The Parable Of The Samaritan Tares [part Two]

Not long after the break-up into the two kingdoms, the people accelerated their drift from the true worship of God into idolatry. This, they had started to do, under king Solomon. They were further led away from the faith of their ancestors, by most of their subsequent kings, into Baal-worship.

The few holy priests and prophets, loyal and dedicated to God, were unable to stem the tide of the spiritual decadence, as their warning messages from God were ignored. They watched, saddened and shocked, at the toll idol worship was taking on the value of life of the people, as both the Northern and Southern kingdoms fell head-over-heels in love with strange gods and Ball-worship.

The reprisals from God for their bad ways and their loss of faith in Him were of course, though long in coming, very severe and unforgettable. The Northern Kingdom was the first to be hit by these reprisals, when in the year 721 BC God gave power to the king of Assyria to carry them and their king into captivity. King Hoshea, the then incumbent king, the nineteenth and last of the Northern Kingdom, was carried together with all the inhabitants (low and high) of the Kingdom, to serve as slaves to the king of Assyria.

The exile of the Northern Kingdom did not bring any lessons worthy of causing their brothers in the Southern Kingdom to mend their ways and, to turn with contrite hearts, to serve the God of their forefathers. They continued to go deep into Baal-worship, displaying the folly characteristic of all idol worshippers.

It was therefore not a surprise when they were also carried into captivity, in the year 587 BC, during the rule of king Zedekiah, the twentieth and last king of Judah. The Babylonian Empire, under king Nebuchadnezzar, which had evolved to take over the Assyrian Empire, carried these unrepentant Israelites of the Southern Kingdom out of the lands of their ancestors, to be its hewers of wood and drawers of water.

For many years afterwards, they were to sit by the banks of the rivers of Babylon in exile, with no altars in a foreign land on which to offer sacrifices to God, bemoaning their condition, and singing songs of lamentation.

The exiles of Judah were luckier than their kinsmen of the Northern Kingdom, since they stayed in a shorter period in servitude. After only some fifty years in captivity, they and their brethren of the Assyrian captivity, who had been living in it for about 135 years, started to enjoy the goodwill of the then king of Persia, Cyrus. Cyrus, who had earlier-on conquered the Babylonians, later on, issued a decree authorising the return of all Jews in his kingdom, back to the lands of their ancestors.

Many of the late arrivals to the Babylonian captivity, who were all of the stock of Judah, had the opportunity of joining the convoys of returnees back home, under such God-ordained Israeli ambassadors as Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah, between the years 536-445 BC, that resulted from Cyrus' decree.

When the Northern Kingdom was carried into captivity, the lands that were managed by the ten tribes of Israel, that constituted the Kingdom, became vacant. It was not long when the king of Assyria saw the economic sense in sending an occupation force to work these fallow lands. After all, whatever economic gains that would accrue to these Assyrians would go to benefit the home-government, if they were later repatriated.

The king of Assyria therefore sent people from the lands of Cathah, Ava, Hamath and Sepharvaim in his kingdom, to go and inhabit these lands. Maybe, this was some decongestion exercise carried out by the king in those cities.

Well, when the colonists arrived, they did not stay for long before they started having problems. God sent lions from out of the bushes to attack and kill them.

The colonists, maybe by intuition or by divination, got to know why this serious and deadly mishap. They knew it was because they did not serve the God of Israel, who is the God of the land that brought them these calamities and disasters, by the invasions of lions into the land.

They therefore sent a request home to their king to send back to them, one of the young priests of Israel carried into the captivity, who would teach them how to serve and worship the God of the land of Israel. They were blessed by their king, who granted their request.

Not long after the request of the colonists, a young priest arrived back in Samaria to teach them the way to worship the God of the land of Israel. He taught them the true worship of YAHWEH, the God of the land they were occupying. They heeded the instructions of the young priest and started to worship the God of Israel.

This brought to the colonists a great relief, as the invasions into the land and killings by lions stopped abruptly. We can learn much about the foregoing, by reading from the book of Second Kings 17: 24-41, KJV.

Now, as is always the case with mankind, religious faiths, beliefs and practices do not easily die off; even when they are wrong and unbeneficial. The colonists had come into the Kingdom of Israel with a horde of idols, which were as diverse in shapes, scary awesomeness, and prescribed manner of worship, as were the variety of towns and cities in Assyria from which they had came.

So, while they obeyed the Israeli priest and worshipped the God of the land under his instructions and leadership, they also worshipped their idols which they had brought with them. Well, somehow, they got to enjoy peace on the land.

This idolatry-tainted Judaism however became the manner of worship and religion of these colonists. For the many centuries they stayed in the land, this pseudo-Judaism became institutionalised as their religion; one which was in effect, an unholy fusion of Judaism and idol worship and practiced by a people who were essentially a hybrid of Jews and Assyrians. This was what prevailed in the nation of Israel for centuries, running into the days of Jesus Christ.

Let me say that it was when the Assyrian colonists came to occupy the lands of the Northern Kingdom that the term 'Samaritan' evolved to derogatorily describe these colonists. Hitherto, the term Samaritan did not exist. It was also during their occupation that all the lands of the Northern Kingdom were collectively called Samaria.

Though the name Samaria existed during the pre-captivity regimes of the nation of Israel, it was only used in reference to the capital of the Northern Kingdom, in its being called–the City of Samaria. During the pre-captivity days, all the people (only Jews), who resided in the City of Samaria, and in other cities of the Kingdom were never called Samaritans, but simply, the people of Samaria. [---this article is continued in Part Three: soon to be published].

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Chris Bapuohyele is an evangelist to the Body of Christ, and is the author of the book entitled: “BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners' Prayer for salvation”. His e-mail address is: [email protected]