It seems almost unaccountable, even from a theological, Christian standpoint, that God, Jehova, the Lord almighty, should not be able to exhibit his wonderful powers regularly, systematically, instead of by fits and starts, on special occasions, after intervening centuries. Why should a God come and go by leaps and jumps, appearing and disappearing at distant ages, now helping and then punishing? Why lead and mislead? Why permit people to be so foolish and senseless as to create rival gods? Why should he be jealous of a wooden god, or of any other kind of an idol?
Why should it be necessary to whip people into understanding God, knowing him? Why were there so many thousand people slaughtered to force conviction of his marvelous powers?
Is it not an outrage on common sense for a God to stoop to mountebank tricks, subterfuge, and delusion, so-called miracles, in order to establish his existence, or his presence?
If God made man, why did he not make him properly to begin with, so as to suit himself at least? Why did he not make him so as to know the father right from the start?
Why should this almighty God, this Jehova, keep his chosen people continually on the rack of transgression, crime, and folly?
Why did he create them so that they should so easily forget him, and devote their reverence, their veneration, their sacrifices, and their prayers to some brass or wooden image?
The excuse so frequently made throughout the Bible, as a reason for losing battles or being made captives, that the Jews forsook their Jehova, their God, is no extenuating circumstance. How comes it that the nations with the heathen gods were victorious and finally conquered the Hebrew nation and led them forth as captives? The heathen gods must have been equal, indeed frequently superior, to the Hebrew God, because they, the heathen gods, were so very often victorious, and finally subdued the Hebrews.
The two nations Judah and Israel fell into idolatry almost immediately. Solomon even preferred Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians; and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites ([1 Kings xi, 5]), and how many other strange gods we have no record.
Israel began as a kingdom 975 B.C.; Jeroboam, a servant of Solomon, was the first king and Hoshea the last; Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, took Samaria by force, and drove the Ten Tribes into Media captives, in the year 721 B.C.; this kingdom having lasted two hundred and fifty-four years, and having had during that time nineteen kings.
The kingdom of Judah lasted longer, beginning at the same time, 975 B.C. Rehoboam, the son of King Solomon, was the first king. The captivity of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem was completed 588 B.C. Judah had existed as a nation about three hundred and eighty-seven years. Jehoiachin and Zedekiah were the last kings. During this period they had about twenty-one kings. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, made a conquest of Egypt, besieged Jerusalem, pillaged and burnt the Temple, and carried everything away that he could lay his hands on.