|
 |
|
 |
The United
States and Britain in Prophecy Jeremiah warned both houses of Israel that they would soon be carried into Babylonian captivity. His contemporary Ezekiel, who was carried into Babylon in the first wave of that captivity, also addressed both peoples. He challenged those Israelites still in Jerusalem, who complacently thought they had escaped the Babylonian scourge, to repent. The worst was yet to come. Both prophets spoke of the house of Israel as a major portion of the Jewish people. From Jeremiah:
In the above quotation Jeremiah refers to Israel and Judah as one people, the people of Judah. They are his contemporaries and are about to be punished for their sins. That does not mean that he was unaware of what happened to the northern nation. He recalls their captivity in Jeremiah 3:6-8. However, that does not diminish the truth that he also addressed many Israelites then dwelling in Judah. By Jeremiah's day they had begun to be one people. Notice the following quotes:
The book of Jeremiah tells how he warned the Israelite and Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem about their coming Babylonian captivity. Therefore, Jeremiah attests to a significant remnant of the house of Israel dwelling among Judah (a fact we shall see confirmed in Ezekiel).
Remember the famous passage in Jeremiah inspired by his visit to the potter's house?
The house of Israel, the people of Judah, the clay in the potter's hand are all one and the same. The disaster that Jeremiah prophesied for Jerusalem was to come on them all, for they all lived together in that city. Yet Jeremiah also gave those people hope by announcing God's promise of a new covenant. These two houses, sharing in one national calamity, later share in one national restoration.
Notice: God first promises that he'll make this new covenant with both houses. Then, in describing that covenant, he only mentions the house of Israel. In this context God applies the name house of Israel to all of Israel, not just the "lost tribes." The point of the above, and all the previous citations from Jeremiah, is this: Jeremiah bears witness to Israelites and Jews living together in the towns of Judah before the captivity. Naturally this led to the terms Israelite and Jew being applied to all Israelites no matter what tribe they were from technically.
Ezekiel testifies to the same. Written before the final fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple by the Babylonians, the book of Ezekiel proclaimed Israel's inevitable doom. "Go now to the house of Israel," God ordered (Ezekiel 3:4) (rather than over 2,500 years later through the church, as The United States and Britain in Prophecy stated). God commanded this knowing that once they heard what Ezekiel would say to them, they would not listen (verse 7). As God gave Ezekiel his commission, he described at least some of the house of Israel as Ezekiel's fellow exiles to whom he could speak directly (verse 11). These Israelites lived with him at Tel Abib near the Kebar River in Babylon, not in far away Assyria (verse 15). God said that Ezekiel would remain mute, except as God moved him to prophesy (verses 24-27). During this time, Ezekiel was only able to speak when he prophesied directly to members of the "rebellious house" (identified early in chapter 3 as the house of Israel). Apparently his message would so enrage the house of Israel that God warned Ezekiel that leaders of the house of Israel would tie him up with ropes to prevent him from circulating among them (verses 25-26). Chapter 4 tells of Ezekiel building a model of Jerusalem around which he portrayed the final Babylonian siege. Through this symbolism, God warned the house of Israel that they would suffer horribly in Jerusalem's fall. In chapter 8 God reveals the spiritual decay that corrupted even the temple. There the house of Israel openly practiced idolatry. In exposing this sin, Ezekiel names names. A contemporary of his, Jaazaniah son of Shaphan, joined with leading members of the house of Israel in this defilement (Ezekiel 8:3-11). In response God decreed that he would fill the temple with the slain. "Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children.... Defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain" (Ezekiel 9:6-7). Ezekiel cries in anguish
Chapter 9 is particularly important because it is one of the few places where Ezekiel mentions the house of Judah. This handful of scriptures proves that Ezekiel knew the difference between the house of Israel and the house of Judah. These peoples lived together, both in Jerusalem and in the Babylonian captivity. Continuing the story in chapter 10, we see God removing his glory from the temple. He then proceeds to give Ezekiel another glimpse into the continued perversions found there. At Jerusalem's gate there were
As Ezekiel spoke this prophecy to the house of Israel, Pelatiah, one of the men in the vision, died. Ezekiel cried, "Ah, Sovereign Lord! Will you completely destroy the remnant of Israel?" Additional evidence from chapters 12 through 34 supports this conclusion: A significant and influential remnant of the house of Israel lived in Judah and shared in its fall and captivity. Therefore, when the Jews returned out of Babylon, members of the house of Israel probably returned with them. By the days of Nebuchadnezzar, Israelites and Jews formed one nation, the nation of Judah. The failure to recognize this biblical history and its implications is a major failing of all Anglo-Israelite literature, including our own.
The story does not stop there. During the days of Ezra, Cyrus gave the Jews leave to return to Judah and rebuild the temple. Elders of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi led this return (Ezra 1:5). After arriving, the returnees called themselves both the people of Judah and the people of Israel. The terms were interchangeable (Ezra 4:3-4). Ezra himself became known as "a teacher well versed in the Law of Moses, which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given.... For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel" (Ezra 7:6, 10). Ezra returned to Judea with the blessing of Artaxerxes, who had decreed, "that any of the Israelites in my kingdom...who may wish to go to Jerusalem with you, may go" (Ezra 7:13). Upon their return they sacrificed as a sin offering "twelve bulls for all Israel" (Ezra 8:35). Later, when Nehemiah arrived, the Jews decided to repopulate Jerusalem with one-tenth their number. "Now some Israelites, priests, Levites, temple servants and descendants of Solomon's servants lived in the towns of Judah, each on his own property in the various towns, while other people from both Judah and Benjamin lived in Jerusalem" (Nehemiah 11:3-4). The word Israelite in this context does not prove what tribes they descended from. It does prove that by this time Israel and Judah were interchangeable. This should not surprise us once we have recognized the great influx of Israelites into Judah that had occurred before the Babylonian captivity. During his governorship, Nehemiah became concerned with the flagrant Sabbath-breaking among the people. He later wrote,
Israel and Judah Rebuild the Temple The final Old Testament book that contributes to our historical understanding of this subject is Zechariah. Contemporary to Ezra, he and Haggai urged the reluctant Jews to rebuild the temple. In chapter 8, God spoke of his jealousy for Jerusalem. He inspired his listeners with descriptions of the messianic peace he would bring to the city. To the skeptical Jews he responded,
From the above we can see that the prophet Zechariah understood that God urged both houses of Israel to rebuild the temple. That could only occur if both houses dwelt as one among the people we now call the Jews. Zechariah also marks a turning point in biblical terminology. It is the last place that our Christian Bibles say Jews are of the house of Judah (Zechariah 12:4).18 By the New Testament period, house of Judah had become an anachronism.19 Source: Ralph Orr Endnotes 18. The last place in the Hebrew Bible where the term house of Judah appears is 2 Chronicles 22:10. 19. There is a quotation of Jeremiah 31:31 used in Hebrews 8:8, which mentions the house of Judah. However, by the time Hebrews was written, the book of Jeremiah was over 500 years old. Therefore its citation in Hebrews is no more an example of usual Herodian Jewish vocabulary than a quotation from Shakespeare would be of modern English vocabulary. The truth is that by the time of Jesus Christ, biblical writers, except when quoting ancient texts, do not refer to the Jews even once as the house of Judah. (For verification check The NRSV Exhaustive Concordance.)
|
