Page 241 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

EARLY HISTORY OF JUDAISM: A BRIEF LOOK 221

4. Jehoahaz to Hoshea (814-724 B.C.)
Despite Jehu's reforms the country soon commenced an alarming
military decline, the one note of triumph beingJoash's victory over
Amaziah, who was king ofJudah at the time. Joash (798-783 B.C.)
plundered gold and silvervesselsfrom the Temple of Solomon, along
with much of that country's royal treasury.52 Otherwise the period
was marked by a rapid series of assassinations and the submission
of Israel to Assyrian power.53 Hoshea (732-724 B.C.), the last king
of Israel, made a rash attempt to throw off the Assyrian yoke; Shal-
maneser, the new Assyrian ruler, reacted by invading what was left
of Israel and capturing and imprisoning Hoshea. The capital Samaria
surrendered in 721 B.C., and with the deportation of its inhabitants
came the end of the northern kingdom of Israel.54

B. KINGS OF JUDAH
Like Israel, this country too was gripped by anarchy and idolatry. Some
of the details in this section will provide an important framework for the
next chapter and its discussion of the aT's preservation.

1. Rehoboam; son of King Solomon, to Abijah (931-911 B.C.)
The first king ofJudah and the successor to Solomon's throne, Re-
hoboam had eighteen wives, sixty concubines, twenty-eight sons and
sixtydaughters. Biblicalscholars have painted the religions conditions
of his time in dark colours,55 and the O'T states that the people,

also built [themselves] high places and images, and groves, on
every high hill, 56 and under every green tree. And there were
also sodomites in the land, and they did according to all abom-
inations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children
of Israel.V

His son Abijah, ruling three years only, followed in his ways.58

52 Who's Who, i:215. He also visited the aged prophet Elisha after his victory, which
makes one wonder whether Elisha possibly condoned the stealing of gold and silver
vessels from Solomon's Temple.
53 Dictionary qf the Bible, p. 471; Who's Who, i:260, 312, and 345.
54 Who5 Who, i:159, quoting 2 Kgs 15:30.
55 Who's HIlIO, i:322-23; Dictionary qf the Bible, p. 840.
56 Groves were used as sites for pagan rituals of fornication, where mass orgies took
place underneath trees planted specificallyfor that purpose. See Elizabeth Dilling, The
Plot Against Christianity, ND, p. 14.
57 1 Kings 14:23-4.
58 Who's Who, i:25; Dictionary qf the Bible, p. 4.