Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [92]
A crucial moment in biblical history occurred in 621 BCE, during the reign of King Josiah, Manasseh’s grandson, who had taken the throne at age eight, and was presented in the biblical accounts as the ideal king who ruled for thirty-one years. A scroll, perhaps hidden in a money box or in some rubbish about to be removed form the Temple, was discovered by a priest. When he read the scroll, Josiah tore his clothes in anguish because he knew how far the people had fallen from God. He began a vigorous reform movement in which all objects of foreign worship, like altars and idols, were removed from Jerusalem.
This “Book of the Law” found in Josiah’s time is generally thought to be an early version of Deuteronomy, a Torah book that places special emphasis on removing any trace of idolatry from the worship of God. For the first time since the time of the judges, before the rise of the monarchy in Israel, the Passover was properly celebrated. There is a discrepancy between the Kings account in Chronicles, which states that King Josiah began his reforms before the “Book of the Law” was found. This is typical of the contradictions between the versions of the “history” of Israel and Judah presented in Kings and Chronicles (see 1 and 2 Chronicles, page 207).
With Assyria’s power in decline, Josiah hoped to reunite Judah with the remnant of Israel in the north, restoring the nation as one, as well as continue his major religious reforms. But Josiah’s vision of a reunited Israel loyal to God’s law died with him in 609 BCE when he was killed in battle at Megiddo against Egypt’s Pharaoh Necho II, and Judah became an Egyptian territory.
By that time, a new regional power was emerging from a collection of tribal groups known as the Chaldeans (also called “Neo-Babylonians” to distinguish them from earlier Babylonians). They conquered Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, and defeated the Assyrians in 612 BCE and the Egyptians in 605 BCE. Their first great king was Nabopolassar, and it was this empire, based in a revived and rebuilt Babylon, that would finally bring about the fall of Jerusalem.
RULERS OF THE CHALDEANS (NEO-BABYLONIANS)
(All dates are approximate and BCE)
Nabopolassar
625-605
Nabu-kuduri-usur II
605-562 (Also called Nebuchadrezzar or Nebuchadnezzar)
Amel-Marduk
561-560 (Evil-Merodach)
Nergal-shar-usur
559-556 (Neriglissar)
Labashi-Marduk
556
Nabu-naid
555-539 (Nabonidus)
Bel-sharra-usur
552-542 (Belshazzar, Baltasar)
BIBLICAL VOICES
In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month—which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nabuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the house of the Lord, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great houses he burned down…. Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon—all the rest of the population. But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest people of the land to be vinedressers and tillers of the soil. (2 Kings 25:812)
The Chaldeans first attacked Jerusalem in 597 BCE, and King Jehoiachin and the Judaean nobility were taken captive to Babylon, the Chaldean capital. The actual numbers deported are unclear. Ten thousand captives were deported, according to one verse; 8,000 in another; and 3,023 in a third account in Jeremiah. Established as a puppet king in Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, Zedekiah bravely but unwisely rebelled, and in 587 “David’s city” was destroyed. A number of Jewish leaders were executed and more captives—832 according to a later account—were taken to Babylon. Zedekiah was captured, forced to watch the execution of his sons, then was blinded and later died in captivity, the last king of Judah.
1 & 2 Chronicles
Our days on the earth are as a shadow. (1 Chron. 29:15 KJV)
Why are the stories in Chronicles different from those in other Bible Books?
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