah had done.
Nevertheless, here it is. What you've been expecting, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. So Azariah, AKA Uzziah, is pretty good.
He also gets a B, B minus B, however you want to grade him, give him a little bit of leniency, maybe B plus, but not really because he does have a big problem, which the next verse says. Verse five, the Lord struck the king so that he was a leper to the day of his death and he dwelt in a separate house and Jotham, his son was over the household was the al-Kaba, really, he was the co-regent during that time. So this is just one little verse here on how Azariah, AKA Uzziah, is struck with leprosy. Why?
How did that happen? Well, 2 Chronicles 26 tells us that he, in his pride, in his arrogance and hubris, usurped the duties of the Levites and went into the town. And to the temple to offer incense. And he was struck visibly by everyone.
All the priests were trying to stop him, saw his forehead be stricken with leprosy. And I think that's very significant, by the way, because the forehead, maybe the seat of pride, you can argue the heart is the seat of pride. But certainly his thinking, his head is wrong, you want to put it that way. And so God strikes his forehead with his leprosy, making him unclean to offer any sacrifice, unclean to approach the temple to do anything.
He himself is exiled and ostracized for the rest of his life. And at this point that students often ask me, why? Why did he get in trouble by offering incense in the temple? I thought, this is the question, I thought that the David king was a priest king.
And so he could offer sacrifices, such as the example of David. David offered sacrifices and was dressed as a priest and acted like a priest and blessed the people like a priest when he brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. He could go back to 2nd Samuel 6. Okay, also Solomon was acting like a priest king when he dedicated the temple.
Acting like a priest dressing like a priest being all this stuff, praying and interceding like a priest. So why is it here that Azariah is stricken with leprosy because he is doing a priestly thing in the temple by offering incense? It's a very good question that comes up. And so here's the simple answer.
Yes, the David king is a priest. He is a priest king in the order of Melchizedek. And I talked about that at length when you look at David's story in the Bible study on 1st and 2nd Samuel. He is a priest king in the order of Melchizedek.
And so he can legitimately offer sacrifices and make intercession and bless the people and so on and so forth. That having been said, he is not allowed to usurp the duties of the Levitical priesthood because the Levitical priesthood is only reserved naturally for the Levites. So if King Azariah were just simply to offer sacrifices and pray and bless the people like David and Solomon did, there would be no problem. But the moment he takes on the duties of the Levites in pride and arrogance, well therein is the problem.
That's why he's punished. The Levites have their duties and the king of Israel has his responsibilities or privileges, pre-proliges as well. And that's the answer to the question of why Azariah is punished when David and Solomon were not. Okay, so then moving on now, section D, we're going to look at the final kings of Israel.
I'm going to do this relatively quickly because we're going to come back and look at the main significant points in the context of a serious conquest. But just following the notes, I don't want your eyes to glaze over, right? I don't want you to check out and get distracted and start thinking about what you're going to make for dinner or whatever, because that usually happens to the best of us when we're reading the sequence of all these kings who have the so-and-so of another king, and their names don't really have any meaning to us because we don't have dudes by the name of Shalom and Pecan, Pecaniah and all this kind of stuff. So don't tune out.
Don't zone out. I'm going to follow the notes here. Give you the highlights of this very tumultuous period. There's utter in the northern kingdom some 30 years before the destruction of Israel.
There is utter chaos. There is coup d'etat's. There's lawlessness, violence, unrest, uprising. It's a very, very tumultuous time.
And here are the main highlights. So also many dynasties were overthrown and started very briefly. So check it out. So we just talked about Jeroboam II.
Remember how his claim to fame was that he reigned very long as to Israel and he extended Israel's borders? Okay, well his son's name is Zechariah. And he was evil and he only reigned for six long months. That's it.
Just six months. Then a dude by the name of Shalom came up, arose against him, killed Zechariah and started the sixth dynasty of the north. But he only lasted for one month. Then another dude by the name of Minnehim, arose killing Shalom, starting the seventh dynasty of the north, and that did last for a decade, for ten years.
Now really briefly I'm going to point out that under Minnehim's reign, you got the beginnings of the pressure of Assyria, not Syria, Assyria. Check out the map that provided for you at the end of these notes. You can find a map of the kingdoms at this time, pretty much almost anywhere. I found a great little map and provided that for you, very colorful.
So there's Syria, not to be confused with Assyria, the major superpower that's getting very, very strong during this time. So what happens is Assyria conquers, dominates Israel, forcing Minnehim to pay a tribute. And he got that tribute by heavily taxing the elders of Israel to pay the king of Assyria. That's the really the beginning of the end here.
As we're looking at the exile of the northern kingdom by Assyria, it's really, I mean there's this seismic activity underneath the surface, of course, right? As Assyria is getting stronger and stronger, Israel is getting weaker and weaker, but Minnehim is the first to pay tribute to the king of Assyria, and he does it by oppressing his own elders. Alrighty, so Minnehim lasts for ten years. His son, Pecaiah, reigns only for two years before another dude, 0.5, if you're following in the notes, Peca, arose up against him, starting the eighth dynasty and he reigns for 20 years.
Now Pecaiah is really important because this, and I'll come back to this in a moment. But under Peca in chapter 15 verse 25, this is the first wave of exiles that takes place by Assyria. As Assyria comes in, they're not sufficiently happy with the tribute, Israel's being very bad and naughty and not cooperating, so Assyria comes in under the kingship of Pecaiah and dominates them, and exiles a whole bunch of people. Let me just read this here really quickly for you, knowing that we're going to come back to it in just a little bit.
Chapter 15 verse 27, actually, in the fifth, in the 52nd year of Azeriah king of Judah, Pecaiah began to reign over Israel in Samaria. He reigns 20 years and he did what was evil in the side of the Lord. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, which he made Israel to sin, which are the two golden calves. And then you can highlight 29 here, that's very important.
In the days of Peca, king of Israel, Ticulth Pileser, king of Assyria, came and captured all these territories. You can read them all, there's a big old list, but notice in the list there is Galilee and the land of Nathalie, and he carried the people captive to Assyria. So I'll come back to this, but this is the first time that Assyria comes and squashes the kingdom of Israel, hauling away the first wave of captives. That is specifically in the year 732, if you want to write that down in the Bible, or have it in your notes of course you're too.
So there's Peca and Assyria comes under his leadership and squishes them, taking the first wave of exile. After him, there's another guy named Poshaya, who rose up against Peca, killing him starting the 9th and final dynasty, and he reigned for 9 years, but the majority of his reign was plagued and tormented by war with Assyria. We'll talk about that in a little bit, because really, Hoshaya is the last king of the dynasty, or the last king of Israel. Alright, so as you can see, hope you didn't tune out there, but there's a lot of unrest, like many people rising up against others and these kudatas, killing them, starting new dynasties, lasting a month, or maybe anywhere from a month to a decade.
But it goes by very, very rapidly during that time, just a couple, just two, three decades, that's it, before Assyria utterly obliterates them. Now during this time, God is sending prophets to them, as we're going to see chapter 17 that makes it very clear. God always, always, always is sending prophets and seers to call them to repent. So during this time, you have the prophets Amos and Hosea ministering to Israel in the north.
So already Jonah, we saw him pop up there in the very beginning of our lesson. Now Amos and Hosea is telling Israel to repent. And here's one little example for you that I provided from Hosea chapter 8 verse 4. It says, they made kings, talk about the northern kingdom of course, right?
They made kings, but not through me. They set up princes, but without my knowledge. With their silver and gold, they made idols for their own destruction. I have spurned your cap of Samaria.
My anger burns against them. How long will it be until they are pure in Israel? A workman made it. It is not God.
The cap of Samaria shall be broken to pieces." So this kind of highlights the fact that they're just recycling or going through kings like a revolving door. One in, one out, one in, one out, one in, one out. And they're doing it all without God's blessing in any way, shape, or form. And they're also setting up the calves of gold.
And that's going to be ultimately destroyed. So it's kind of cool to read Amos and Hosea with all of this historical background in mind. Otherwise, again, you're not going to understand what the heck Amos and Hosea are talking about. Alrighty, so we're going to come back to the destruction in just a little bit.
Let's briefly look at what's going down, what's happening down in Judah. Hey, this is Doc Nick. Thank you so much for listening to this course sample. If you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson, please become a student over at Scripture and Tradition.com where you can listen to this entire course, but also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T audio library where you can listen to them on demand, however, and whenever you want.
So thank you so much. God bless you and keep studying your Bible.