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CONGRUITIES AND INCONGRUITIES BETWEEN THE BIBLE AND THE QUR'AN |
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Under Rehoboam, son of Solomon, Israel was divided. The people complained about the high rate of taxes they had to pay to cover the expenses of the palaces and the Temple in Jerusalem. Their petition addressed to the new King had found no positive reaction. Under him Israel, the northern kingdom, and Judah, the s outh kingdom, parted company. In 796 B.C. 10 tribes occupied the northern part and established the kingdom of Israel while 2 tribes set up the Judah kingdom with Rehoboam as king, in the south. Thus Israel had lost its power and became a prey for the Egyptian and Assyrian empires.
Kingdom of Israel
Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom, had two temples erected as an alternative to the Temple at Jerusalem, and placed in them two golden calf statues. This was blatant idolatry, straying from God's explicit commandments. Evil days had dawned for the Jews; moral corruption led naturally to physical weakening. Ahab was among them the weakest king who had strayed from the true path. He had an altar built for Baal, god of the Canaanites, and began worshipping him instead of Jehovah. The kingdom had suffered from ill administration and corruption which resulted in God's wrath against a public who had failed to abide by the Covenant, and they were conquered in 555 B.C. by Assyria; as a consequence of which the 10 tribes that constituted the kingdom were dispersed and exiled to the Assyrian territories.
Kingdom of Judah
The kings in the south had exhibited a wiser administration in contradistinction with Northern Kings and abided by the Law. The Kingdom outlasted the Northern Kingdom by 135 years. « And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did. He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.. And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it.» (2 Kings 3, 4, 5, 9)
Hezekiah, succeeded by his son Manasseh, who succeeded to his father, King Hezekiah, ruined his good father's reforms, restored the idolatry and the Baal worship. He had his grandfather killed. Isaiah was killed by the wicked king Manasseh, who served Beliar-Sammael, the chief of the evil spirits, instead of God. Amon, s on of Manasseh, King of Judah succeeded when young and followed Manasseh's evil ways and was murdered after reigning 2 years. The spiritual corruption had started. Prophet Amos that God Almighty had sent warned the Israelites and gave them respite for repentance. Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked: But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem. (Amos 2/4, 5)
The same errors are being committed even today and a part of humanity continues to deify money, worldly fame and gifts of nature. Turning a deaf ear to God's commandments and obeying the dictates of passions is surely a great mistake.
Destruction of Solomon's Temple
The Kingdom of Judah was razed to the ground by the Babylonian Empire who captured Jerusalem in 422 B.C. after having defeated the Assyrians. Part of the people was massacred and the rest was exiled to Babylonia. They destroyed the Temple, standing erect since 410 B.C. in which the chest that contained the Ark of the Covenant and the stone tablets written by God was kept. This was a severe punishment for the Jews that had failed to abide by the Law; the link that attached them to God had been broken and they were dispersed.
THE PERIOD OF THE SECOND TEMPLE