t, and was leveled with the ground, and the temple was
destroyed. Zedekiah, in attempting to escape, was taken, had his eyes put
out, and was carried captive to Babylon, together with the whole nation,
and the country was reduced to utter desolation. It was not, however,
repeopled by heathen settlers, as was Samaria. The small remnant that
remained, under the guidance of Jeremiah, recovered some civil rights, and
supported themselves by the cultivation of the land, and in their bitter
misery learned those lessons which prepared them for a renewed prosperity
after the seventy years captivity. Never afterward was idolatry practiced
by the Jews. But no nation was ever more signally humiliated and
prostrated. Can we hence wonder at the mournful strains of Jeremiah, or
the bitter tears which the captive Jews, now slaves, shed by the rivers of
Babylon when they remembered the old prosperity of Zion.

(M144) The Jewish monarchy ended by the capture of Zedekiah. The kingdom
of the ten tribes had already fallen to the same foes, and even more
disastrously, because the kings of Israel were uniformly wicked, without a
single exception, and were hopelessly sunk into idolatry; whereas the
kings of Judah were good as well as evil, and some of them were
illustrious for virtues and talents. The descendants of David reigned in
Jerusalem in an unbroken dynasty for more than 500 years, while the
monarchs of Samaria were a succession of usurpers. The degenerate kings
were frequently succeeded by the captains of their guards, who in turn
gave way for other usurpers, all of whom were bad. The dynasty of David
was uninterrupted to the captivity of the nation. And the kingdom of Judah
was also more powerful and prosperous than that of the ten tribes, in
spite of their superior numbers.

(M145) But it is time to consider these ten tribes which revolted under
Jeroboam. Their history is uninteresting, and, were it not for the
beautiful episodes which relate to the prophets who were sent to reclaim
the people from idolatry, would be without significance other than that
which is drawn from the lives of wicked and idolatrous kings.

(M146) Jeroboam commenced his reign B.C. 975, by setting up for worship
two golden calves in Bethel and Dan, and thus inaugurated idolatry: for
which his dynasty was short. His son Nadah was murdered in a military
revolution, B.C. 953, and the usurper of his throne, Baasha, destroyed his
whole house. He, too, was a wick