It is not easy for a child of our modern times to get a clear idea of such a situation.If his parents (for one reason or another)do not like their minister,they quietly go to another church,and do not feel conscious of having committed a sin.But an Israelite of the tenth century was as faithful a servant of Jehovah as his Judaean contemporaries.He rejected the idea of his being a “heretic”as a citizen of our country would reject the idea of his being a political outcast because he had not voted the same ticket as the majority of his neighbours and fellow townsmen.He wanted to keep in contact with the Temple.But the Temple stood in Jerusalem,and Jerusalem was the capital of a rival and hostile country.Much against his will he was forced to establish a few holy places of his own.
That,however,did not improve matters.
On the contrary,it made things worse.It put him into the same uncomfortable position as those Europeans of the fourteenth century who dared to elect a pope of their own in competition with the recognised head of the Church,who was supposed to reside in Rome.
We are sorry to have dragged so many historical explanations into this Chapter.That,however,is the only way in which we can hope to give our readers a clear picture of the complicated and unfortunate relations between Israel and Judah.
Israel enjoyed all the worldly advantages.
Judah maintained her one great religious advantage,and in the end it was Judah which proved the stronger of the two.
And now we must give a very brief account of the political developments in the two kingdoms from the time of the division until the era of exile.
The quarrel between Israel and Judah was rudely interrupted by an invasion from the east.Shishak,an Asiatic adventurer,who had made himself master of Egypt,and had established a new dynasty in that country,had followed the affairs of the Jewish nation with close attention.He had,as you may remember,offered his hospitality and his friendship to Jeroboam,when the latter had fled before the anger of Solomon,and he had encouraged his guest to return to Jerusalem,and begin that revolution which had deprived the house of David of the greater part of their possessions.
Now that the tribes of the old kingdom were engaged in civil war,Shishak made the best of his opportunity.He invaded Israel,he took Jerusalem,and he allowed his soldiers to destroy the Temple.Then he marched northward,captured and destroyed one-hundred-and-thirty-three cities and villages of Israel,and returned to Egypt,loaded heavily with the plunder of the Jewish nation.
Israel recovered easily,but Judah suffered an almost irreparable loss.The wealth of the country had been carried away.The Temple was rebuilt,but the exhausted treasury did not allow a display of the former luxury.Iron and bronze took the place of gold and silver.The old splendour was gone.There were no more visits from the curious Queen of Sheba.
Shortly after this last invasion,Jeroboam died,and was succeeded by his son Nadab.
This young man did what so many of his wise predecessors had done.He went to war with the Philistines.
When the town of Gibbethon refused to surrender to him,he laid siege to the city.Before he had made any impression upon this stronghold,he was murdered by Baasha,of the tribe of Issachar,who seems to have been one of his own generals.
Baasha then made himself King of Israel,killed all the relatives of Nadab,and went to live in Tirzah.
He continued the siege of Gibbethon,but in addition,he declared war upon Judah.
There Rehoboam had died,and had been followed by Abijam.Abijam had ruled only three years,and upon his death had left the throne to Asa,one of his forty-two children.
Asa was a better King than any of his predecessors.He strengthened the position of the priests of the temple by destroying all foreign altars which were found within his domains.
The forty-one years of his reign,however,were not easy.First of all,he had been forced to defend his country against an attack of several Ethiopian tribes.When these had been beaten back,the war with Israel had commenced.Baasha had begun a regular blockade of Judah.He had fortified the town of Ramah which commanded the highroad from the north to the south.This meant that Judah was cut off from all communication with Damascus and Phoenicia.
Asa,who feared that his country would be strangled to death by the economic policy of Israel,looked for help.He sent a diplomatic mission to the court of Benhadad,the King of Aram (often called Syria)who ruled in the plain which stretches from the mountains of Lebanon to the banks of the River Euphrates.
The Jews offered the Aramean monarch a large bribe if he would attack their Israelite kinsmen in the rear.
Benhadad was agreeable to this plan.
It was true that he had just concluded a treaty of friendship with Baasha,but in those days,people did not take treaties very seriously.
Benhadad gathered his armies,left Damascus (his capital),and marched southward.
He captured the northern fortress of Dan and conquered all the Israelite lands as far as the Sea of Galilee.Baasha was forced to sue for peace.Judah was saved and the road to Damascus was open to the Judaean trade once more.
Asa no doubt had done what seemed to be best for his own country.But he and all the people who came after him lived to regret the day when they had first dragged a foreigner into their domestic quarrels.From that time on,whenever the potentates of the east were hard up for money,they let themselves be “invited”to come to the assistance of either Israel or Judah and plundered the countries individually or collectively to reimburse themselves for the expense of their “Relief Expedition.”
As for Baasha,he ruled twenty-nine years and spent most of that time fighting with the Prophet Jehu.
The continued worship of heathen idols was the cause of this dispute.