Jeremy Rosen
Kings of the South: David’s Progeny

Jeremy Rosen | Kings of the South David’s Progeny | 04.26.22

- Good afternoon, everybody. This, in one way, is a very difficult lecture to give because it raises certain theological, philosophical, as well as historical issues. Three times a day, if you are religious, you’ll have a prayer in which you ask the Almighty to reestablish the kingdom of King David and go back to the time when his dynasty ruled the Jewish people. Now I honestly don’t think that that is such a very good idea, and I’m going to try and show today why it is that I don’t think it’s such a very good idea. King David is iconic, as we’ve said, and has a place in our tradition unlike any other. We talk about Magen David, we talk about the Star of David, which is a symbol both of Israel and symbol of people they hang around their necks, even though there’s no evidence that King David had anything to do with what we call the Magen David. And in addition to that, I’ve also pointed out that David himself was indeed a remarkable character, a flawed character, the remarkable character who established this initial dynasty, which he passed on to his king, to his son, King Solomon. And he also, by tradition, combined the spiritual with the material, with the political, an all-rounder in many respects. But when we look at those who came after Solomon, we have a very different kind of a picture.

The House of David is, in fact, the archaeologically earliest reference to the settlement of the Jewish people, or the Israelites, or whatever you want to call them in the land of Canaan or the land of Judea. But as I pointed out last time, in fact, it’s the Second Kingdom, the Kingdom Of Israel in the north that was the most powerful, the biggest, the most influential, and also the most pagan. So in contrast, Judea did manage to maintain, in a manner of speaking, the tradition of King David far better than the Kingdom of the North. But the picture is not as simple as we might think it is. If I refer you to my screen, and there’s a little chart there of the kings of Judea, the kings that are there. And I’ve given, on the one hand, the dates BCE, Before the Common Era, when they ruled, when they lived, the names of the king, and how long they ruled for. And you’ll notice that some of the names have a little colour on them, a little light blue. Those happen to be the good kings. I haven’t included David in here. Those are the good kings. And the others basically are pagan kings within Judea of the House of King David.

So this wonderful example of the kingdom of the House of David is no great example. And that is what I want to try and show to you and illustrate to you and pick out who are the goodies, who are the baddies, and why we might think that this is a good example to follow. So let’s start off with what happened after King Solomon died. As I pointed when we talked about the Northern Kingdom, the Northern Kingdom broke away. It was Rechavam. or Rehoboam who was the son of Solomon who took over, and the outlying tribes, the 10 northern tribes came to him and they asked him to make concessions ‘cause Solomon had been taxing them like mad to build a temple and all the palaces. And they approached him, and they said, “Come on guys, please give us a break.” And Rechavam consultant with his wise men who said, “Make concessions, keep everybody together by making concessions. Don’t try to push just one ideology.” Familiar story.

He went to the young man, the more aggressive ones, the ones at the university and colleges. And they said, “No, you’re going to fight for your position. If you make any concessions at this moment, you’ll be seen to be weak and you’ll blow the whole thing.” And he listened to them. And the result was that a rebel called Jeroboam or Yerovam, took the 10 tribes away and they said, “To your 10th, so Israel, we have got no portion in the kingdom of David.” And that was the split between the north and the south. The north, as I mentioned, came to be known as Israel and the south remained known as Judea, and its Judea that we are following today. Rechavam, in fact, was quite a successful king in certain respects. And he learned from his initial lesson because when the split took place, he immediately summed a massive army and decided that what I want to do now is go on the attack.

I’d better go in and invade Ukraine and get everybody to do as I want them to do. And, in fact, it was the prophet Shemaiah, who came to him and said, “Don’t.” Just as a prophet came to David and told him off, Shemaiah came and told Rechavam, “Don’t fight, don’t kill other Israelites.” And so Rechavam, desisted, even though he was constantly provoked by Jeroboam, he insisted on defending himself of not attacking the north, but building up fortifications in the south because the tables turned. And with a short period of time, the Northern Kingdom of Israel allied itself with their pals in Damascus. And in Damascus, in Iran, they began to exert pressure on Judea. But under Rechavam, Rechavam also invited anybody in the north who was not happy with things, particularly the priests and others to come and join him in the south.

So he did represent a kind of a magnet for the Judean tradition and the Jewish religion, but he himself didn’t care for religion very much. He was rather happy with a sybaritic life. He had 18 wives, not as many as King Solomon by any means. He had 16 concubines, he had 28 sons, and 60 daughters, and he all gave, and he gave them positions in running the government underneath him. So he did establish a pretty good structure, whereas the north, everything was concentrated in a fewer hands of the top guy. He had to face an invasion, and the invasion came from the south 'cause at this moment, Egypt is still the most powerful nation. They invade from the south, they threaten him. They’re much stronger than he is. He has a small little army compared to what they have.

And in the end, he allows Emperor Pharaoh Shishak, who has conquered Jerusalem to take away all the goodies, all the valuables that were in the temple that King Solomon, his father, had done in gold and silver and God knows what. And were taken down to Egypt and actually replaced with very, very inferior, very inferior substitutes. Now he died after this reign, and he was followed by his son Abijam, who was a bit of a wuss, not much character, but he had a wife called Maacah. And Maacah was this controlling pagan woman who decided that her husband needed protecting from all these people around him. And she brought into Jerusalem pagan worship. So here you have a queen bringing in pagan worship, whereas King Solomon allowed pagans in Jerusalem to worship themselves and keep their own traditions. He was very tolerant. Maacah insisted on getting everybody to follow what she wanted, her first autocratic compulsion. He didn’t last very long, three years, and he was followed by a king called Asa. Asa was quite a character.

In fact, he did follow one of the few kings who did follow the religious tradition. I see that I’ve made a mistake of not having him in blue on my map. I should have had him in blue there too. We know about Asa from several things. From another source, we know that he was invaded by the Ethiopians. We are not certain what the Ethiopians were. Were they from really Ethiopia in Africa, or were they from Ethiopia, meaning Yemen, or did they come up up through Yemen from Arabia? But he was involved in a massive battle in which he turned out in the end successful, and he survived. The text according to the Bible is that he had 280,000 warriors, which I think is probably a little bit exaggerated, but he certainly built up his army, built up his strength, and he reversed all the pagan reformations that Maacah, his mother actually had insisted on imposing on the Jewish people.

So on the left, if you’re following the screen down, we’ve come from Rehoboam to his son Abijam, who didn’t last very long, onto Asa, who was a good strong king, and whereas Abijam followed his pagan dominatrix, Asa tried to reverse it, and he did. He got involved in battles all around the place. He fought off an Ethiopian invasion, whereas Rechavam was not able to keep off the Egyptians. And he also was involved in a constant battle with a king of the north at the time, who was Baasha. Baasha the king of the north tried to conquer the south. He invaded to the south. Asa, in order to defend himself, went and bribed the Damascus king, Ben-Hadad and got Ben-Hadad to pressurise Baasha, so that Baasha withdrew. So you see it, one minute, Damascus is supporting as he did Jeroboam, and the next generation, it’s attacking Baasha.

Everybody is switching their alliances all the time. It’s a mess. It’s totally uncontrollable. And surprise, anybody manages to survive this, but they’re busy fighting with each other. He ruled for 41 years. In 41 years, things were, by and large, pretty good. And he gave way to what we might call the first really good committed king after King Solomon. And this is jumping Jehoshaphat, Yehoshafat. Asa did not propagate Jewish life. He was not pagan as such, but he wasn’t particularly interested. Wasn’t a bad king, but wasn’t a particularly good king. Jehoshaphat was really strong. Jehoshaphat set about bringing about a religious revival. And his religious revival, according to the Book of Kings, was to spread the word about the Jewish tradition and make sure that people followed it.

And in addition, he started expanding the empire north into Tarshish, which is in Lebanon. He starts engaging in trade down the Red Sea. He goes into alliances with other people there. He, in fact, does a really good job except for, unfortunately, one mistake he made. And that mistake was to befriend King Ahab of the north. Now you remember Ahab, his wife is Jezebel. He’s a nasty piece of work, but again controlled by her. So Maacah’s a controlling female, Jezebel’s, a controlling female, and they do joint ventures in trade and in commerce, but also as a sign of their friendship, Ahab marries his daughter Athaliah to Jehoshaphat’s son. Now the sources we have are often contradictory. All of this is told in two books in the Bible.

In one of them, the Book of Kings, you have one version, in the Book of Chronicles, you have another. Book of Kings is found in that part of the Bible that is technically called the early prophets, whereas a book of Chronicles is in the other writings right at the end of the Bible. There’s an argument about whether one was written by the kings of the north, the other by the kings of the south. Another version, it was written by the prophets who try to remain neutral, who we will talk about in our next session, who the prophets were and what their role was in all this. But there is a disagreement because in one text, this woman, Athaliah, is described as the daughter of Ahab, and in another, she’s described as the daughter of Omri, Ahab’s father, so she’s a granddaughter. We don’t know which she is, but we do know she married into the house of jumping Jehoshaphat.

In addition, I think we have to point out that Jehoshaphat had a prophet, and his name was Jehu Ben-Hanani, not to be confused with the other Jehu who overtook a destroyed the House of Ahab. And when he dies, after his 25-year-old reign, he leaves the sun called Joram. And Joram, you have to remember, there was another Joram who was the son of Ahab, which gets very confusing, but this is the Joram, the son of Jehosaphat. And Jehoram Ben-Jehosaphat ruled for eight years. He was regarded as a totally pagan king because Athaliah, his wife, made sure that she had things her way. And after he ruled for eight years, he decided to kill his brothers because he was worried about succession and handed over to his son, Ahaziah. Ahaziah, the son of Athaliah. He is now king. And not only that, he is very much connected to the north. He rules for one year.

And in a battle with the Arameans, he, unfortunately, is bumped off. So he dies in a short period of time. And as soon as he dies in this battle in which the Ahab family is exterminated as well, in this is an opportunity that Athaliah takes advantage of. So Athaliah goes about killing every one of her children and every member of his family. She was not a very nice person, but her plot, although it puts her in charge and makes her the first queen of Judea, but a totally pagan queen. And she totally strips any remnant of Jewish religious activity in the temple and in Jerusalem. She reigns with a firm hand for six years, but one child, the baby escapes. An aunt manages to get this little child out and to hide him, and hide him amongst the priests in secret until he is big enough to stand up.

As soon as this happens, it’s the priesthood. The priesthood who then engineers, the Jewish priesthood, a rebellion against Athaliah. And what they do is they arrange for a whole lot of priests to come up into Jerusalem into the temple to come in and have their presence shown there, even though technically, it’s now a pagan temple, and they divide into different groups. One group protecting this king who is going to be appointed and take control called Joash, still a boy. And the other half of the priests are going to block any of Athaliah’s gang coming in. They take over the temple, they officially anoint or empower Joash to be the king. Athaliah hears this row going on. She sends her men in, but they’re blocked. They counterattack, they take Athaliah down, they kill her. And that’s the end of Athaliah.

Not a very nice story, but we now have a good king, a good king called Joash, and he is in charge, or at least the priests controlling him are in charge, and they bring about a massive, should we say, reformation. The one problem about this reformation is that all the books talk about something called a bamah. And a bamah is a high place. And the question is are these high places pagan high places or not? So, for example, in the reign of Asa, who was a good king told the temple, there were bamoth all around the countryside. There are some opinions who say that the bamoth were pagan local opportunities for people to worship. And, therefore, leaving them there was, if you like, an act of tolerance, but it was still undermining the official position of David’s religion as the religion of the state.

There’s another point of view, which says, no, it’s not like that. The Torah actually says you can only have meat if you sacrifice it in the temple. But people couldn’t always get to the temple to have meat. And so there were these high places elsewhere where you would sacrifice. And because the sacrifices were an opportunity, not just to give to God, but also to eat, and to feast, and to give to other people, and to share together, it was a communal thing, these were places where they gathered to worship God, but to have their lamb chops or their steak without having to schlep all the way to Jerusalem to get it. Either way, these bamoth continue to be there and the controversy arises as to how Jewish they were or were not. But after Joash takes over, he ensures that the temple is primary and everybody sort of follows, if you like, the official party line. That’s his great contribution.

But after 16 years of rule, he was assassinated, and he was assassinated for political reasons, not for any other reasons because there were rival camps, the Egyptian camp to the north, the Syrian and Assyrian camps, the Egyptian to the south, the Assyrian powers to the north, and within the country, as in any country, you’ve got your different political parties supporting different powers fighting against each other. It’s a messy business. So life in the Southern Kingdom was constantly open to both cultural and political interference. When he dies after Joash, after his 16 years, he’s followed by his son called Amaziah. Amaziah was also not a bad king, but he wasn’t a good king. He allowed these bamoth to flourish and again allowed more things to go on. But whereas Jehoshaphat had fought to make the religion of the state, Amaziah himself wasn’t a bad guy, but he let these things go on under his particular rule. He went to war, unfortunately with the north, with Jehoash of the north.

You have to get, you know, sort of all these names keep on coming up. The Joram on both sides, Joash, Jehoash and so forth. He, unfortunately, lost. The north invaded and took again all the goodies out of the temple and took them back out of his control. So poor ol’ Amaziah did not leave a very good reputation behind. And the result of this, defeat at the hands of the north. He runs out of Jerusalem to Lachish where they catch up with him and they assassinate him. So poor ol’ Amaziah gets assassinated. Bad news. After him comes King Uziyahu, also known as Azariah. That’s why you’ll see there are two names on the thing there, Uziyahu and Azaria. And there was this famous song in Israel, “Vayiven Uziyahu Migdalim,” and he built towers and fortifications, and he was very, very strong. And he was able to take over the port of a lot and increase his trade down to the Red Sea and down to Africa, maybe over to India as many people suggest.

So Uziyahu was a good guy except he decided he wanted to be in charge of the priests. And so he appointed him high priest. Well, I don’t know if it’s because of this attempt to take over or otherwise, but the poor guy got stricken with an illness. They called it leprosy. I don’t know if it was leprosy. But although he reigned for 52 years, for much of that, he was a leper. The illness obviously had an impact on him. He realised he’d done the wrong thing. And so in a sense, the Almighty forgave him. But he then was followed by a son called your Jotham. And Jotham, 16 years, he ruled, and he also was somebody who allowed the bamoth to continue. And there, the Bible thinks he did a bad thing in allowing the bamoth to continue. Does that mean he was just tolerant religiously, something we would now approve of?

But something that most religions never have approved of for most of their lives, and even today in parts of the world, they don’t like competition. So Jotham, 16 years, is followed then by a man called Ahaz. Ahaz, bad guy, ruled for 29 years. That’s a long reign for a bad guy. And, in fact, he was attacked again by the north and by the Edomites, and he was in a desperate state. And so what does he do in his desperate state? In his desperate state, he’s got Egypt attacking him from the south, he’s got Syria attacking from the north. He hears there’s this new king, this new king of Babylon called Tiglath-Pileser, also known as Pul. And he goes to Tiglath-Pileser and says to him, “Look, I would very much like you to be my ally and to support me and protect me both against Egypt to the south and against the Assyrians in the north.” And Tiglath-Pileser does come to Damascus to meet him there.

They have a nice conversation, have a nice discussion. And the result is that he agrees, Tiglath-Pileser, to a treaty with the south, with Judea, on condition that the south allows Tiglath-Pileser’s gods and mode of worship to coexist with the ones of the Judeans. And, therefore, Ahaz has to compromise by compromising religious life in his country, in his reign. So sadly, this does two things. One of them, it already gives an excuse for Babylon and Assyria to feel we have an interest in the south. That’s our ally and, therefore, we can take over when at some stage, we choose to, which is what happened later on with the Maccabean and Rome. They asked Rome for help and Rome did help, but it took over. So this guy, Pul or Tiglath-Pileser, the Babylonian or the Assyrian ‘cause at that time, remember, Assyria conquers Babylon, Babylon conquers Assyria, they overlap, and they exchange, rather like now you’ve got the borderline between Iraq, and Syria, and Persia.

All of them are vying for control. And at different stages, they take over the government. But after his 29 years after Ahaz, we have the reign of Chizkiyahu, who according to rabbinic tradition, is probably the greatest and the most religiously praiseworthy of all the Judean kings after King Solomon, of course. According to the Talmud, the one thing Chizkiyahu did was to start attacking superstition. Now the Bible talked about this snake on a pole that when people looked up at it, if they’d been bitten by a snake, they were cured. The rabbinic opinion was it’s not that the snake was anything of significance, it was just an idea of looking up to God, of thinking of faith healing as opposed to some sort of magic. But what happened was that, over time, this became a pagan idol in Judaism, and it was called Nehushtan from nakhash. And people were worshipping this snake on a pole and Chizkiyahu crushed it, he destroyed it. He also destroyed a book of magical cures and hocus pocus that everybody was paying attention to. He destroyed that. He wanted to get rid of anything that was superstitious.

And in its place, according to the rabbinic tradition, now Nehushtan, destroying paganism, that’s in the Bible. But according to the rabbinic tradition, he also established education from the north to the south. And what’s interesting to me is that according to this rabbinic interpretation, schools were for girls and boys together, and there wasn’t one child who at the end of this process wasn’t familiar with Jewish law and the Jewish tradition. So Chizkiyahu is, if you like, credited with the idea of universal education, state education for everybody, even though I think that’s, it’s certainly not mentioned as such in the Bible, and it’s an idea that probably came later, probably during the Greek period. But nevertheless, he’s considered to be a great guy. And he removed all the bamoht. I don’t know what he did about kosher food and kosher catering at that stage, but he removed all these high places, these bamoth. And he also set about reconciling with the north.

So under Chizkiyahu, there was peace between the north and the south, except it didn’t last for very long. And it didn’t last for very long because we now have, in Assyria, a new ruler called Shalmaneser. And Shalmaneser is responsible for coming down and conquering the Northern Kingdom, and taking the Northern Kingdom into exile. We don’t know if you took all of them into exile in 722, but he certainly took a lot of them, most of them into exile and scattered them over his Assyrian Empire. And he imposes a tribute on Chizkiyahu, and Chizkiyahu accepts the tribute for a while. But then there’s problems back in Assyria. Shalmaneser is gone, he’s replaced by Sancherib or Sennacherib. As the English poet says, “The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold. His cohorts were gleaning with silver and gold.” And Sennacherib comes down and he attacks Jerusalem. He comes in attacks, besieges Jerusalem, demands capitulation rather like Putin in the Ukraine. And poor Chizkiyahu is in a mess.

A contemporary of Chizkiyahuis the prophet Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah says, “Don’t worry, it’s going to be Okay. You’ve built up such a load of credit with God, he’s definitely going to come and help you.” The Assyrians come down, their general stand in front of the walls of Jerusalem and actually, in Aramaic, start cursing and attacking the king and saying, “We’re going to smash you, destroy you. You don’t have a hope in hell. Give up now while you can.” And Chizkiyahu is very worried that people in the city will understand what he’s saying, and so he tries to deflect some of the attacks, but it’s to no avail. He refuses to give in, they refuse to lift the siege and he’s in a mess. Once again, Isaiah comes to him and says, “Don’t worry.” And then overnight, the Assyrian army disappears. Why did they disappear?

Well the Bible says 'cause God attacked them. Very nice, fair enough. There’s some evidence, some evidence that they disappeared because there was an a plague that attacked them, cholera, and other people have found large numbers of rodent bones in the area around Jerusalem and claimed this was some plague of rats or the rats brought along, you know, like the Black Death. The other opinion is no, they had to withdraw because Sancherib, Sennacherib was facing a rebellion in his own court by his own two sons and had to dash back. And, in fact, he was assassinated by his two sons. And so from this moment onwards, the south no longer fears Assyria. The 10 northern tribes are up in Syria, and we are going to talk about what happened to them in due course.

But at this moment, the siege has been lifted. Chizkiyahu was ill and sick, I don’t know if nerves or tension. Isaiah says, “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right. But I want you to know,” says Isaiah, “that the long-term prognostication of the Judean state is not a very good one. And one of the reasons is that you are still trying to play off Egypt against the north. And just because at this moment, you might find the north is weak because Sennacherib of having to run back and Egypt is south, don’t rely on it.” And this was advice that Hezekiah’s successors failed to heed. And after Hezekiah, you have, unfortunately, move to get Babylon, which hasn’t yet conquered Assyria, but to get Babylon to come again and to intervene on their behalf. But at that moment, Manasseh, Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, takes over and he is at bad, bad guy. Religiously, he is a disaster. He rules for 55 years, that’s a long time, and he keeps on playing off one side against another.

In fact, Manasseh is captured and taken to Babylon where he’s tortured. But then he is released and for some reason or other, decides to repent. And he tries to build up an outpost for Babylon in Judea by building up these castles. He’s succeeded by Amon. Amon is a bad guy who doesn’t last for very long, two years, and then he’s assassinated. And after he’s assassinated, we then have the arrival of the last good king. The last good king of Judea is a man called Josiah, Yoshiyahu, the last of the good kings. He is now faced with a temple that’s been more or less destroyed with the religion that’s been totally undermined. And as a result, he now decides to bring about a complete revolution, calls the priests in and asks the priests now to renovate the temple. In the work of renovation, they discover a scroll of the Torah. A scroll of the Torah in which it says everybody has to celebrate the Passover. Now this is remarkable. You mean up until this time, they never celebrated the Passover? How do we explain this?

And not only that, but the Bible says that when Josiah saw this scroll, he was so upset, he immediately ordained a public Passover celebration for everybody. And the Bible says they celebrated Passover in such a way as they hadn’t done it since the time of Joshua. And some people say till the time of Samuel. That’s in the Chronicles version as opposed to the King’s version. How do we explain this? Some people like to explain it by saying, “Well, this is not the Bible. This is only the last book of the Bible, and it’s only in the last book of the Bible they talk about celebrating Passover for everybody. Up until that moment, it was only celebrating Passover in the temple. So it’s only people in the temple who celebrated Passover, not the people out in the masses.”

But if you look at the book of Exodus, it’s very clear that everybody was told to celebrate the Passover. It was celebrated in private homes according to each family, . So that can’t be the explanation. The other possible explanation is that the scroll was, in fact, the scroll of the Torah. But there were different scrolls of the Torah that at different stages were hidden because of the pagan control of the temple under the reigns of the bad kings, everything went underground, and this was now bringing it out into the public. And so King Josiah is this great king who renovates the temple, who gets everybody to celebrate Passover in the way they never had before, supported by the priests. And he’s got it made except he makes a disastrous political decision.

His political decision is “Look, look, my father and the lot were, in fact, allies of Babylon and Assyria. And now there’s this new Egyptian king called Pharaoh Neco. And Pharaoh Neco wants to pass through Judea in order to attack Assyria and Babylon. Josiah feels he is bound by his treaty to Babylon and Assyria. And he says to pharaoh, "No you can’t come through.” And sadly he blocks him at Megiddo and pharaoh smashes him and kills him, and that’s poor ol’ Josiah gone down the tubes. And so what do we see from this? We see from this that you are constantly making the wrong political decisions. If you are playing the game of politics, make sure you get it right, but these kings are screwing up every time. It also shows that where you have a country that is so divided between the pagans and the Jews, the religious and the non-religious, and there’s this constant competition going on between them, you undermine the integrity of the country, and it is unable, therefore, to stand up to its enemies and those that want to destroy it.

So the lessons that we learn from this are very clear at this moment. Josiah is the last of the half decent kings of the House of David. We now run down to a very sad end of the story. So 722 Before the Common Era, the north has gone. We hang on for another 150-odd years. And after we have Josiah, we have Josiah’s son. Josiah’s son is a man called Yeho'achaz, and he manages to rule. Actually he wasn’t a man, so much as a baby, he ruled for three months. He was acclaimed by the masses, but unfortunately, Pharaoh Neco, having conquered his father, grabs all of this little guy and deposes him, and he takes him down to Egypt where he dies. Sad story. And instead, he puts his uncle who’s actually Josiah’s brother, he puts his uncle in charge, and he changes his name from Eliakim to Jehoiakim. Interesting, why did he change his name from Eliakim to Jehoiakim? I can only speculate that Jehoiakim was, if you like, a name preferable to Egypt, whereas Eliakim was preferable to Babylon. But in a sense, that doesn’t make sense.

After all, both Eli, name of God, Yoh is the name of God too, Yehovah, are both the names of God. So is the change of name saying something about the character, is it changing about the nature of the life under pharaoh, or is it just his way of saying, “I’m changing your name ‘cause you’re my man”? And so for 11 years, this guy is in charge of running the country under the control of the Egyptian regime. He, again, is taken into Babylon because the Babylonians have now turned the tables on the Egyptians. The Egyptians are not stronger anymore, and he has decided to see if he can play the Egyptians against the Babylonians. Well, doesn’t work very much. He rules for 11 years, he dies, but the result is that at that moment, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon comes into the country and invades. Nebuchadnezzar has now got the son of Jehoiakim, whose name is Jehoiachin. And Jehoiachin also has a nickname Coniah. And he is appointed king rules for three months, but he, too, is taken to Babylon.

And with him goes a lot of the aristocracy, a lot of the priests, a lot of the skilled workers, all taken back to Babylon as a result of this initial evasion of Nebuchadnezzar and plunked together in Babylon. And he is replaced by his uncle called Mattaniah. And Mattaniah is renamed Tzidkiyahu, a nice name. Tzidkiyahu, the tzedeq, the righteous one of God, except he’s not at all righteous. None of these guys are righteous, none of these guys are religious, they are all taken, they’re all put in charge under the control of the Babylonians. Tzidkiyahu, the son of Josiah rather, son of Josiah called Tzidkiyahu is ruling for 11 years when all of a sudden he decides, “I’ve had enough of being ruled by the Babylonians. I’m going to go back to my Egyptians and ask them to come and help me.”

And this time, Nebuchadnezzar doesn’t come personally, but sends the whole of his army with Chaldean generals to Jerusalem. They completely destroy Jerusalem. The temple, take everything out, clear everything out. So anybody who thinks the Ark of the Covenant is buried somewhere down there is deluding themselves. Take everything out. Tzidkiyahu tries to escape, he’s caught by the Babylonians, his sons are killed before him, before his very eyes, and then his eyes are put out and then he is killed. A messy sticky end in 586 Before the Common Era, the end of Judea, the Judea goes into exile. And there’s a man left behind called Gedaliah. Gedaliah is left behind by the Babylonians and is left in charge because they still want some people there working the land. They don’t want it to be completely abandoned because then, of course, you lose the agricultural profit and benefit and you lose the idea of having a garrison there.

But unfortunately amongst the Jews, there are people who are rivalling Gedaliah for power, and in the end, they assassinate him. The result of this assassination is that those who are left flee down to Egypt for fear of reprisals. So when Gedaliah is assassinated, for the first time ever, there are, it seems, no Jews or at least no official Jews in the land of Israel, which is why the death of Gedaliah is recognised by the fast, the day after Rosh Hashanah. Who was Gedaliah? No big guy, no great guy, nothing like the House of David or anything like that. But because that tragedy was the tragedy of losing the population in Israel and it took a long time to build it back up again, but they did, thank God, this is why we remember Gedaliah. And here ends the story of King David’s dynasty. So when we look back at this, what was so special about it? There were some great leaders. It’s true they were different and a better quality to those of the north.

The north didn’t have one leader who you could say was eager to uphold Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, and Jewish identity. But when it came to the South, you did have some of them. But nevertheless, if you look at the list, you see it’s almost split 50-50 between those who were upholding the Jewish tradition, and those who either completely rejected it or totally adopted a pagan tradition. And, of course, we mentioned Queen Athaliah as an example of that. So why then? Why then do we look back through the midst of time to this great myth of King David? Those of you who know English history will know that there’s a similar story with King Alfred the Great, the one who burnt the cakes, the one who managed to fend off the Vikings for a while, but not forever. And he also brought in a reformation into England and tried to improve legislation and government and make peace and bring people together. And so we often look back at this great period of Alfred the Great, but the truth was not so great. It took a long time until things began to improve.

And I’m sorry to say, they began to improve a little bit with Edward the Confessor. But really it was the Norman conquerors, those who came in from the outside who imposed a new legal system, new structures, new organisations, and built up what, in time, became the great British Empire, now sadly in decline. So I think there is a tendency, anyway, to look back with nostalgia. We look back with nostalgia to King David as being somebody who established a dynasty and who represented what was best in theory in the life of an Israelite, both politically, and religiously, and culturally. We have great people like Solomon, like your Jehosaphat, like Chizkiyahu, like Josiah, like Joash. You have a couple of really outstanding leaders there, in a sense, that makes the difference. Did I mention Chizkiyahu? I don’t know if I did, I can’t remember. I should have mentioned him there.

Anyway, but you do have these good examples, and maybe these good examples make up from the bad, for the bad because after all, the biblical tradition is a tradition of people who fail as we all do, and yet somehow managed to come back from disaster, managed to continue in some form or another 'cause there are always a small number of people who keep the flame going. But if you look at the mass, we’re rasha, and that may well be what the true lesson of the disappearance of the kingdom of Judea is, but why it survived, we’ll discuss in due course. So having now gone through this, let’s take the sharing out and take that off. Goodbye, and let’s go to the questions. And I just need to get rid of that. And we’ll start with question and answer.

Q&A and Comments

Number one, Judah Stone.

Q: Do we have corroborative evidence of all these people in other non-biblical writings? A: Oh yes, we do. We have evidence of the campaigns against Moab from the Mesha Stone, which is a stone, which was found Transjordan. We have lots of other records, both Egyptian and Babylonian of conquest of Israel, of this particular area. We don’t have that many, if you like, genealogical details of the individuals because records are kept by the conquerors. And as this was a country that was destroyed. The north by Assyria, the South by Babylon. A lot of the records would’ve been destroyed, so we don’t have them and we don’t expect the victors to start recognising those they defeated.

Q: “What’s the religious meaning sacrificing animals to God?” Ruth asked. “Does God need sacrifices? It sounds like a pagan ritual.” A: Well, there are two ways of looking at this. One of them is to take the view of Maimonides, the rationalists. And the rationalists say, in those days, everybody sacrificed. They sacrificed humans to their gods, they sacrificed animals to their gods. The innovation of Judaism was to say, no, don’t sacrifice to pagan gods, don’t sacrifice your children, but you can sacrifice to God. What is sacrificing to God? What does it mean? Of course, God doesn’t need sacrifices. God doesn’t eat anything. And if we talk about God smelling, the nice smell of sacrifice is it’s metaphorical, but what it means is that in those days, a sacrifice was a way of feeding the population. You would bring your animals, you’d give part of it to God, part of it to the priests, and the rest you would share. And so just as now, we sacrifice animals for our food in abattoirs, which are disgusting places. In those days, they sacrificed them in temples, which were more controlled, which were more aesthetic, which were less brutal, but everybody did it at that time.

So one explanation is meet a social need of feeding people, as well as turning it into, if you like, a sacrament, to use a Christian term, an opportunity to thank God together, eat together, be happy, and be charitable. There is also the idea that, and I’ve heard it said, and I don’t know how true this is, that if you sacrifice animals, and you come into contact with them directly and have this interaction, you are more likely to be aware of how precious life is. And interestingly enough, part of the sacrificial system is to place your hands on the animal before the sacrifice. You can’t shove it off to somebody else to do. You’ve got to do it. And if you don’t feel like doing it, don’t do it. And then, of course, there were other sacrifices, which are your vegetable sacrifices. Vegetarians had a role, vegans had a place in the temple. They could bring vegan sacrifices as well. So my Maimonides says that these sacrifices were merely the way everybody did it at that time.

They couldn’t have been weaned off immediately, so they had to be weaned off in stages. Stage by stage until they were able to turn to the alternative, which is praying. And praying now is the thing everybody does, and everybody says the same thing. Does God need our prayers? Of course, he doesn’t need our prayers. We pray, if you like, for ourselves, for our own interests. God doesn’t need it. It’s an expression of our own inner need, and that’s what everybody does. But who knows? Maybe in a short period of time nobody will pray anymore. We’ll all have artificial intelligence, or we’ll all do it through ESP, extrasensory perception. We are constantly evolving. That is the Maimonidean point of view. The ultra-Orthodox point of view is, of course, the temple’s going to be rebuilt. I would say I can’t see it happening 'cause I can’t see Jews agreeing on who the architect’s going to be, let alone who the high priest is going to be. Of course, I’m going to have animals back sacrifice again and maybe everybody’s attitude will change then because fashion’s changed.

We might like it, we might think it’s something better to do. Who’s to tell? But also there are rabbis who say we won’t know what’s going to happen until the Messiah or Elijah comes and maybe the Elijah will tell us you don’t need sacrifices anymore. And, in fact, there are some versions that say you won’t even need festivals anymore because we’ll all be on such a high spiritual level. So as I talk about the kingdom of David, I don’t take that, and I actually want to see a kingdom coming back. I don’t like royalty much. I think the British royalty do a great job, but I wouldn’t willingly take them as a good example. And I don’t know of any better example of a monarchy. It is true, I don’t have a better… A different matter altogether. So you could argue that this is just a nostalgic look to the past. And as I’ve mentioned before, our tradition is to revere the past, not to try to cancel it. To see what was good in it, to see what is bad in it, to learn from it, and to go forward from it.

So we look to the back, we go to the future. This was part of the evolution thousands of years ago. And we don’t know where we’re going to end up.

Q: Why is Solomon considered a good thing since he caused the Northern Kingdom to leave the United Monarchy by overtaxing them? A: That’s a really good question. I think he made mistakes. He was good in certain respects, bad in others. And the Talmud accepts that he made mistakes. After all, the Bible says, you know, he’s heart was turned by all these pagan people he had. But at least what he did was he consolidated King David’s position. By tradition, he added this wisdom and the wisdom text of the Bible, even though the Talmud accepts none of them were written by King Solomon himself, but he did have, if you like, a cultural revolution within the tradition. And he therefore is regarded as a good king. As again, were Jehosaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, and others like him. I believe those cohorts were living in purple and gold.

Thank you Harriet for putting me right. It’s been a long time since I remember that poem. So you are probably right, and I’m definitely wrong. Thanks, Rose, for our talk about Second Temple.

“Sounds like,” Marshall says, “the destruction of various society by combating armies compares to what we experienced today, warring parties.” Absolutely, absolutely. What’s happening in Ukraine today is the history of mankind. It hasn’t changed, and either you stand up to it while you still can, or it’s going to be too late. And that’s why I so oppose appeasement, and why I insist that we only solution is to stand up to Russia, give it a bloody nose in whichever way we can. I don’t think sanctions are going to work. I think we should not be frightened as Kennedy was to risk going to war. Thanks for the lecture.

Q: Can you please expand on the point regarding prohibition of eating meat anywhere outside the temple? A: Yes, it’s only later on in the Bible after the first three books that it talks about only, that you can eat meat away from the temple if you want to. But if you do, you must make sure you don’t drink the blood. So the buildup of the temple is that you start off with Moses in the tabernacle, sacrifices in the tabernacle. The tabernacle is a movable object, which gets taken from place to place, ends up eventually in Jerusalem when it’s replaced by the temple. So during all that time, it’s unrealistic, as the Torah itself says in Deuteronomy, you know, if you say I can’t get to the temple and I want to eat meat, you should be allowed to eat meat locally. And, therefore, that’s where the origin of shechita, of ritual slaughter takes place to imitate what went on in the in the temple in locations that were not considered pagan but came to be used as pagan.

Marsha, “Jewish Women’s Archive has a slightly kinder interpretation of Athaliah, considering she’s the only female monarch and men wrote the Bible.” Look, it’s always possible, it’s always possible. Maybe she didn’t kill anybody, maybe Jezebel didn’t kill anybody. Maybe they were hundredly perfect. But, you know, I am inclined to follow the Bible. But yes, I agree with you. The Bible was written by men. That doesn’t mean to say therefore everything was wrong and they got everything wrong. It’s perfectly possible they got things right 'cause we certainly know from other sources that the House of Ahab was a pagan household, and we know that Athaliah ruled in Judea. How did she get to rule in Judea if there were sons who passed on the line officially through the male? There must have been some sort of monkey business. So I’m afraid I don’t buy it, but good luck to Jewish Women’s Archives. I think anything that raises the status and position of women in Judaism is essential absolute. But when it comes to history, everybody interprets history their way. Thank you, Jennifer.

Q: Why was the name Israel chosen for our state and not Judea? A: That’s a very good question, Monica Endami. I have two theories. Theory number one is that since the founders of the new state in '48 were secular Jews, they felt more in common with what was a non-religious state than they do to a religious state. That was one reason. The other reason is this, that Jews were called Jews after Judea. Judea was a kingdom of the south and it was only because of the survival of the south in Babylon that Jews continued. The north was almost forgotten, although we’re going to talk about that in due course. So I think that Judah, Jews, seem to imply only the Judeans and the founders of the state wanted Israel, which after all, was the name of Jacob. So it was Jacob who was called Israel. And Jacob, whose name Israel was you people will fight with God and man to preserve your culture. So they didn’t name it after the northern state of Israel, they named it after the children of Israel, so to speak. Thank you.

Q: What was a time of city-states of local kings? A: Yes, it not always city. Well, in some countries it definitely was city-states, but these were small states, small tribes, collections of tribes, small little countries under these huge big empires. First of all, Egypt and the Hittite in Turkey, then Egypt and then the Assyrian, then Egypt and the Babylonian, then Egypt and Persia, and then Persia against Greece, and then Rome. These were the big powers, and we were small fry within that. And it’s amazing that of all the tribes in that area, we are the ones that survived, although the Palestinians will deny it, but that’s their problem, not mine.

Majority of animal sacrifices are males. A way of reducing non-reproductive animal population, leaving more fodder for milk production as well as stronger, more viable young. Absolutely, it’s a very good rational explanation. I’m prepared to buy it 100%. My only point is that we need to add spiritual dimensions to physical practical dimensions. So everything that we do is, if you like, for our wellbeing and something as the Torah says, that is not for our wellbeing, we have to deal with. Sacrifice are there to feed the people, cost is too much to feed the upper class. Yes, of course, everybody made out of sacrifices. There were the bones that were turned to gelatin, there were the hides that were turned into leather goods and everything like that. It was a huge industry, a massive industry, and it was very important. It gave lots of work and lots of jobs to people. So in that sense, it was very important.

Thank you, Jennifer. The book of Torah found in the temple in the reign of Josiah, something that referred to the Book of Deuteronomy. Yes, Deuteronomy is the last book of the Torah, which in a way, is a revision of some of the earlier books and includes a revision of all the laws, and it’s called Mishneh Torah, a copy of the Torah. And some people say that if it was one scroll, that was a scroll, but all the books of the Bibles were scrolls, so I don’t know why they should say it’s that. As I mentioned before, they try to justify it with academic arguments, but I don’t find any of these academics, if you like, persuasive. After all, the Torah was written over a period of at least a generation and maybe more. And during that time, new laws apply, new ways of understanding them take place, new ways of writing things down. And it’s a compilation of that which includes all these different trends. But it’s interesting that if you said is the Book of Deuteronomy, where do they get all, only all those other parts of the Torah from that are not in the Book of Deuteronomy? They must have been part of some earlier tradition as well, regardless of when they were put down.

Please read the question completely. You read so fast. It’s not decipherable and it’s frustrating. Thank you, Diane, I apologise. I’m just trying to get as much done in short time. I will try to be slower next time.

Thank you, everybody.