Old Testament History

Salvation History: Old Testament Abram, then: Abraham was called by God out of Mesopotamia (Ur of the Chaldees) into the land of Canaan, later known as Palestine.
"Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to a land that I will show you." (Gen.)
"By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he set out, not knowing
where he was going" (Heb 11:8). Therefore he is called our "father in faith."
And God made a covenant with Abraham, that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of heaven.

Abraham's son by his wife Sarah was: Isaac; Isaac's son by his wife Leah was
Jacob, also known as: Israel Jacob's12 Sons: The Twelve Tribes of Israel (one list) Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, and Joseph Joseph is sold into slavery; ends up in Egypt as a servant to the Pharoah. Later, during a time of famine, his father Jacob and his brothers migrate into Egypt. Happily reunited with Joseph (to their good fortune: "You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today"), they remain in Egypt and prosper, becoming a nation "great, mighty, and populous."

Note an important dimension of the biblical story that too often goes unnoticed:
These are not perfect people. They are people who are, in many respects, like us.
They quarrel, they lie, they cheat, they struggle with God. It is not due to their virtues that God's plan is realized.
It is due to God's mercy and faithfulness, His love and fidelity.

After several generations, the Pharoahs lost their memory of Joseph and his brothers, and the people of Israel became exploited slaves, forced to work on the Pharoah's various building projects up and down the Nile.
The result: a people with a communal memory of their origins as free men and women in Canaan (the land of their fathers) is now enslaved and oppressed in Egypt, in need of deliverance. Deliverance is brought by: Moses whom God called by appearing to him in a burning bush, and to whom God revealed His "name":
"I am who am" (the name above all names).

Moses (and Aaron), after a series of plagues -- the last of which involved the angel of death "passing over" the houses of the Israelites,
who had marked their doorposts and lintels with the blood of a sacrificed lamb, whose meat they would eat on that night
with bitter herbs and unleavened break, their sandals on their feet, ready for the journey --

led the people out of Egypt, across the Red Sea (where Pharoah's pursuing charioteers* were drowned), and eventually
to God's mountain Sinai (or Horeb), where: a) they made a covenant with God (by being sprinkled with blood),
b) became God's people, and c) received God's law.

Following a blueprint God had specified (which has certain resemblances to the blueprint used in the six days of creation), Israel constructed a
Tabernacle,
a sort of portable tent that housed
The Ark of the Covenant,
a wooden box wherein was placed the tablets of the Law.
The tabernacle and the ark of the covenant represented (and, in a certain sense embodied)
God's presence with His people. As they wandered, He did not leave them, but
"tabernacled" (dwelt) with them, quite physically, both day and night.

As before, note that these people are far from being portrayed as perfect people.
Moses was a murderer of one of Pharoah's servants.
Time and again, he grumbles about the job God has given him to do.
And the people! They seem to do nothing but grumble (especially at Massah and Meribah).
When Moses came down from the Mountain of the Lord with the two tablets of the commandments,
"written by the finger of the Lord," what were the people doing?
Worshipping a golden calf, they themselves had made! They had, in effect, idolized themselves.
The covenant does not depend upon their faithfulness to God, but upon God's faithfulness to them.
Their unfaithfulness to the covenant ends up harming them, not God.

* By the way, did you ever wonder, what happened to Pharoah's charioteers? Were they nothing more than cannon fodder?
Perhaps we need to await the story of salvation of the New Testament to resolve this problem.

After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, Moses died (he never reached the Holy Land), and his leadership role was taken up by his right-hand man:

Joshua

who led God's people across the Jordan River (as Moses had led the people across the Red Sea)
and into the Promised Land where, as Moses had done at Mt. Sinai, Joshua gathered all the tribes together in Shechem, and
led a covenant renewal ceremony, in which he reviewed for the people all that God had done for them, beginning with Abraham.
When he had finished, he said to the people:
"Now if you are unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River
or the gods of the Amorites (Canaanites) in whose land you are living.
But as for me and my family, we will serve the LORD."

And the people cried out as one: "We will serve the LORD."
But they didn't.
So much for good intentions.
Perhaps faith is a journey, not something established in a moment.
As before, there will be plenty of infidelities to come.
At first, the Israelites lived in a loose association of the 12 tribes that has come to be called The Tribal Confederacy During this period, there was no central government over all the Israelites. Rather, in times of crisis, the people were rallied by charismatic leaders
whom collectively we call
the Judges because they "judge" God's people, calling them to account to live faithfully in accord with their covenant with God and in obedience to His laws.
These include such famous figures as Othniel, Ehud, Doborah, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson.

From this time, we also have the wonderful tale of one truly faithful individual.
It was woman.
And a foreigner (a Moabite woman).
Her name was Ruth.
She pledged to her mother-in-law Naomi that
"Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people; and your God my God."
Ruth's faithfulness led to her marriage to Boaz, from which union there came Obed, who was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

But back to our story (God can do more than one thing at a time; He can prepare for B while still involved with A.
Modern TV series writers learned to do this from people who learned it from reading the Scriptures):

After a time, however, the people lost faith in God's protection (that is, according to a later interpretation, they lost faith in themselves, in the power of their own faith),
and they yearned for a king to rule over them (like other nations). God "relented" and during the time of the prophet Samuel, Saul was appointed king. He eventually lost favor with God and was replaced by David "the son of Jesse," "from whose household was to come "Priest, Prophet, and King" over all.
David established his capital city at Jerusalem, at the summit of Mt. Zion --
which is more of a hill than a "mountain," but I guess it all depends on your perspective, with all due respect to "Mt. Zion."
The identifying characteristic for the Jewish people when they claim that
"Zion rises above all other mountains" isn't physical height, but importance.

God made a covenant with David through the prophet Nathan (2 Sam 7).
God warned that if the people sinned, punishment would surely follow, but that He would never to take away His love from them.
And then there was this very important promise to David:
"Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me, and your throne shall be established forever."

After David, his kingdom was ruled by his son Solomon
who was the first to build a fixed temple for God in Jerusalem.

As before, we are dealing with people who were far from perfect.
Most chronicles of great kings, relate their great victories and great political achievements.
But we are dealing now with perhaps the most honest people who ever lived.
While they certainly tell about the victories and wealth of their greatest kings, they also tell of their
notorious infedilities to God and to their people.

In the case of David, there is the tawdry business with Bathsheba.

And in the case of Solomon, the hundreds of foreign wives, each of whom was given a temple to their own foreign gods.
With these women, we're looking at the reverse of the story of Ruth:
they loved their own people and their own gods (and by extension, themselves)
more than they loved the Jewish people and the LORD.

And in a very grave violation, Solomon also conscripted forced labor from his own people in order to carry out his massive building projects,
turning his fellow Israelites into slaves,
which is precisely what they had escaped from in Egypt.

After the death of Solomon, the ten tribes in the North revolted and split from the two (Judah and Benjamin) in the South, resulting in the period of

The Divided Kingdom
Israel in the North

Judah in the South

It was during this period, that the great period of the itinerant prophets began.
Two of the earliest lived and preached in the North; they were
Elijah and Elisha.

These, and all the prophets that followed them, preached ceaselessly against idolatry and injustice
(which they understood to be related faults).

The people, having been brought by the LORD into the Promised Land,
were constantly tempted by the fertility cults of the Canaanite peoples,
especially the cult of Ba'al.

Note that the problem with these "fertility cults" is not only that they involve ritual prostitution (which they do) --
that is, having sex in order to bring about rain or the fertility of the soil --
they also involve an attempt on the part of man to manipulate God (I'll give you this, if you give me that).
They are also a kind of self-idolatry which blinds us to our own need for reform.
Why the prohibition of idolatry? Because we are supposed to cut and form ourselves to God's image, not vice versa!

Important prophets during this early period include:
Amos: "I hate, I despise your [religious] festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies ...
but let just roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream."
Isaiah: "Your princes are rebels and companions of theives. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts.
They do not defend the orphan, and the widow's cause does not come before them."
Micah: "God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."
Eventually, in 721 B.C., the Northern Kingdom fell to Assyria and many of its inhabitants were deported. Judah was left basically intact but it became a vassal state.
After this date, we have no more prophets in the North.
But we continue to have many prophets in the South, such as:
Jeremiah: "If you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place,
and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land I gave of old to your ancestors ...
But will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house,
which is called by my name, and say 'We are safe!' ... only to go on doing all these abominations?"

And in another place (Jer 31):

The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt;
for they broke my covenant and I had to show myself their master, says the LORD.
But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD.
I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Ezekiel: Who had a vision that the glory of God would arise out of the temple and depart the city, after which Jersualem's enemies would overrun the city.
But he also had a vision of a valley full of dead bones that would come back to life.

And in another place (Ez 36):

Therefore say to the house of Israel: Thus says the Lord GOD: Not for your sakes do I act, house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name, which you profaned among the nations to which you came.

I will prove the holiness of my great name, profaned among the nations, in whose midst you have profaned it. Thus the nations shall know that I am the LORD, says the Lord GOD, when in their sight I prove my holiness through you.

For I will take you away from among the nations, gather you from all the foreign lands, and bring you back to your own land.

I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.

I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees.

You shall live in the land I gave your fathers; you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Finally, in 587 B.C., Judah fell to the Babylonians and many of its inhabitants were exiled; this approximately 50-year period of their exile is often called The Babylonian Captivity When the Babylonian Empire was subsequently conquered by the Persian Empire, under the rule of King Cyrus the Great (of Persia)
many of the people were restored to the Jewish homeland over a period of years in several waves.
In the second great wave of returning exiles was a new governor Nehemiah who rebuilt Jerusalem and its Temple. During this period, religious reform was undertaken by the High Priest Ezra

It may have been during this time that we have additional writings found in the Book of Isaiah, especially those describing the Suffering Servant, who
"grew up ... like a root out of dry ground."
"He had no form or majesty that we shuld look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others,
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.
Upon him was the punishment that has made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.
Like sheep we have gone astray, we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
It was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.
Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities." (Is 53)

Notice, then, that the prophets do two major things:
1. Call the people to an authentic fulfillment of the Law (not only its letter, but its spirit); and
2. They prophesy about a coming age, when God will renew His covenant.

After more than two centuries of Persian rule, Palestine came within the orbit of Greek control as a result of the world conquest of Alexander the Great After the death of Alexander, his empire was divided into three major sections, with a) the Ptolemy dynasty in control of Egypt, b) the Seleucids in control of Syria and much of Asia Minor (Turkey), and c) the Antigonids in control of Greece and Macedonia. Alexander's policy of imposing Hellenistic culture everywhere was continued by his successors. At first, Palestine was under the control of the Ptolemies of Egypt. Later, as the balance of power shifted, it came under the sway of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV (Epiphanes) who was insistent on the process of Hellenization, to the point of putting statues of the Greek gods in the Temple at Jerusalem. When Antiochus's policies were forced upon the Jewish people, open revolution broke out under the leadership of Mattathias and his sons, in particular, Judas Maccabeus who has given his nickname to this uprising: The Maccabean Revolt as well as to the biblical books that describe this period:
The Books of the Maccabees The Maccabees and their successors, the Hasmoneans, were able to achieve Jewish independence for a time, but eventually disputes broke out between the different parties, and the strife was finally settled by the imposition of order by the Roman general Pompey who installed a new king, who was eventually replaced by his scheming Head Chamberlain, Antipater whose son Herod the Great expanded the Temple in Jerusalem dramatically, but who is also reported to have killed (among many others, according to the accounts of his life) all the children of a certain age in an attempt to eradicate the danger he felt was presented to his rule by the birth of a certain child born in Jerusalem during the great census of the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus, a child named by his parents Jesus