The fate of the Jews in the Old Testament

[Crumpy]

I’ve just recently finished reading the entire OT from Genesis to 2 Macc.

It’s so sad how the Jews fail to obey the law of the covenant, and they just get slammed every which way, fight among themselves, get taken into captivity, and all the rest.

As I thought I read it, after the Bablyonian captivity there were just about 5,000 Jews left and they had very little “footprint” in the promised land, at the closing of the OT.

They were certainly not the >1,000,000 that settled in Canaan at the end of the book of Numbers. So, this is the remnant that God preserved.

Has anyone run across an explanation of this great apostacy of the Jews? and, by that, I mean especially both by ancient and modern Jewish thinkers?

Even as the NT opens in the gospel accounts, Jerusalem is occupied by the Romans.

It seems to my uneducated brain that the OT is leading to a Biblical and historial endpoint of the kingdom of Israel as it was established, setting the stage for the NT and the transformation of the covenant.

I’m looking for either a link or a reference to an explanation of the persistent apostacy of the Jews over most of the OT.

 

[Lev23]

I’ve just recently finished reading the entire OT from Genesis to 2 Macc.

It’s so sad how the Jews fail to obey the law of the covenant, and they just get slammed every which way, fight among themselves, get taken into captivity, and all the rest.

As I thought I read it, after the Bablyonian captivity there were just about 5,000 Jews left and they had very little “footprint” in the promised land, at the closing of the OT.

They were certainly not the >1,000,000 that settled in Canaan at the end of the book of Numbers. So, this is the remnant that God preserved.

Has anyone run across an explanation of this great apostacy of the Jews? and, by that, I mean especially both by ancient and modern Jewish thinkers?

Even as the NT opens in the gospel accounts, Jerusalem is occupied by the Romans.

It seems to my uneducated brain that the OT is leading to a Biblical and historial endpoint of the kingdom of Israel as it was established, setting the stage for the NT and the transformation of the covenant.

I’m looking for either a link or a reference to an explanation of the persistent apostacy of the Jews over most of the OT.

You need to ask yourself the question-“How would of (((YOU))) performed, or “acted” under the Mosaic Law?”

Another thing, study the Law, for Grace is not having to do the Law anymore.

 

[Crumpy]

You need to ask yourself the question-“How would of (((YOU))) performed, or “acted” under the Mosaic Law?”

Another thing, study the Law, for Grace is not having to do the Law anymore.

One comment I’ve read is that the Jews themselves looked back at the 40 years in the desert as the time when they were most faithful.

Your remark is an entirely separate question, and it is akin to the obviously related question of how you or I would have responded to Jesus himself. We have plenty of examples in the gospels of how people did respond to Jesus. I hope I would have been one of those who cried out “Jesus Son of David have mercy on me!”

Back to my question, Why did the Jews defect so much and so long from the covenant?

One might speculate the defection in the wandering in the desert was due to the fact that the Jews had become too comfortable with the Egyptian religion, its gods and practices.

But then later, we have two “good kings” David and Solomon, but we see they were flawed also. I guess it’s not a surprise that many were mislead by them. But, still, giving them their due as sinners, which they both acknowledge, why didn’t the prophets and priests manage to hold things together? I’m rather answering my own question, I just wonder if anybody can provide an answer or link to say a Jewish website which might explain this, at least from their point of view.

I’m looking for the spiritual and psychological dimensions of this, from a rabbinical standpoint or from any other Jewish commentary standpoint?

I guess I’ll settle for a website which might be the Jewish cousin of this website, you know? “Jewish Answers” maybe.