Street Juice
Platinum Member
The destructive creed which was given force of daily law in Judah in 458 BC was then and still is unique in the world. It rested on the assertion, attributed to the tribal deity (Jehovah), that "the Israelites" (in fact, the Judahites) were his "chosen people" who, if they did all his "statutes and judgments," would be set over all other peoples and be established in a "promised land." Out of this theory, whether by forethought or unforeseen necessity, grew the pendent theories of "captivity" and "destruction." If Jehovah were to be worshipped, as he demanded, at a certain place in a specified land, all his worshippers had to live there.
Obviously all of them could not live there, but if they lived elsewhere, whether by constraint or their own choice, they automatically became "captives" of "the stranger," whom they had to "root out," "pull down" and "destroy." Given this basic tenet of the creed, it made no difference whether the "captors" were conquerors or friendly hosts; their ordained lot was to be destruction or enslavement.
Before they were destroyed or enslaved, they were, for a time, to be "captors" of the Judahites, not in their own right, but because the Judahites, having failed in "observance," deserved punishment. In this way, Jehovah revealed himself as the one-God of all-peoples: though he "knew" only the "chosen people," he would employ the heathen to punish them for their "transgressions," before meting out the foreordained destruction to these heathen.
The Judahites had this inheritance thrust on them. It was not even theirs, for the "covenant," according to these Scriptures, had been made between Jehovah and "the children of Israel," and by 458 BC the Israelites, spurning the non-Israelitish Judahites, had long since been absorbed by other mankind, taking with them the vision of a universal, loving God of all men. The Israelites, from all the evidence, never knew this racial creed which was to come down through the centuries as the Jewish religion, or Judaism. It stands, for all time, as the product of Judah of the Levites.
Obviously all of them could not live there, but if they lived elsewhere, whether by constraint or their own choice, they automatically became "captives" of "the stranger," whom they had to "root out," "pull down" and "destroy." Given this basic tenet of the creed, it made no difference whether the "captors" were conquerors or friendly hosts; their ordained lot was to be destruction or enslavement.
Before they were destroyed or enslaved, they were, for a time, to be "captors" of the Judahites, not in their own right, but because the Judahites, having failed in "observance," deserved punishment. In this way, Jehovah revealed himself as the one-God of all-peoples: though he "knew" only the "chosen people," he would employ the heathen to punish them for their "transgressions," before meting out the foreordained destruction to these heathen.
The Judahites had this inheritance thrust on them. It was not even theirs, for the "covenant," according to these Scriptures, had been made between Jehovah and "the children of Israel," and by 458 BC the Israelites, spurning the non-Israelitish Judahites, had long since been absorbed by other mankind, taking with them the vision of a universal, loving God of all men. The Israelites, from all the evidence, never knew this racial creed which was to come down through the centuries as the Jewish religion, or Judaism. It stands, for all time, as the product of Judah of the Levites.
