The Southern Kingdom’s march toward Exile (1 Kings 11:41 - 2 Kings 25:26; 2 Chronicles 10 - 36)

Following in the footsteps of the northern kingdom, the southern kingdom’s rulers soon began to decline into idolatry and evil. Under Rehoboam’s rule the people "built for themselves high places, pillars, and sacred poles on every high hill and under every green tree; there were also male temple prostitutes in the land. They committed all the abominations of the nations" (1 Kings 14:23-24). Rehoboam’s successors oscillated between faithfulness and doing evil in God’s sight. For a while Judah had enough good kings to stave off disaster, but in the final years the kingdom fell to the same state that the northern kingdom had. The nation was conquered, and the kings and elites were captured and deported, by the Babylonians (2 Kings 24, 25). The faithlessness of the kings whom the people had demanded, against God's advice hundreds of years earlier, culminated in a financial meltdown, destruction of the labor force, famine, and the mass murder or deportation of much of the population. The predicted disaster lasts seventy years until King Cyrus of Persia authorizes the return of some of the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem's Temple and walls (2 Chronicles 36:22-23).

The Southern Kingdom's march toward Exile (1 Kings 11:41 - 2 Kings 25:26; 2 Chronicles 10 - 36), Theology of Work Project, Copyright © 2014 Theology of Work Project, Inc. Also find this article in Theology of Work Bible Commentary, Volume 2: Joshua through Song of Songs. For additional resources, please see The Theology of Work Project Series.