As we saw previously, Jeroboam led a rebellion against Solomon's son, Rehoboam. The result was a division of Solomon's kingdom into two nations. The tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi remained under the control of the Davidic monarchy, becoming the Kingdom of Judah. The remaining ten tribes formed a second kingdom under Jeroboam, the Kingdom of Israel.

In an effort to bolster his power over the northern ten tribes, Jeroboam instituted religious changes which "became a sin" (I Kings 12:30) for Israel.

• Fearing that he could lose control over the people as they journeyed to Jerusalem for the annual holy days, he built two shrines, one at Bethel and the other in Dan. He put golden calves in both sites, asserting, "Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt!" (I Kings 12:28).
• He changed the fall festival season from the seventh month (see Leviticus 23:33-43) to the eighth (I Kings 12:33).
• He "made priests from every class of people, who were not of the sons of Levi" (I Kings 12:31). Since the Levites held no land as a part of their inheritance (see Joshua 13:33), many of them migrated south to Judah, where they served in the Temple.

Jeroboam intended to build his own "designer religion" from the ground up, complete with its own traditions and shrines. He was astute enough to grasp the importance of establishing a priesthood that was loyal to the government.

"And this thing was the sin of the house of Jeroboam, so as to exterminate and destroy it from the face of the earth" (I Kings 13:34). Because of his refusal to obey God, Jeroboam never received the conditional promise God made him in I Kings 11:38: "I will be with you and build for you an enduring house, as I built for David." Jeroboam's son, Nadab, died by assassination after only two years of rule, and upon taking the throne of Israel, Baasha slaughtered all of Jeroboam's progeny (I Kings 15:25-30).

Yet, Jeroboam's apostasy involved more than just his immediate family: "The children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam; . . . they did not depart from them" (II Kings 17:22). Subsequent Israelite kings never departed from his apostasy, never sought to correct his errors. "Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them from His sight" (verse 18)—through national captivity. II Kings 17:7-17 catalogs the sins of Israel:

• Widespread Idolatry: Israel "feared other gods" (verse 7). "They built for themselves high places in all their cities. . . . They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree; and there they burned incense on all the high places" (verses 9-11). Further, they "followed idols, became idolaters, and . . . made for themselves a molded image and two calves, made a wooden image and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal" (verses 15-16).
• Pagan Religious Practices: The Israelites "caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft and soothsaying, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger" (verse 17).
• Rejection of God's Law: Israel "walked in the statutes of the nations whom the LORD had cast out from before the children of Israel" (verse 8). Verse 15 points out that the people "rejected [God's] statutes and His covenant that He had made with their fathers." The prophet Amos details the epidemic of social injustice in the Kingdom of Israel (see Amos 2:6-7). The Israelites displayed a pandemic failure to love their fellow man.

II Kings 17:5-6 relates the ultimate consequence: Assyria, a kingdom known as much for its innovative weapons as for their brutal implementation, conquered the Kingdom of Israel (c. 718 BC). Thus, about 250 years after it was established, the ten-tribed northern kingdom became extinct as a sovereign nation. The Assyrians deported the entirety of the population from its homeland in Canaan, essentially transplanting it to the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. In this way, the Kingdom of Israel fell below the historians' radar.

Jeremiah 3:7-10 states God's view of the Kingdom of Judah by comparing it to Israel. God told the peoples of the northern kingdom, Israel, "Return to Me." He continues:

But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also. . . . And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to Me with her whole heart, but in pretense.

Because Judah had seen the results of Israel's idolatry—had witnessed the catastrophe of her fall and mass deportation, but had refused to repent—God judges that "backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah" (Jeremiah 3:11).

II Kings 23:26-27 records the results of Judah's sin:

Nevertheless the LORD did not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath, with which His anger was aroused against Judah. . . . And the LORD said, "I will also remove Judah from My sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, ‘My name shall be there.'"

Between 604 and 585 BC, Nebuchadnezzar removed the population of Judah to Babylon. In the first wave of deportation, he took the military officers, craftsmen, smiths, and other skilled workers, leaving only "the poorest people of the land" (II Kings 24:14). Later, after continuing conspiracies against him, he totally destroyed Jerusalem, Temple and all, and "carried away captive the rest of the people" (II Kings 25:11). What Assyria had done to Israel 133 years earlier, Babylonia did to Judah: "Those [of Judah] who escaped from the sword, [Nebuchadnezzar] carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia" (II Chronicles 36:20).

As national entities, Israel and Judah were now extinct. Their peoples, as punishment for their determined disobedience to God's law, were subject to Gentile rulers. However, this double fall of the children of Israel does not mean God reneged on His promises to the patriarchs. Nor does it suggest that the blessings the patriarchs bestowed in faith on their sons are meaningless poetry. It does mean that God carried out His promise to the children of Israel as outlined beginning in Leviticus 26:14. There, God promises that if the people "do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments," He would punish them with "terror," "wasting disease," famine, military defeat, and scattering "among the nations."

But how long would they be punished? God tells us exactly how long! Next time, we will examine a remarkable search criterion that indicates when the punishment will end.