Judah After Zedekiah in 586 BCE? Or Israel After Hoshea in 721 BCE?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                       

We leave Judah and Israel, Our Israel divided into two. because of 2 distinct ways of continued living, which became their destruction.  Situated in a land bridge between the Babylonians and Egyptians, the two great powers of the day, Kings Jehoiakim (608-598 BCE) of Judah and Zedekiah (597-586 BCE) of Judah kept switching allegiance depending on which seemed the more powerful. Judah first favored Egypt, then Babylon, and then returned to Egypt. The Bible and the Babylonian Chronicles help us reconstruct the events that led to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E.  

     JUDAH/JUDEA/JUDAEA/JEWS TO 70 CE

After Zedekiah's defeat in 586 BCE, the Kingdom of Judah was dissolved into a Babylonian province. King Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire appointed Gedaliah as governor over the remaining impoverished peasants. However, Gedaliah was assassinated just a few years later, triggering a flight of refugees back to Egypt.  

1. Gedaliah: Appointed by King Nebuchadnezzar to administer the remnant of the Jewish population left in the land. He ruled from Mizpah until his assassination around 582 BCE by Ishmael, a member of the royal family. 

2. Ishmael ben Nethaniah: Briefly usurped local control after assassinating Gedaliah, plunging the region into further chaos before fleeing to the Ammonites. 

3. Nebuchadnezzar II: The Babylonian King who conquered Jerusalem, burned Solomon's Temple, and initiated the Babylonian exile. He held supreme imperial authority over the territory of Judah. 

4. The Achaemenid Empire: Following the fall of the Babylonian empire, the region passed into Persian (Iran) control in 539 BCE under Cyrus the Great, who eventually allowed exiled Jews to return and govern themselves under Persian oversight. Cyrus was a good ruler, and today is the one ruler that both the youth of Iran and Israel share as a great leader. So, almost half of the Israelites who came to Canaan in the first place were living in the Jerusalem area when the Romans attacked Jerusalem in 70 CE.  

After Cyrus the Great, the Israelites (Jews) were primarily ruled by the Achaemenid Persian Empire. They functioned as an autonomous province (Yehud) under a succession of Persian kings before falling to Greek and Roman conquerors over the following centuries.

       GREEK AND ROMAN CONQUERORS

Judah was always the largest in population, coming into Canaan with 76,500 men.  Evidently the 2 census's taken by Moses were only counting the men, who would have to defend the group as they moved along to Canaan from Egypt.  Simeon only arrived with 22,200.  The sequential progression of empires and rulers over the Israelites includes:

• The Persian Period (539–332 BCE): The returned exiles were governed directly by the Persian royal court, notably Darius the Great (who oversaw the completion of the Second Temple), Xerxes I (the Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther), and Artaxerxes I (who authorized the rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls). Local leadership was often managed by Jewish high priests and appointed governors, such as Zerubbabel. 
• The Hellenistic Period (332–167 BCE): Following the conquests of Alexander the Great, the land of Israel fell under Greek rule. Upon Alexander's death, control of the region was contested by his generals, shifting between the Ptolemaic Kingdom (based in Egypt) and the Seleucid Empire (based in Syria). 
• The Hasmonean Dynasty (142–63 BCE): Led by the Maccabees, the Jewish people successfully revolted against Seleucid religious oppression, securing a period of Jewish self-rule and independence under the Hasmonean kings. 
• The Roman Period (63 BCE onwards): The Hasmonean kingdom was eventually annexed by the Roman Republic under Pompey the Great. The Romans ruled the area directly through governors and client kings, like Herod the Great, leading up to the First Jewish-Roman War and the destruction of the Temple. 
•         FATE of the 10 NORTHERN TRIBES

In the meantime, we have these 10 other northern tribes left in the hands of Jeroboam (933-912 BCE) of a leading tribe of Ephraim, (32,500)  who had had the job of superintendent of forced labor who had been working on building the Temple.  That's why the states split away.  They had enough of the forced free labor.  Solomon, usually a most fair of judges, had been in a panic to get the job done before he died.  He was not a well man, who hid it well.  

The Division: Jeroboam, a former overseer under Solomon, returned from exile in Egypt to lead the revolt of the 10 tribes (Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, and Manasseh). 

Political & Religious Strategy: Fearing that his subjects would travel to Jerusalem (in the southern Kingdom of Judah) for religious festivals and eventually pledge loyalty to the Davidic dynasty, Jeroboam established rival cultic centers like the people they surrounded themselves with, Aram and Ammon. He set up golden calves in the cities of Bethel and Dan, declaring them also to be the gods of Israel, and appointed non-Levite priests. This was worse than saying oy vey!  Why did he go so far, a 180 degree turn-around???

Reign: His 22-year reign was marked by ongoing warfare with the southern kingdom of Judah. His dynasty ended shortly after his death when his son , King Nadab (913-911 BCE)  was assassinated in one report;  killed while fighting the Philistines in another who said that Baasha, his rival, murdered him; (I Kings 15-25)and Jeroboam's entire family line was wiped out. 

Archaeology: Excavations at Tel Dan have unearthed remains of the cultic shrines and high places that match the biblical accounts of Jeroboam's rule. 

Fate of the 10 Northern Tribes

• Continuous Idolatry & Instability: Following Jeroboam I, the Kingdom of Israel experienced severe political instability, frequent assassinations, and continued worship of foreign gods. 
• The Assyrian Conquest (722 BCE): The northern kingdom was ultimately conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians implemented a forced deportation and resettlement policy, removing thousands of Israelites and scattering them across the Assyrian Empire (including modern-day Iraq and Syria).
• "Lost" Status: Because these northern tribes were dispersed and integrated into surrounding cultures over the centuries, the historical records of their independent existence ceased. They are popularly known as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
•                    NORTH MEETS SOUTH-UNITE
• Southern Migration: Many refugees from the northern kingdom migrated south to Jerusalem to escape the Assyrian destruction. Therefore, remnants of the northern tribes likely survived and intermingled with the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin, continuing their identity into the Second Temple period.  
• The Second Temple period (516 BCE to 70 CE) was a transformative era of Israelite history defined by the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple, profound religious development, and successive foreign conquests. It ended catastrophically when the Romans destroyed the Temple during the First Jewish-Roman War in 70 CE. 
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  Following the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Jews faced massacres, enslavement, and displacement. Without a sacred center, Judaism transformed: sacrificial Temple rituals ended, and the surviving Pharisees shifted the faith to Second Temple period Torah study and communal prayer, cementing Rabbinic Judaism.
• After the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Jewish people adapted to survive the loss of their central holy site. They transitioned from a Temple-based, sacrificial religion to Rabbinic Judaism—focusing on Torah study, communal prayer, and synagogues—while many faced forced displacement from their homeland.
• Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Romans did not completely expel the Jewish population, but heavily displaced them through slavery, execution, and regional bans. While many were sold into slavery and sent across the Empire, surviving communities remained in their ancestral lands, while others fled to established diaspora centers.
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The People of Judah Among The Countries

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

On his deathbed, Jacob prophesied that Judah would be the leader among his brothers, likened to a lion, with a permanent royal scepter [Genesis 49:8-10]. Judah’s descendants would rule, defeat their enemies, and produce a ruler (Shiloh) to whom all nations would be obedient. Judah's father was Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abram (Abraham).  son of Terah, son of Nahor, etc, and onto Shem, son of Noah.   They had no idea that our DNA showed the same line recorded in the cells of our body.  We can prove this today.                                                    

Judah's mother was Leah on the left with  6 of Jacob's children.  He was the 4th son.  It was he who persuaded his brothers to sell Joseph to passing Ishmaelites rather than leave him to die in a pit (Gen.37)He received his father's patriarchal blessing (Gen.49-:8), though Reuben, Simeon and Levi were older. 

The land received by the tribe of Judah was one of the largest in Canaan and it eventually absorbed Simeon in the Negev Desert, and Benjamin 12th son of Jacob-2nd son of Rachel who died in childbirth.   This tribe was placed on land between Ephraim and Judah which included Jerusalem.  King Saul was a Benjamite.  The land was a bone of contention between Israel and Judah after Saul died, partitioned between the two eventually, then included in Judah.

Out of this tribe was born David who had a leading position over the other 11 tribes as King.  When the kingdom split after the death of Solomon, Judah supported his son, Rehoboam (933-917 BCE)  and was predominant in the southern kingdom of Judah.   

Punishment by the Greeks and Romans, a practice copied from the Persians was crucifiction.  It was unknown in Jewish law, and here it was was introduced by the Romans;  the usual punishment given to rebels.  Many Jews suffered this fate under Roman rule.  
 

We Jews come from Judah, which was later called Judaea by the Romans who took Judah in 70 CE. 

Jews are the only people who remained really faithful to the Law of Moses and believed in only ONE G-D purely;  no siblings or children of G-D like the Greeks and Romans did.  The rest of the world was a pantheon of Gods that people believed in and worshipped, along with some animals, at times.  

70 CE was the year of Roman putting an end to the Jewish Rebellion which started in  63 BCE with Pompey, the Roman General who involved the Romans into the warfare between the Hasmoneans, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, to occupy Jerusalem, the capital of Judah.  Then the Parthians in 40 BCE captured it which was followed by a long siege to Herod in 37 BCE.  who then ruled it as a Roman vassal until his death in 4 BCE and his son  Archelaus who took over in 6 BCE for his father. 

Pontius Pilate was a procurator who crucified Jesus in 29 CE. which started a new calendar.   Roman procurators then took over until the reign of Agrippa in 41-44 CE who began to build a 3rd wall to the north. 

The Arch of Titus in Rome, one can see it today,  showing how the Jews, now slaves, had to carry the spoils of the Temple back to Rome.   

Roman rule was unbearable and the Jewish rebellion started in 66 CE.  After 3 years of independence, the city of Jerusalem was besieged by the Romans under Titus and fell in 70 CE.  They starved the people of Jerusalem for a long time, according to Josephus Flavius (b: 38-d:100 CE), a Judean Jew of priestly family .  The Temple and most of the buildings were destroyed and a Roman garrison was built on its ruins.  The Jews were not only taken as slaves, but were forced into manual labor in building, and like the Christians, faced death by animals for entertainment.  

Some Jews escaped from Jerusalem and fled to Spain, forced to leave and went to Portugal, forced to leave.  Following their "Golden Age" in Spain, Jews were expelled in 1492 (and Portugal in 1496), triggering a mass diaspora known as the Sephardic dispersion. 

They fled to North Africa, the Ottoman Empire (Turkey/Balkans), Italy, Germany,  the Netherlands, and Eastern Europe and into Russia and that area.  and eventually the New World, forming global communities that maintained Spanish-influenced cultures.  The last place was the USA with Jewish immigration to the USA occurred in several major waves, starting in 1654 with Sephardic Jews in New Amsterdam (New York), followed by a large wave of German Jews in the mid-19th century, and a massive influx of over 2 million Eastern European Jews between 1880 and 1924.  

Germany had Jews living there since the 8th and 9th century who had a pro-Jewish policy and encouraged settlement of Jews with the object of developing trade.  By 9th century they were living in Augsburg and Metz, by the 10th, at Worms, Mainz, Magdeburg, Ratisbon, etc.  The densest settlement was in the Rhineland of Mainz, Speyer, Worms, Cologne, etc.  Crusaders massacred the Jews throughout the Rhineland and adjacent areas.  Yiddish came out of this experience, a mix of German and Hebrew and a dash of others.  

Russia, etc,  introduced pogroms to any anti-Semitic acts which drove Jews to think once more about Judea, their ancestral home.  1880 saw Aliyah of Jews go to live there by boat, and they were followed up by more and more.  

The Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act) severely restricted Jewish immigration to the United States by establishing strict national-origins quotas based on the 1890 census. This act intentionally targeted southern and eastern European immigrants, including Jews, effectively ending the era of mass migration and closing a major door for those fleeing persecution. 

How Chanukah Has Nothing To Do With Christmas

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

I'm finding that many Christians think, because of the dates Christmas and Chanukah are so close together, that Chanukah is just the Jews' way of celebrating Christmas.  

I'm afraid not.  Their dates of celebration in December is just a coincidence.  One has nothing to do with the other.

Chanukah is a minor Jewish holiday in the context of all our Jewish holidays.  Because gift-giving is involved, it's become more of a celebrated holiday, perhaps because it's in competition with Christmas.

Chanukah is celebrating a historic war where Judah, once one of the 12 states of Israel, had battles with the Greek-Syrians of Hellenism.  They tried to take over the country and even got away with putting the idol of Zeus in the Jewish Temple ! Everyone was afraid to speak out.  They were trying to force Jews to eat parts of pigs, you know, pork.  That's forbidden for Jews, highly offensive in those days .  They wanted to put an end to circumcision.  That did it! 

 A very macho-man who had 5 sons, was furious. Mattathias was a patriot, a priest and a landowner of Modiin. He had 5 sons; Judah the Maccabee, Jonathan, Simon, John, and Eleazar. Mattathias killed the royal official who was sent to make the Jews worship Zeus.  This was the focus of the revolt of his sons against Antiochus Epiphanes. This was very serious;  it meant the end of Judaism if not stopped.  The Syrians had become Hellenized (fall for Greek beliefs)  way before it was a threat to the Jews.  That's why the Jews had to fight Syrian-Greeks.   

Mattathias was the leader of the revolt and was staying in the Judean hills and waged a guerilla war on the Syrians. (In fact, he introduced fighting in that manner.)  He was killed and his son, Judah the Maccabee, took over.  He was later called the Hammerer because he hammered away at the Syrians.  We remember Judah and his brothers being victorious over Antiochus Epiphanes and their rededication of the Temple that the Greeks had taken over.

 Antiochus IV Epiphanes was the Hellenistic king of the Seleucid Empire, reigning from 175 BCE until his death in 164 BCE, born around 215 BCE, known for his aggressive Hellenization policies that led to the Maccabean Revolt against his rule in Judea. 

This means that the event happened about 2,200 years ago, and at least 175 years before the birth of Jesus.  

In the temple hung the eternal light lamp of oil which was always kept full.  With the Syrians taking over, it burned down to no oil left by the time Mattathias decided to risk his and his son's lives by rebelling.  With them succeeding, they threw out Zeus and sent runners to the next town for oil.  The lamp kept on burning for 8 nights anyway until the runners returned;  a miracle.  We remember this by eating foods fried in oil, like sufganiot (donuts) and potato latkas (hash browned potatoes-bought frozen are yummy in a pinch).  

Young men were being kept from studying the Torah, so they would go into the woods and study.  If the Syrian soldiers saw them and were questioning them, they denied they were studying, only gambling with a dreidal.  That's where the dreidal comes into our holiday.  

If this hadn't taken place, neither would Judaism have continued, so because of this event, Jesus was born and Christianity was able to develop.  

Resource:

https://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-revolt-against-syrians-by-jews.html