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JUDAH
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JUDAH
Tribes; for sixty years there was war between them and the kings of Israel. Neither the cUsbanding of Ke- hoboam's forces by the authority of Shemaiah, nor the pillage of Jerusalem by the irresistible Shishak, served to put an end to the fraternal hostility. The victory achieved by tlie daring Abijah brought to Judah a tem- porary accession of territory. Asa appears to have en- larged it still further, and to have given so powerful a stimulus to the migration of religious Israelites to Jeru- salem that Baasha was induced to fortify Ramah with a view to checking the movement. Asa provided for the safety of his subjects from invaders by building, like Kehoboam, several fenced cities; he repelled an alarming irruption of an Ethiopian horde, he hired the armed intervention of Benhadad I, king of Damascus, against Baasha; and he discouraged idolatry and en- forced the worship of the true God by severe penal laws. (See Junge, Bella inter Judam et Israel. Tub. 1716.)
2. Resistance (generally in Alliance with Israel) to Damascus. — Hanani's remonstrance (2 Chron. xvi, 7) prepares'us for the reversal by Jehoshaphat of the pol- icy which Asa pursued towards Israel and Damascus. A close alliance sjirang up with strange rapidity be- tween Judah and Israel. For eighty years, till the time of Amaziah, there was no open war between them, and Damascus appears as their chief and common enemy, though it rose after^vards irom its overthrow to become, imder Rezin, the ally of Pekah against Ahaz. Jehosh- aphat, active and prosperous, repelled nomad invaders from the desert, curbed the aggressive spirit of his nearer neighbors, and made his influence felt even among the Philistines and Arabians. A still more last- ing benefit was conferred on his kingdom by his perse- vering efforts for the religious instruction of the people and the regular administration of justice. The reign of Jehiiram, the husband of Athaliah, a time of blood- shed, idolatry, and disaster, was cut short by disease. Ahaziah was slain by Jehu. Athaliah, the grand- daughter of a Tyrian king, usurped the blood-stained throne of David, till the followers of the ancient relig- ion put her to death, and crowned Jehoash, the surviv- ing scion of the royal house. His preserver, the high- priest, acquired prominent personal influence for a time ; but the king fell into idolatry, and failing to withstand the power of SjTia, was murdered by his own officers. The vigorous Amaziah, flushed with the victory of Edom, provoked a war with his more powerful contem- porary Jehoash, the conqueror of the Syrians, and Je- rusalem was entered and plundered by the Israelites. But their energies were sufficiently occupied in the task of completing the subjugation of Damascus. Under Uzziali and Jotham, Judah long enjo3-ed political and religious prosperity till the wanton Ahaz, surrounded by united enemies, with whom he was unable to cope, be- came in an evil hour the tributary and vassal of Tig- lath-Pileser.
3, Deference, perhcips Vassalage, to the A ssi/7-ian King. — Already in the fatal grasp of AssjTia, Judali was yet sjwred for a checkered existence of almost another century and a half after the termination of the kingdom of Israel. The effect of the repulse of Sennacherit), of
. the signal religious revivals under Hezekiah and Josiah, and of the extension of these kings' salutary influence over the long-severed territory of Israel, was apparently done away by the ignominious reign of the impious Manasseh, and the lingering decay of the whole people under the four feeble descendants'of Josiah. Provoked by their treachery and imbecility, their Babylonian mas- ter, who had meanwhile succeeded to the dominion of the Assyrians, drained, in successive deportations, all the strengtli of the kingdom. The consummation of the ruin came ujion them in the destruction of the Temple I)y the hand of Nebuzaradan, amid the wailing of prophets and
' the taunts of heathen tribes released at length from the yoke of David.
YI. Moral State. — The national life of the Hebrews appeared to become gradually weaker during these suc-
cessive stages of history, until at length it seemed ex- tinct; but there was still, as there had been all along, a spiritual life hidden within the body. It was a time of hopeless darkness to all but those Jews who had strong faith in God, with a clear and steady insight into the ways of Providence as interpreted by prophecy. The time of the division of the kingdoms was the golden age of prophecy. In each kingdom the prophetical office was subject to peculiar modifications which were re- (ptired in Judah by the circumstances of the priesthood, in Israel by the existence of the house of Baal and the altar in Bethel. If, under the shadow of the Temple, there was a dcjith and a grasp elswherc unequalled, in the views of Isaiah and the prophets of Judah; if their writings touched and elevated the hearts of thinking men in studious retirement in the silent night-watches, there was also, in the few burning words and energetic deeds of the prophets of Israel, a power to tame a law- less multitude and to check the high-handed tyranny and idolatry of kings. The organization and moral in- fluence of the priesthood wore matured in the time of David ; from about that time to the building of the second Temple the influence of the proi)hcts rose and became predominant. Some historians have suspected that after the reign of Athaliah, the priesthood gradu- ally acquired and retained excessive and unconstitu- tional power in Judah. The recorded facts scarcelj"^ sus- tain the conjecture. Had it been so, the effect of such power would have been manifest in the exorbitant wealth and luxury of the priests, and in the constant and cruel enforcement of penal laws, like those of Asa, against irreligion. But the peculiar offences of the priesthood, as witnessed in the prophetic writings, were of another kind. Ignorance of God's word, neglect of the instruction of the laity, untruthfulness, and partial judgments, are the offences specially imputed to them, just such as might be looked for where the priesthood is a hereditary caste and irresponsible, but neither am- bitious nor powerful. When the priest either, as was the case in Israel, abandoned the land, or, as in Judah, ceased to be really a teacher, ceased from spiritual com- munion with God, ceased from living sympathy with man, and became the mere image of an intercessor, a mechanical performer of ceremonial duties little under- stood or heeded by himself, then the prophet was raised up to supph' some of his deficiencies, and to exercise his functions so far as was necessary. Whilst the priests sink into obscurity and almost disappear, except from the genealogical tables, the prophets come forward ap- pealing everv'where to the conscience of individualt — in Israel as wonder-workers, calling together God's chosen few out of an idolatrous nation, and in Judah as teach- ers and seers, supporting and purifying all that remain- ed of ancient piety, explaining each mysterious dispen- sation of God as it was unfolded, and promulgating his gracious spiritual promises in all their extent. The part which Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other prophets took in preparing the Jews for their captivity, cannot, indeed, be fully appreciated without reviewing the succeeding efforts of Ezekiel and Daniel. But the influence which they exercised on the national mind was too important to be overlooked in a sketch, however brief, of the his- tory of the kingdom of Judah. See Prophet.