As time passed, kings that demanded pagan worship dominated Israel, and eventually the temple that Solomon had built was ransacked and the proper function according to God had been totally annihilated. Finally, a righteous king named Hezekiah, came to the rescue, restoring the propriety of worship ordained by God. Among Hezekiah’s first acts was repair of the Temple, which had been closed during the reign of Ahaz. He reorganized the services of the priests and Levites, and purged the Temple and its vessels, as we read the scripture in 2 Chronicles 29:3. “He in the first year of his reign, in the *first month, opened the doors of the house of the LORD, and repaired them.” He resolved to abolish idolatry from his kingdom, and among other things that he did to this end, he destroyed the high places and the bronze serpent made by Moses according to the command of God in Numbers 21:8, which became an object of idolatrous worship. Not by coincidence, we notice the *first month that envelopes Passover, and the “feast of Unleavened Bread.” The **third month is in relation to the giving of the law, and Pentecost, and finally the ***seventh month beginning with trumpets, then atonement, and finally the “Feast of Tabernacles” by including 2 Chronicles 31:6-8 which states; “And concerning the children of Israel and Judah, that dwelt in the cities of Judah, they also brought in the tithe of oxen and sheep, and the tithe of holy things which were consecrated unto the LORD their God, and laid them by heaps. In the **third month they began to lay the foundation of the heaps, and finished them in the ***seventh month. And when Hezekiah and the princes came and saw the heaps, they blessed the LORD, and his people Israel.”
After the death of Hezekiah, Judah eventually started evolving into pagan practices as the entire nation had done in the past, and in time had entirely rejected all that God had commanded them. For this rejection, the Babylonians took Judah into captivity, and the last remnant of Israel ceased to exist. This was during the time of Daniel the prophet, and this exile probably lasted just a few years less than seventy years. Persia eventually conquered the Babylonian Empire under the rule of Cyrus II. He made a decree that all peoples who were originally from Jerusalem could return to their cities. King Artaxerxes, who ruled the Medo-Persian Empire, made a decree that whatever Ezra the priest wanted would be done, and all the treasurers that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the House of God would be returned.
After the death of Hezekiah, Judah eventually started evolving into pagan practices as the entire nation had done in the past, and in time had entirely rejected all that God had commanded them. For this rejection, the Babylonians took Judah into captivity, and the last remnant of Israel ceased to exist. This was during the time of Daniel the prophet, and this exile probably lasted just a few years less than seventy years. Persia eventually conquered the Babylonian Empire under the rule of Cyrus II. He made a decree that all peoples who were originally from Jerusalem could return to their cities. King Artaxerxes, who ruled the Medo-Persian Empire, made a decree that whatever Ezra the priest wanted would be done, and all the treasurers that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the House of God would be returned.
