Judgments Stayed for a Season
For a season these predicted judgments were stayed, and during the long reign of Jeroboam II the armies of Israel gained signal victories. But this time of apparent prosperity wrought no change in the hearts of the impenitent, and it was finally decreed, “Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land.” Amos 7:11.SS 153.5
The boldness of this utterance was lost on king and people. Amaziah, a leader among the idolatrous priests at Bethel, stirred by the plain words spoken against the nation and their king, said to Amos, “O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there: but prophesy not again any more at Bethel: for it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court.” Verses 12, 13.SS 154.1
To this the prophet firmly responded: “Israel shall surely go into captivity.” Verse 17.SS 154.2
The words spoken against the apostate tribes were literally fulfilled, yet the destruction of the kingdom came gradually. In judgment the Lord remembered mercy. When “the king of Assyria came against the land” (2 Kings 15:19), Menahem, then king of Israel, was permitted to remain on the throne as a vassal of the Assyrian realm. The Assyrians, having humbled the ten tribes, returned for a season to their own land.SS 154.3
Menahem, far from repenting of the evil that had wrought ruin in his kingdom, continued in “the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.” Verse 18. In the days of Pekah (Verse 29), his successor, Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, invaded Israel and carried away a multitude of captives living in Galilee and east of the Jordan. These were scattered among the heathen in lands far removed from Palestine. From this terrible blow the northern kingdom never recovered. Only one more ruler, Hoshea, was to follow Pekah. Soon the kingdom was to be swept away forever.SS 154.4
In that time of sorrow and distress God still remembered mercy. In the third year of Hoshea's reign, good King Hezekiah began to rule in Judah and instituted important reforms in the temple service at Jerusalem. A Passover celebration was arranged for, and to this feast were invited not only Judah and Benjamin, but the northern tribes as well.SS 154.5
“So couriers went throughout all Israel and Judah,” with the pressing invitation, “O people of Israel, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that He may turn again to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria ... . Do not now be stiffnecked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord, and come to His sanctuary ... . For if you return to the Lord, your brethren and your children will find compassion with their captors, and return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away His face from you, if you return to Him.” 2 Chronicles 30:6-9, RSV.SS 154.6
From city to city the couriers sent by Hezekiah carried the message. But the remnant of the ten tribes still dwelling within the once-flourishing northern kingdom treated the royal messengers with indifference, even with contempt. “They laughed them to scorn, and mocked them.” A few, however, “of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem ... to keep the feast of unleavened bread.” Verses 10, 11-13.SS 155.1