The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 38

balance was on that side. It lost seriously in prestige e.ncl population, but it gained in compactness. It bad the incalculable advantage of preserving the true religion. It poss~ssed the temple, and (thanks to the wicked and shortsighted policy of Jeroboam) it possessed the sympathy and support both of the hierarchy and of the prophets. J eroboa.m's idolatrous sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan clrove all the priests and Levites to Juclah, and threw the prophets into irreconcilable opposition: and although the southern kingdom remained by no means free from the abomina- tions of idolatry, still these existed side by side with the worship of Jehovah, and not (a.sin the northern kingdom) in place of it Of the prophets whose writings have been preserved, only three seem to have ministered in the northern kingdom -Jonah, Hosea:, and Amos; anU of these Amos was a native of Judah. These advantages and disadvantages on the one side and on the other existed from the first ; others showed themselves in the course of time. In the kingdom of Judah the crown remained in one family, the house of David, which possessed the enormous prestige of the promise of the Messiah. In Israel, on the contrary, a. dynasty never lasted for more than a few generations, and a new dynasty was generally introduced by a bloody revolution. Thus in the two centuries ancl a half, during which the kingdom of Israel lasted, it had nineteen kings, while .Judah in the same period had only twelve. 'fhis of course was the result of the violent deaths which generally marked a change of dynasty in Israel. Israel in this respect sunk to the level of ordinary Oriental kingdoms, while the permanence of the house of David was probably absolutely unparalleled, and was therefore perpetual evidence of God's blessing. We have seen that the period of the Judges is summed up in the statement that " in those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in bis own eyes" (Judges xvii 6). Similarly the history of the kingdom of Israel may almost be summed up in one simple and typical narrative; " the people that followed Om1i prevailed against the people that followed Tibni : so Tibni died, and Omri reigned." Might is right, and the weakest goes to the wall ; but the mere change of names in the rivals adds nothing to the interest or instructiveness of the history. It is a dreary round of tyranny over- turned by violence and succeeded by tyranny again. Along with this contrast a.s regards the stability of the reigning house a contrast soon showed itself between the indiviclual sovereigns in each ki'lgdom. •Israel produced e. few kings who deserve to be ea.lied successful rulers, e.g., Jehu anu his descendant Jeroboam II., but not one who was morally even respectable. Jehu's "zeal for the Lord" was apparently sheer hypocrisy: he put down Baa.1-worship because political capital might be made out of such nn auto-da-fe, while he reta.ined the worship of the calves because it appeared to be politically expedient to do so. In Judah, on the other hand, although there was abundance of idolatry aud other wickeuness among the kings, anu although Solomon's erections on the Mount ol Olives to Chemosh and Moloch remained, and probably were used, for four centuries, yet upright and even holy kings were not wanting, some of whom can-ied out very thorough reform~, e.g., Asa, J ehoshapliat, J otham, Hezekiah, anu Josiah. After a consideration of all these differences between the two kingdoms, anu others might be adfled (e.g., :fixeuness of the capital on one side, and clrnnge on the other; subordination of the army in the one case, insuboruination in the other), we are prepared for the final result-that the kingdom of Judah laste(l for 130 years longer than that of Ismel, and that its punishment wns limited in clmution, whereas t.hat of Israel continues to this ile.y. No do~bt a con1iider11ble number of the c11ptives xl.iv INTRODUCTION ro '1'1-IE lUSTbRICAL BOORS: