For this audacious treason and unbelief, about three thousand men were slain: soon after which, Jehovah made a covenant with the people, promising to drive out the Canaanites before them, and renewedly enjoining them to break their images and destroy their altars and groves. Chap. x.x.xiv.

The tabernacle having been erected and offerings made according to the ritual, "There came a fire out from before Jehovah, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering, ... which when all the people saw, they shouted and fell on their faces." Leviticus ix. On this occasion two of the priests, Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, in the spirit of the Egyptian idolatry, burnt incense with strange fire, _i. e._, such as idolaters used: "And there went out fire from Jehovah and devoured them, and they died before Jehovah." Levit. x.

The constant recurrence of reproof, instruction and prediction, in the historical and Prophetic writings of the Old Testament, proceeds from the nature of that dispensation, the conduct of the people under it, and the manner of its final consummation.

The dispensation was one of outward and visible manifestation, discipline, trial, prefiguration and hope; disobedience under it was acted out visibly in idolatry and all practical abominations. Reproofs were uttered according to actual circ.u.mstances, having respect to present actual wickedness.

A leading feature of that dispensation was that of the personal, local, visible appearances and interpositions of the Mediator. The tendencies and results of the dispensation were thwarted and delayed by the idolatry and wickedness of the people. The predictions, founded in the nature and design of that visible economy, looked forward to the circ.u.mstances, agencies and results which were to fulfil, complete and vindicate the nature and original design of the economy.

Hence the humiliation and vicarious sufferings of the Mediator, and the glory of his ultimate manifestations, judgments and triumph, are the prominent topics of prophetic announcement; and the latter chiefly, as more in keeping with the a.n.a.logy of the past, and as being ultimate and perfect. By the things thus predicted, the thwarted and delayed purposes and tendencies of the dispensation were to be adequately provided for, and rendered effective by the foreseen intervention of the agency and power of the Mediator in his incarnate state. The prophets accordingly pa.s.s from the circ.u.mstances which gave rise to their predictions to the circ.u.mstances and events of their fulfilment by the Mediator in his future visible manifestations.

It was, for example, provided in the Mosaic economy that the loyalty and obedience of the Israelites should have a trial under the government of the Mediator as King; as Priest and King on his throne in the tabernacle. Being thus perfectly protected and provided for, they had every facility and every inducement to be loyal and obedient. But they rebelled and rejected him as King.

At length they desired and solicited a human chieftain as king, after the manner of the surrounding nations. This was granted, and a trial made under vicegerents in the persons of David and Solomon, sitting on the throne of Jehovah, as rulers in his place, and as types of his kingly office, when he shall at the latter day visibly resume it.

The rejection of the Mediator as King, and the consequent interruption and final discontinuance of the theocratic administration, gave occasion to the mission of the prophets; the earliest of whom, Hosea, prophesied in the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, about 800 years before Christ, and the latest, Malachi, about 440 B. C. Hosea flourished about 180 years after the death of Solomon. The apostasy of all the tribes to idol worship was then nearly total. The restoration from the Babylonish exile having resulted in no reformation, both Jews and Samaritans, at the close of Malachi's mission, were, like the heathen nations, left to themselves.

The prophets and true worshippers all regarded the separation of the ten tribes as an apostasy from the theocratic government, the seat of which was in the temple, and the representative vicegerent on the throne was to be in the line of David.

Elijah's taking twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of Israel, when he repaired the altar of Jehovah and offered acceptable sacrifices, showed that he considered the defection of the ten tribes as a rejection of Jehovah as Mediator. 1 Kings xviii. 31. True worship was to be offered, in conformity with the system connected with the temple.

The reformation under Hezekiah and that under Josiah also virtually included, in respect to religion, a reunion of all the tribes. There could be no return to Jehovah, but by returning to the temple worship, where He as Mediator presided. The separation of the ten tribes was equally a religious and a civil apostasy; for Jehovah, as Priest and King on his throne, was at once the head of the religious and civil system. Hence the political revolt and the inst.i.tution of a rival and hostile civil government, was necessarily connected with the inst.i.tution of a rival and hostile religious system. A political revolt necessarily involved a religious one; and to maintain their political power in opposition to that of the line of David, Jeroboam and his successors found it necessary to render the separation in respect to religion as wide as possible.

The prophets accordingly, while they speak of the chiefs of the revolted tribes as kings, in conformity with popular usage, never recognize them as such of right.

To effect an entire religious apostasy as a means of sustaining the political revolt, (1 Kings xii.) Jeroboam inst.i.tuted the golden calves, under pretense of their being symbols, representative of the Jehovah, and in place of the Shekina. The Levites appear to have refused to concur in the imposture thus attempted, and being exiled as likely to hinder its success. Priests to officiate in this apostate worship were selected from the lowest of the people. So offensive and intolerable indeed to the true worshippers was this apostasy, "that the priests, and the Levites that were in all Israel ... came to Judah and Jerusalem....

And after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek Jehovah, the Elohe of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to Jehovah, the Elohe of their fathers." 2 Chron. xi. 13-16. Jeroboam, having cast off the Levites, "ordained him priests for the high places, and for the devils, and for the calves which he had made." Ibid.

The government of the ten tribes being founded in a total apostasy, and including a rival and hostile system of religion, is treated accordingly by the prophets as a rebellion. As a rebellion, it could not dissolve the relation previously established, by solemn covenants, between Jehovah, as Priest and King on his throne in the tabernacle, and the people of Israel. That relation could be dissolved or discontinued on his part, only by such events as afterwards took place in their rejection and exile. In the meantime, prophets were sent to them, and various dispensations of judgment and mercy were employed to reclaim them from their idolatry and wickedness.

Such is the point of view in which the Israelites and their kings are to be regarded in considering the language and predictions of the prophets.

Viewed in this light, the statements respecting their apostate condition, the aggravations of their wickedness, the judgments inflicted on them, their dispersion, and the predictions concerning their future restoration under one head, are for the most part rendered plain; while the fact that they revolted from the Theocracy, the system of local, personal, visible manifestation of the Mediator as Priest and King, is the manifest ground of the predictions that, in due time, what had been thwarted and delayed by their wickedness will be resumed and carried into effect by a regathering of them under the Mediator as King, in his incarnate state and visible reign.

Epoch.