Judah until the Exile
The Southern kingdom, Judah, survives the North by more than a century, kept by the promise made to David and by the Temple of Jerusalem. It knows holy reforming kings, Hezekiah and Josiah, but always falls back into infidelity. Finally Jerusalem falls, the Temple is burned, and the people go into exile in Babylon. But the Davidic promise is not extinguished.
The Fragile Fidelity of Judah
The line of David continues at Jerusalem, from father to son, unlike the North where dynasties overturned one another in blood. A few kings are faithful, like Asa or Jehoshaphat, most mediocre or bad, and Judah is constantly drawn toward the idols of the neighboring nations. Once even, at a king’s death, his mother Athaliah has the whole royal line massacred and usurps the throne; a single grandson, Joash, is saved by an aunt and hidden six years in the Temple, before the high priest Jehoiada restores him and puts the usurper to death: so watchfully does God guard against letting the house of David die out, from which the Messiah must come. Throughout these centuries, the prophets, Isaiah and others, warn the kings that the safety of Jerusalem rests not on its walls or its alliances, but on its fidelity to the Lord.
Hezekiah and the Deliverance of Jerusalem
King Hezekiah undertakes a great reform, tearing down the high places and breaking even the bronze serpent of Moses, become an idol, to bring all worship back to the one Temple. It is then that Assyria, which has just swallowed up the North, comes up against Judah; its king Sennacherib takes the fortified cities, besieges Jerusalem, and has taunts cried beneath its walls against the God of Israel, as he has mocked the gods of the conquered peoples. Hezekiah lays the threat before God in the Temple and entrusts himself to him, upheld by the prophet Isaiah; God answers by defending his city himself. "the angel of the Lord went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp…" 2 Kings 19:35 The decimated army withdraws, Sennacherib goes home where he perishes by a violent death, and Jerusalem is saved without having given battle. The deliverance shows that the city is indeed God’s, kept by the promise made to David, and not by the strength of men.
Josiah and the Book of the Law
After Hezekiah, his son Manasseh reigns longer than all and does worse than all, setting up idols even within the Temple and shedding innocent blood; the Chronicles add that, carried captive to Assyria, he repented and was restored, a sign that no sinner is beyond the reach of mercy. Then comes Josiah, the last great king. While the Temple is being repaired, the book of the Law is found in it, forgotten; at its reading, Josiah tears his clothes, understanding how far the people have strayed from it. He consults the prophetess Huldah, solemnly renews the covenant before all the people, celebrates a Passover such as there had not been since the judges, and destroys the idols and the high places throughout the land, as far as the altar of Bethel. "Before him there had been no king who, like him, turned to the Lord with all his heart…" 2 Kings 23:25 This last flowering of fidelity comes too late, however, to reverse the course of things: the accumulated evil already weighs on Judah, and Josiah dies in battle against Pharaoh, leaving the kingdom defenseless.
The Fall of Jerusalem and the Exile
After Josiah, everything rushes on. Babylon has replaced Assyria as mistress of the east, and the last kings follow one another at Jerusalem, now submissive, now in revolt, deaf to the prophets God keeps sending, Jeremiah first of all. The Chronicles sum up in a word the people’s obstinate refusal. "they mocked the messengers of God, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the anger of the Lord rose against his people, past all remedy." 2 Chronicles 36:16 Nebuchadnezzar first deports the elite and the young king, then, faced with a new revolt, takes Jerusalem after a starving siege, around 587 before Jesus Christ; he burns the Temple, tears down the walls, puts out the last king’s eyes after slaughtering his sons before them, and leads the people to Babylon. The throne of David seems extinguished, the dwelling of God reduced to ashes. And yet the account does not close on the ruin: the books of the Kings note that the deported king was one day drawn from his prison and admitted to the table of the king of Babylon, a thin gleam kept; and the Chronicler ends outright on the edict of the Persian king Cyrus, who, decades later, authorizes the exiles to return and to rebuild the house of God. "May the Lord, his God, be with him, and let him go up!" 2 Chronicles 36:23 The exile purifies without annihilating: the promise made to David is not dead, only hidden, like a root under winter, until the true Son of David, whose reign and whose Temple will know no end.