When Solomon died, his kingdom was split into two parts, Israel in the north and Judah in the south, each with a king of its own (see map).

The Northern Kingdom

Let’s start by seeing what happened to the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  The king of Israel didn’t want his people to go to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem because it was the capital of the Southern Kingdom.  He therefore set up an idol in each of the two pagan temples in his own kingdom and ordered the people to worship there.  The kings after him carried on this pagan worship although God sent them holy men, called prophets (e.g. Elijah and Elisha) to tell them to stop it.  Soon they forgot all about the Ten Commandments: the rulers became rich and treated the poor people very cruelly.  They forgot altogether that God wanted them to teach other nations about him, but disaster was coming.

Away to the east the great kingdom of Assyria was slowly pushing its way towards Palestine.  The people of Israel became frightened, but in spite of the warnings of the prophets they refused to mend their ways and turn to God.  Instead they hoped the Egyptians would help them and so, when the Assyrian army arrived, they took up arms.  They were defeated and most of the people were taken off to Assyria where they settled down and we know no more of them.

The Southern Kingdom

Meanwhile in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, Isaiah the prophet tried to persuade the king to take no part in wars with other nations.  He told the people that they should leave the future to God and trust in him.  “In quietness and in trust shall be your strength”, he said (NRSV, Isaiah 30:15).  Some of them listened to Isaiah but most of them wanted the nation to be very powerful and to fight against the Assyrians.  Isaiah, however, knew that God wanted them to remain quietly in Palestine without getting mixed up in other people’s affairs.

At first the king did not listen to Isaiah and instead he too tried to get help from Egypt when the Assyrians came south, but it was no good and the enemy took the gold away from the Temple in Jerusalem.

The next year they returned and surrounded the city, but this time the king went into the Temple.  There the king spread out the letter which the Assyrian general had sent him calling on him to surrender, and the king prayed to God to help him.  That night a plague swept through the Assyrian army and it went back home. Thus Isaiah was proved right after all (2 Kings 19; Isaiah 37).

The people of Judah were more religious than those of Israel, but even so they, too, got into bad ways and thought that God did not care how they went on, although Isaiah, and Jeremiah after him, told them very plainly that he did.  However, they began to worship idols and their rulers lived just as bad lives as the people.  Soon the end came.

Assyria was defeated by another great nation, the Babylonians, who marched west.  The king of Judah at once took up arms, against the advice of Jeremiah, and Jerusalem was captured.  The Temple of Solomon was burnt to the ground and almost all the people were taken off to Babylon where the king of Babylon could keep his eye on them.

The exile in Babylon

Homesickness

While they were there they were quite well treated but were very unhappy at being so far away from their homes in Jerusalem.  Some of them worked in the great plains round the city which were watered by hundreds of tree-lined canals.  One of the Psalms tells us how they longed for home.  “By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion (Jerusalem).  On the willows there we hung our harps.  For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’  How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (NRSV, 137:1-4).

Ezekiel

Babylon was a huge pagan city and very many of the Jews soon gave up their religion altogether and worshipped idols in the pagan temples.  However, there were a few who hoped that one day they would be able to go home again, and these stuck to their religion.  A priest of the Temple, called Ezekiel, was a great help to them and encouraged them by saying that in the end they would return to Jerusalem.  So they spent their time working hard and trying to love God more and to obey him better.

The Books of the Law

While they were in Babylon some of the priests put together the Books of the Law.  These told the people what they ought and ought not to do, and contained rules for the keeping of festivals and the offering of sacrifices in the Temple on their return home.  At first they held services on the banks of the canals, but later they put up buildings called synagogues or meeting-places.

Return home

The years passed slowly and then one day they heard some exciting news which made them hope that they might soon be going back to Jerusalem.  They heard that a great soldier called Cyrus had made himself king of Persia and that he was going to march against the Babylonians.  Soon they learnt that he was on his way.  Then, at last, his army arrived and it was not long before Babylon was in his hands.  As the Jews had hoped, one of the first things he did was to say that they could go back to Jerusalem.

Thereafter the Jews were under the domination, first of the Greeks and then of the Romans.

In the British Museum is a clay cylinder with an account by Cyrus of his conquest of Babylon in 539 BC.  It mentions his policy of returning exiles back to their homelands. (1) The British Museum gives a translation of the words on the cylinder in which Cyrus writes, “As for the population of Babylon […, w]ho …had endured a yoke not decreed for them, I soothed their weariness; I freed them from their bonds(?)”. (2)

SUMMARY

1. In the Northern Kingdom the rich rulers oppressed the poor and the people worshipped pagan gods.  The Assyrians came and conquered the country and deported the population to Assyria where they settled and we know no more of them.

2. The same sort of thing happened in the Southern Kingdom.  The Babylonians came, conquered the country and deported most of the people to Babylon.  There they kept together as a family, became a reformed people and broke with paganism.

3. The Persians, who conquered Babylon, let them return to Jerusalem, the southern capital.

4. Thereafter the Jews were under the domination, first of the Greeks and then of the Romans.

References

1. British Museum (not dated) Cyrus cylinder. Available from:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/c/cyrus_cylinder.aspx

(Accessed 16 November 2010) (Internet).

2. British Museum (not dated) Translation of the text on the Cyrus cylinder by Irving Finkel, Assistant Keeper, Department of the Middle East. Available from:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/article_index/c/cyrus_cylinder_-_translation.aspx

(Accessed 16 November 2010) (Internet).