[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Wednesday, June 19, 2013

[Paul]

Hello and good day to all of you, whether that time of day be morning, afternoon or evening when you receive and read this message.  Here in eastern North America as I write this, it is midafternoon, and when finished, I think I'll go out and do a second complete circuit of my block.  The weather is perfect here:  Temps in the upper 70's or low 80's, plenty of sunshine and low humidity.  I hope that your day is going well.

Do you like history, the kind of history that seems to fall between the cracks, so to speak, and not written or spoken about too much? Well, I do, and the following article by Herb Hirt treats a particular time period in history, that is, the time between Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament, and Matthew, the first book in the New Testament.  Because the article is rather long, it will be divided into two parts.  Its title is "Gentile Rule Over Judaea" and is rendered as follows:

Gentile rule over Judaea began in 605 B.C. when King Jehoiakim of Judaea became a vassal of Babylon.  As pictured in Daniel's visions of the image (Dan. 2) and the four beasts (Dan. 7), God determined that four Gentile nations would rule over Israel until the Messiah came.  Babylon was the first nation to rule Israel, but because the biblical record continues until after the fall of Babylon to the rule of Medo-Persia and the returns to the land under Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, this study deals with Judaea under the rule of Persia, Greece and Rome.  after the ministry of Malachi.

JUDAEA UNDER PERSIAN RULE

The Persian King Cyrus not only conquered Babylon in 538 B.C., but in the same year he allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem (Ezra 1:1-4, Isaiah 44:28; 45:1).  Persian power was maintained from 539 to 425 B.C., roughly until the end of the biblical period.  From 425 B.C. until the rise of Alexander the Great of Greece, the Persian Empire was in decline.

Darius I organized the persian Empire in 20 satrapies with a satrap in charge of each.  Syria and Palestine constituted the fifth satrap, which was further subdivided into districts ruled by pashas.  The district of Palestine included Judaea and Samaria and its pasha ruled from the City of Samaria.  Generally speaking, Persian rule over Judaea was very tolerant.  The Jews were allowed to rebuilt Jerusalem and the Temple under the leadership of the high priest and a Jewish governor, and they could worship as they pleased.  However, as is evident from the Book of Esther and the apocryphal books, such as Tobit, not all Jews returned to Judaea.  Some settled throughout the Persian Empire, mainly in Babylon and Egypt.

During the last century of Persian rule, the Samaritan religion was established.  Apparently, the contention between the governors in Samaria and Judaea continued and was exacerbated by Ezra and Nehemiah's reforms.  Nehemiah 13:28 refers to a descendant of the high priest who was driven out of Jerusalem, possibly because he had married Sanballat's daughter and refused to divorce her.  According to Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews XI 8.2,4), this brother of Jaddua who was driven away was Manasseh, and through Sanballat's help, he was established as the high priest over a rival temple built in Shechem on Mount Gerezim.  The Samaritans took the Pentateuch as their scriptures and refused to recognize Jerusalem as the place of worship designed by God.  This rivalry continued until the time of Jesus.

Persian power had reached its peak in the fourth century B.C., and when King Xerxes was defeated by the Greeks at Salamis and Plataea, it marked the limit of the Persian Empire's westward expansion.  By the time of Alexander the Great, the empire was disintegrating, and the Persian king spent most of his time quelling rebellions.

JUDAEA UNDER GREEK RULE

Pictured in Daniel 7 as the leopard with wings and in Daniel 8 as the goat whose feet did not touch the ground, Alexander the Great conquered the whole Persian Empire in nine years.  After defeating Darius III in Asia Minor, Alexander headed south toward Palestine and Egypt.  After destroying Tyre, he came to Jerusalem and, according to Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, xi. 8.5), offered sacrifices to the God of Israel because he recognized the high priest Jaddua as the one who, before he left Macedonia, had appeared to him in a dream and commissioned him to conquer the Persians.  The priest showed Alexander what was written about him in the Book of Daniel, and Alexander understood himself to be that divinely ordained person.  In honor of this occurrence, he granted the Jews favor to practice their religion freely throughout the empire.

While some scholars question the historicity of Josephus' account, Alexander certainly did act as if he were divinely ordained to rule the world, and Judaism, as well as the other eastern religions, was not prohibited under his rule.  Rather, Alexander's vision was to unite the East and West into one culture.  This meant the Hellenization of the East (i.e., the introduction of the Greek language, philosophy, and customs into the East), which continued well beyond Alexander's death in 323 B.C.

As pictured in Daniel 7:6, 8:8, and 11:4, by 301 B.C., Alexander's empire was divided among four generals.  Ptolemy received Egypt and Seleucus was to rule over Syria and Palestine.  Before Seleucus could establish himself in Palestine, Ptolemy seized the territory, and thus Palestine became an area of contention between the two dynasties for the next 130 years (cf. Daniel 11:3-35).  The Ptolemies controlled Palestine from 301 to 198 B.C., until the coming of Antiochus III, the Great.

Judaea was not as significant to the Ptolomies as the trade routes that ran along the Mediterranean coast and through the Trans-Jordan.  In this respect, the Jews were able to continue their customs without interference, although some of the more wealthy and politically connected families (the Tobiads) were open to Hellenistic ways, which began to cause a division among the Jewish people.  However, the freedom of religion changed with the inauguration of Seleucid rule.

Antiochus III had designs to rule over the entire Greek Empire, but he was defeated by the Romans at Magnesia in 190 B.C.  As a consequence, he had to pay huge sums of money to Rome, and his sons were taken hostage by the Romans as security.  To pay his debt to Rome, Antiochus and his successors began to confiscate money from the various temples under his rule, including the Temple in Jerusalem.  After Antiochus III and his son, Seleucus IV were killed, another son, Antiochus IV, who had been raised in Rome, came to power.  Antiochus IV Epiphanies (manifest, i.e., manifestation of Zeus) desired to unite his father's empire and sought to totally Hellenize Judaea.

To take control of Judaea, Antiochus deposed Onias III, the rightful Zadokite high priest, and appointed Onias' younger brother, Jason, a Hellenistic sympathizer, as high priest when Jason offered more money for the office.  Thus, in 174 B.C., the succession of Zadokite high priests in Jerusalem ended.  Three years later, Jason's friend Menelaus, who was not even of the Aaronic line, offered Antiochus more money than Jason, and Menelaus was made high priest.  When Menelaus plundered the Temple, Antiochus came to rescue him and establish his control over Jerusalem.  Finally, after being forced by the Romans to leave Egypt, Antiochus took out his vengeance on Judaea.  He outlawed the practice of Judaism and commanded that all sacrifices be made to pagan gods.  On Chislev 25, 167 B.C., Antiochus set up an image of Zeus in the Temple at Jerusalem and commanded the Jewish people to worship Zeus, which in effect was worship of himself.  This is "the abomination which maketh desolate" referred to in Daniel 11:31.

Well folks, let's get back to reality, that is, the here and now times in which we live.  This study will be continued tomorrow, Lord willing.  I do hope that some of you at least found it interesting, but I hope and pray that nothing like this happens to us, that is, we are forbidden to worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  If so, and the authorities come after us individually, we can simply quote those famous words in Acts 5:  "We would rather obey God than man."

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last and evil days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul