The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

410 Double Foreview of the Reformation.espostulations, appeals, threats, irony, indignant remonstrance are all employedin turn ; but the people were obdurate. "We will not listen / hearken to you," saidthey to Jeremiah; "we will certainly . . . burn incense to the queen of heaven, andpour out drink offerings to her" (Jer. XLIV. [44] 16, 17).The enormity of this sin was enhanced by the fact that the very object ofIsrael's existence as a nation was that they might be a holy nation, a peculiarpeople to Jehovah [error of the Middle Ages; it is: to YAHWEH!]. They werethe sole witnesses to the true God in the world, and yet they seemed obstinatelyresolved to sink back to the level of their heathen neighbors.The relapse of Israel and Judah into heathen idol worship was punished inthe providence of God by their captivity in the lands of the heathen : Israel wascarried captive into Assyria, and Judah into Babylon. The heathenism of Jerusalemand of Babylon were substantially the same ; each was marked by gross idolatry,and accompanied by the cruel persecution of all who resisted it. Manaseeh filledJerusalem with the blood of the faithful whom he slew. In Babylon, however, bothidolatry and persecution found their most complete development. Nebuchadnezzarset up his golden image, issued his persecuting edict, and kindled his fiery furnace ;and Belshazzar made his impious feast, and brought the vessels of God'shouse to his table, that he and his lords, his wives and his concubines, mightdrink wine in them ; and praise "the gods of silver, and gold, ofbrass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, norknow"; and Daniel said, addressing the doomed man, "The God in whosehand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, haveyou not glorified" (Dan. V. 23).Jeremiah cries concerning Babylon : "Behold, the days come, says the Lord[YAHWEH], that I will do judgment upon her graven images" (Jer. LI. 52)."A drought is upon her waters ; and they shall be dried up : for it is the landof graven images, and they are mad upon their idols" (Jer. L. 38).The climax of apostasy and rebellion was reached at last ; and when Judahhad practically sunk to the level of idolatrous Babylon, God suffered her to beconquered and carried captive by one Babylonian tyrant after another, and His owntemple at Jerusalem, which had been so desecrated and profaned, He permitted tobe captured and burned. The visible existence of the Jewish nation ceased for atime. The daughters of Jerusalem hung their harps upon the willows by the riversof Babylon, and Judæa desolate.Then, about five hundred years before the first advent of Christ, there camesuddenlay and unexpectedly deliverance and restoration. Ezra and Nehemiah wereraised up to lead back and reorganize in the land a remnant of the people. Thetemple of God rose from its ashes once more on Mount Moriah. Jerusalem wasrebuilt, and its civil and religious polity restored ; it was surrounded with walls andtowers ; the long forgotten word of God was recovered,and read in the audience of the people ; and as the language hadbecome somewhat obsolete during the seventy years of the Babylonish captivity,the Jewish reformers, we are told, not only "read in the book in the law of Goddistinctly," but they also "gave the sense, and caused them to understand thereading" (Neh. VIII. ).