Isaiah began to prophesy about 10 years after Amos and followed the same theme of Israel's eminent destruction. Prophets were largely ignored, and some even killed, so the Lord had promised through Amos that at the time of destruction, Israel would long to hear from the Lord (through the prophets) but that there would be a famine in that regard. There would come a time when God would stop speaking to them and pleading for their hearts, and simply turn them over to their own sinful desires. They had so throughly assimilated the neighboring cultures into their own, that God would give them want they "wanted" and allow them to be taken as captives to Assyria. When their captivity was over, they would be scattered throughout the nations, never returning to Israel to re-establish their national identity. This was not true of Judah, who would also be judged and exiled in Babylon, but would return to Israel 150 years later to re-establish the kingdom.
You can see that the throne of Israel is beginning to be really unstable, with the assassinations of Zechariah, Shallum, and Menahem. Pekah was said to rule 20 years, which does not add up mathematically. My resource books indicated that Pekah had actually claimed the throne after Zechariah's death, establishing his headquarters in Gilead and ruling over most of the east bank territory. He and Menahem battled for control of the entire kingdom. When Menahem's own son, Pekahiah, assassinated him, Pekah made his move, quickly assembling a team of 50 men to kill Pekahiah and moving his headquarters to Samaria. When Pekah's reign is counted from the time of Zecharah's death, the twenty year reign checks out. The prophet Hosea, who ministered during this time frame, refers to Israel and "Ephraim" as being two separate kingdoms within Israel. Furthermore, the records of Tiglath-Pileser (a.k.a. Pul), who was the Assyrian king at this time, refers to two kingdoms as well, referring to Israel and "Naphtali". What is confusing to us, was plain as day to the authors of these books, which is likely why there was little time spent explaining the overlapping reigns.
Tomorrow's reading: 2 Kings 15:32-38; 16:1-9; 2 Chron. 27:1-9; 28:1-15; Micah 1-16; Isa. 7:1-25
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As I read your comments and began to put together in my mind "OK, so Israel went to Assyria and Judah to Babylon" I went to the Jewish Virtual Library and found the info below which sort of summarizes it for me. It begins by speaking about Assyria:
ReplyDelete"When they conquered Israel, they forced the ten tribes to scatter throughout their empire. . . . .these Israelites disappear from history permanently; they are called "the ten lost tribes of Israel.". . . . . The Assyrians did not settle the Israelites in one place, but scattered them in small populations all over the Middle East. When the Babylonians later conquered Judah, they, too, relocate a massive amount of the population. However, they move that population to a single location so that the Jews can set up a separate community and still retain their religion and identity. The Israelites deported by the Assyrians, however, do not live in separate communities and soon drop their Yahweh religion and their Hebrew names and identities."