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CHAPTER V.

JERUSALEM TO THE CAPTIVITY.

THE effect of Jeroboam's measures, so far as regarded Jerusalem, was, that the city lost the consequence which it had derived from being the actual centre of religion to all the tribes: but, on the other hand, the Levites, whose cities had lain in the territories of the ten tribes, repaired in large numbers to the southern kingdom, so that Judah and Jerusalem now possessed, as permanent residents, large numbers of those sacred persons, whose abode had previously been dispersed over the whole of Palestine. This was doubtless a great advantage, and must be counted among the circumstances which contributed to keep Judah more faithful to the Lord than the sister kingdom, and which preserved it longer from the terrible overthrow that eventually came upon them both.

Moreover, Jerusalem was still the greatest

city in the land, and the only one, so far as we can discover, which possessed any important public buildings. Vast wealth was also accumulated in it, not only in the shape of the precious metal lavished as a material of ornament in the temple, and in the palaces and armories of Solomon, but stored up in the treasuries of the palace and of the holy house, the possession of which gave an important advantage to the kings of Judah, and tended in no small degree to render their condition more equal to that of the kings of Israel than the difference in extent of territory might, at the first view, seem to intimate. The treasures of David and Solomon were indeed soon dissipated by, or taken from the hands of the kings of Judah; but other compensating circumstances arose in the course of time which contributed to main-tain the balance of external power between the two kingdoms, and sometimes rendering the kingdom of the two tribes not only equal, but superior, to the kingdom of the ten.

It is important to notice, that after the time of Solomon, the kingdom of Judah was almost alternately ruled by good kings, "who did that which was right in the sight of the Lord," and by such as were idolatrous and evil disposed;

and the reign of the same king often varied in its character, and was by turns good or evil. The condition of the kingdom, and of Jerusalem in particular, was very much affected by these mutations. Under good kings, the city flourished; and under bad kings, it suffered greatly. All the history of Jerusalem, after the separation of the kingdoms, is but an illustration of this great truth.

1 A very rich city in a weak state is an object of great temptation to neighbouring princes. There is thus little reason to doubt that the reputation of the enormous treasures stored up in Jerusalem, joined to the persuasion that the state must be too much weakened by the separation of the ten tribes to be any longer able to protect the capital, led to the invasion of the land and the capture of the city by Shishak, king of Egypt, in B.C. 973. It is true that this may have involved a design of succouring Jeroboam, with whom Shishak was on friendly terms, by weakening the house of David; and it is possible that Jeroboam himself may have incited him to this measure; but if so, the costly bribe which the treasures of Jerusalem offered, formed, no doubt, the particular inducement exhibited before the mind of the

Egyptian king. Having once secured this, he was satiated with spoil, and retired without attempting to retain the kingdom under tribute or to reduce its strongholds. This spoil consisted of what he found in the treasuries of the temple and the palace, together with the shields of beaten gold which had been used by the royal guards on state occasions, and which, when not in need, formed the ornament and glory of the armoury in "the house of the forest of Lebanon." In the place of these, Rehoboam afterwards provided brazen shields; and the substitution of brass for gold formed no inapt emblem of the deterioration which the kingdom had undergone. 1 Kings xiv. 25-28; 2 Chron. xii. 2-10; comp. 1 Kings x. 17.

In the ensuing reign of Abijah nothing of peculiar moment to Jerusalem appears to have occurred; but we cannot forbear to direct attention to the just complacency with which the king, in his address to the Israelites before joining battle, dwells upon the decent and orderly service of Jehovah which was still kept up in his temple at Jerusalem, as contrasted with the disorderly practice of the ten tribes : "We keep the charge of the Lord our God; but ye have forsaken him." 2 Chron. xiii. 8-11.

This king did not, however, take heed to correct the idolatrous practices, even in Jerusalem itself, which Rehoboam, after the example of his father, had tolerated; and when, therefore, a more single-minded prince, Asa, son of Abijah, and grandson of Rehoboam, mounted the throne in 955 B.C., he found Jerusalem crowded with abominations, which he laboured diligently to expel and overthrow. This task he performed with a zeal which allowed no compromise with expediency or even with natural affection. His own mother, (or, as some suppose, his grandmother,) Maachah, who had encouraged idolatry by her example, was deposed from her high place, and her idol was destroyed and publicly burned by the brook Kidron. 1 Kings xv. 12, 13. A reign thus faithful in its commencement, was in its progress victorious and happy; and in its tenth year, a glorious scene was witnessed at Jerusalem, when the pious king returned triumphant, and followed by vast spoil from his great victory over one of the mightiest hosts, led by Zerah the Ethiopian, by which the chosen land had ever been invaded. The prophet Oded went forth to meet the returning victor, and excited anew his zeal and gratitude by in

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