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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness Gal 5:22 |
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Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Today's Passage : Today'sPassage:Israel after Solomon (16): Assyria Annihilates the Northern Kingdom BibleVerse2 Kings 17 "In the ninth year of Hoshea [720 B.C.], the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in the cities of the Medes. And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger, and they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.” Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.” But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. None was left but the tribe of Judah only. And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. They feared the Lord but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away; so they do to this day. " Message:
We have completely bypassed 2 Kings 10-16. It is the history of the slow moral and religious deterioration of both Israel and Judah under a menagerie of kings. Judah does not do well, although the much larger and more powerful Israel fares even worse. Instead, we look at the end result for Israel today, and will then backpedal to examine its decline from a different angle: the writings of the prophets Amos and Hosea.
Amos
Amos and Jeroboam II
The great king of Israel during its final years was Jeroboam II. In his time arose a new kind of prophet, men called by the Spirit of God to speak His will and His intentions for the long-term future. The final warning to Israel of its total destruction came around 750 B.C., thirty years before the events described in today’s Scripture (the obliteration of the Kingdom of Israel by Assyria). The men who gave these warnings were recorded in the earliest prophetic books of the Bible: Amos and Hosea. So we will read selections from their books in our next installments.
People do not often read these books, because their prolonged, extreme, and repetitive invective quickly becomes tiresome. But when we understand the implications of today’s Scripture, we see the rationale for such baleful harangues.
Today’s verses record the utter destruction of the Kingdom of Israel. Ten of the twelve Hebrew tribes (the “lost tribes of Israel”) cease to exist. It initiates one of the three great traumas in 3500 years of Jewish history: the diaspora. God has reached His breaking point and has allowed most of the Hebrew nation to be dispossessed of the Promised Land, to be scattered about the world.
The Jews of the Northern Kingdom (i.e. Israel) are removed from Palestine and sent to the “cities of the Medes,” from which they will disperse throughout the world. They will never return; even when Zionism results in the resettlement of Palestine and the creation of the secular State of Israel 2400 years later, they will be “Jews”— Russians and Germans and Spaniards with a religious tradition — not Hebrews of the Tribes of Dan, Naphtali, etc.
The Assyrians resettled Palestine with a hodgepodge of foreigners, who will become the “Samaritans” of the New Testament. These Samaritans were not really a people; since they had to be called something, they took their collective name from the old capital city of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Samaria. They brought a variety of tribal gods with them — 2 Kings 17 implies five different religions. Oddly, though, because of their syncretic nature, all of them begin to worship Yahweh, as well.
The only remaining major tribe is Judah, which continues to exist intact and hold Jerusalem and the surrounding lands, along with the tiny tribe of Benjamin. Judah has two great advantages: First, the Temple, and with it a convenient way to worship Yahweh; so no matter how much idolatry is practiced at any given time, some worship of the Lord generally continues. Second, it is ruled by the blood descendant of David, God’s beloved and anointed king.
If one ever doubted the power of God, or His love of David, one need only look at a map of Assyria in those days. How on earth is Judah still standing?
Meditation : Prayer : Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. |
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