The Jews Author:J. Alexander Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. Kings of Judah and Israel.—Athalia.—Jehoash.—Decline of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah.—Golden Age of Prophecy.— Elijah.—Elisha.—Grand Lyric Bar... more »ds.—Isaiah.—Jeremiah.—De- strucYion of the First Temple.—Jews in Captivity.—Prophets Ezekiel and Daniel.—Return from Exile.—Ezra forrris the Jews into a Religious Community.—Men of the Great Synagogue.— Enmity between Jews and Samaritans.—Sanballat builds a rival Temple on Mount Gerizim.—Mount Gerizim now covered by a Christian church.—Copies of the Samaritan Pentateuch brought to Europe. I Need not dwell at great length on the history of the two kingdoms. In Israel a more or less mitigated idolatry prevailed, and this forsaking of Jehovah led to the inevitable result—the final dissolution of the kingdom. As for the kingdom of Judah, it had several very pious kings—as Hezekiah and Josiah—and was, on the whole, rather benefited than otherwise by the separation from the kingdom of Israel. In the first place, the idolatry of Tyre, which was exceedingly fascinating to the Hebrew race, scarcely reached the kingdom of Judah at all,The Age of Prophecy. 17 being absorbed by the northern kingdom of Israel. Another advantage accruing to the kingdom of Judah was, that all the priests from the kingdom of Israel (where a new idolatrous priesthood was set up) retreated to the kingdom of Judah, where, in consequence, there was a good supply of religious teachers. Later on, the fall of the kingdom of Israel was a terrible warning to Judah, and most likely contributed towards bringing about the religious revival of Hezekiah. In the end, however, the people of Judah too had to submit to the divine punishment for their many backslidings, and to go into captivity to Babylon. If there is not much in the political condition of the two ...« less