Tag Archives: Religion

Into Captivity

Posted in Israelites, Little known info, Religion by

In my last post, I discussed the origin of the Israelites and I suggested the reading of a few books of the Holy Bible to verify my post.  Indeed, I would hope you would read them, especially those who have not read them before in their entirety.

The first five books of the Bible and the book of Joshua explain the origin of the Israelites.  The books of Joshua, Kings and Chronicles explain the history as they lived in the Promised Land.

To be sure, in this post I want to concentrate on the events leading up to their going into captivity.  However, before I do this, I need to call one thing to your attention.

Shortly after the Israelites crossed over into the Promised Land, the book of Joshua records a very important event.  God called for the Israelites to chose Whom they would serve.  God called them to a pair of mountains and call out the blessings that they would receive for following God.  He also required them to call out the curses for not following God.  They had a choice and they chose to follow God.

God promised that, even if Israel strayed, if they would repent and follow the Lord, he would heal their land and bless them.  However, he told them that if they did not repent, that, among other things, He would scatter them throughout the world.

If we read Judges, and I wish you would, you will see several cases where they disobeyed God and worshiped idols.  In some respects, they were worse than those who were in the land before them.  Some of the events I find disgusting and I think most everyone would.

Yet, every time, they repented, God forgave them and He healed land and His people prospered.

It was God’s desire that Israel would be an example to the world.  He wanted us to know what will happen when a nation follows the Lord.  Unfortunately, they were often an example of a nation that did not follow the Lord.  Repeatedly He punished them and they repented.

When the nation was split into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom, Israel followed foreign gods.  Even though God frequently chastised them, it was only a matter of the degree of disobedience.  Finally, as God warned, he sent them into captivity.  The Assyrians came down and overthrew Israel and took many of them off into captivity.

Unlike Israel, Judah went through periods of obedience and periods of disobedience.  This was mostly recorded in the history of the kings of Judah.  When they had a good king, he would destroy the idols and made the people follow God.  When they had a bad king, he allowed idol worship, even to the point that he too would worship the idols.

Whenever God would chastise them, they turned from their wicked ways and He would heal their land and the people prospered.  In general, my own observation is that they could not stand the prosperity.  As they prospered, they turned from God and claimed their success was by their own hands…. Or worse, by the hand of idols.

These oscillations continued over the decades until, finally, Judah refused to repent.  When God chastised them, the people wrote it off as coincidence.  (Rather as we do today)

So God gave up on them.  He sent a prophet, Jeremiah.  Today, he is known as the weeping prophet because he was given an impossible task.  He was told to try to get the people to repent but God knew they would not and He told Jeremiah from the beginning that he would not succeed.  (I know I sort of repeated myself, but it was something worth repeating.)

Jeremiah wrote 2 books, the one bearing his name and Lamentations.  Parenthetically, lamentation means an expression of extreme grief or sorrow.  God let Jeremiah know some of what was going to happen to Judah and it caused him great sorrow.

God caused the kingdom of Babylon to rise up and attack Judah.  Through Jeremiah, He told them not to defend the city of Jerusalem.  He told them to give up.  The decision was already made and the best thing they could do was accept it.

Instead, they kept fighting to the point that they fulfilled the prophecies that they would eat their own babies and drink their own urine to survive during the siege.

Finally, about 100 years after the fall of Israel, Judah fell.

…BUT it didn’t stop there.

Another nation rose up, Persia and captured both Babylon and Assyria.  I guess God planned it that way.  Now, both Israel and Judah were under the authority of one king.

…and so it was that the entire nation of was again under one authority.  However, not all of Israel was in Persia.  Some remained in the Promised Land, those who were not taken away.  Some went south, many into Egypt.  To some degree, they were already scattered as God foretold back in the Book of Joshua.

After 70 years of captivity, fulfilling prophecy, the Israelis were allowed to return home.  In the Scriptures, the numbers returning was recorded accurately by tribe.  However, there is no recording of how many remained in Persia.  There is no way of telling where they went or how many remain to this day in Iran.

One of God’s unconditional promises was that He would greatly multiply the seed of Abraham and He did.  It is very likely that the number of Israelites doubled, tripled or greater while captive.  Many Israelites can continue to trace their history back through time.  Others have tried to hide their history.  They find it safer.

Also, during their captivity, there was some intermarriage.  The Book of Ester explicitly records the marriage of one Israeli woman to the King of Persia.  At this point the scattering of God’s people is well under way, but it has only begun.

In my next post, I will bring us up to date.  There is no way I, or anyone can completely follow where all the Israelites have gone, but I find it interesting that God, Himself, calls them Jews, all of them.  So, from this point on, so will I.  Even though Paul called himself a Jew, he was from the tribe of Benjamin.  (I don’t try to explain it.  I just take note of it.)

Who Are the Jews?

Posted in Religion, Uncategorized by

Much has been said about Jews.  However, it has become my experience that few really know anything about them.  Much of what has been said or written or said about them is either outright not true or partially false.  Moreover, the term Jew and Israelite are mistakenly used interchangeably.

Also, there charlatans, so called preachers who claim that there are millions of Jews, chosen ones, who are unaware of their blessings.

With this three part series, I intend to address both.  I will use nothing more than the Holy Scriptures that plainly address both matters.  It is all plain for all to see if they will just take the time to read it.

I base this part on the books Genesis, Joshua, I&II kings and I&II Chronicles.  You are welcome to read it for yourself.  There is nothing difficult about it.  It just takes a little time and, if you do read it, you might want to take notes.  Who knows?  You just might learn something besides what I write.  I won’t mind.  Really.

 

Prior to the great flood recorded in the Holy Bible, Noah had three sons.  Their names were Ham, Shem and Japheth.  One of the descendants of Shem was Abram, later renamed Abraham.  Abraham had 8 sons, one by Hagar and 6 by Keturah.  Isaac was his only son by Sarah and was the one who was promised by God.

To be sure, God’s promise to be the father of many nations was completely fulfilled through all the sons.  I would suspect, even a learned man of ancient history could go nuts trying to figure all the nations descended from these 8 men.

However, Isaac was the son of promise.  It was through him that God made two unconditional promises.  Isaac had two sons, twins.  One was called Jacob and the other Esau.  Later, the promises were passed on through Jacob, later renamed Israel.  Israel had 12 sons who later became known as Israelites.  Sometimes, they were known as Hebrews.

One of the sons of Israel was Judah, the father of the tribe of Judah, the Jews.  Hence, we can truly say that not all Israelites are Jews; but all Jews are Israelites.  Today, many Israelites are called Jews who are not, though they are truly Israelites.

This is not totally incorrect though.  Oddly, even God collectively calls them Jews after their return from captivity.  Don’t ask me to explain this.  I don’t know.

At any rate, they are one nation, twelve tribes as they enter the Promised Land.  As a side note, the tribe of Levi is separated out and the tribe of Joseph was split into two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh.  So, though there are still twelve tribes, though the Levites are not counted among them.  Every time God commands a census, the Levites are counted separately.  Mostly, when the tribes are listed, the Levites are not included.  They are the priestly tribe and are treated differently.

Two and ½ tribes remained on the east side of the Jordan.  At first, they remained part of the nation of Israel but gradually, they drifted away.

Also, because of the sins of Solomon, the remaining tribes on the west side of the Jordan split.  Judah, AKA the southern nation consisted primarily of the Jews, but also included Levites and some Benjaminites.  The northern nation became known as Israel.

And so things were until the captivities.  To keep this from being too long, I will cover the captivities in my next post.  By the way, the captivity is what led to all the confusion.