1/27/11 Lecture 8

In today’s lecture we finished up Hezekiah’s Jerusalem and started talking about Josiah. When we left off last class we were looking at how Hezekiah was preparing for a rebellion from Assyria. Now we turn to the book of Isaiah to see the prophecy of Jerusalem’s deliverance from the Assyrians. Basically the prophet comes to the palace of the king, Hezekiah, and says that Jerusalem will never be destroyed and that there was a descendent of David that will protect the city and its people. When we look at these verses we think that the prophet is referring to Jesus. However, in context, at the time he was referring to Hezekiah. Later after Jerusalem was taken and the Babylonians destroyed the temple this prophecy was reinterpreted to be about other rulers and eventually Jesus. Back to the time of Hezekiah though, when the Assyrians laid siege on Jerusalem, they had the king trapped in his palace and all was over but then they mysteriously leave the city undestroyed. The Assyrians say this was because they got work that their armies were needed back in their homeland, but Jerusalem of course says that it was God who led them out of the city. Professor Cargill said that, “The Assyrian failure to destroy Jerusalem was the single greatest catalyst for the snowballing legend of an inviolable Jerusalem.”

Now we move to the time of Josiah, which was characterized by religious reform and the centralization of religion in Jerusalem. Josiah took the throne when he was only 8 years old. This is one of the reasons we think there was a rise in written law at this time. Instead of being led by a powerful king, Jerusalem was most likely run by advisors to the throne. By creating a written law it is easier to keep the people loyal than if they have them being ordered around by and 8 year old. Also at this time the city was becoming increasingly urbanized and there was a lot of political and religious unrest. This is expected because there were a large number of people moving into the city from a variety of political and religious backgrounds. Josiah solved this through massive religious reform. He destroyed everything related to the worship of any other god and united them through the worship of one god, in one temple. This religious reform and written law increased the expectation of literacy in Jerusalem and we began to see even soldiers who were literate and writing letter.