Ellie's+Essay

=The Fall Of The Israelites= By Ellie Prince

The fall of the Israelite civilization was brought on by several events through out their history. It began when the Kingdom divided into Judah and Israel. Later on, the Israelites began to disrespect the values and religious beliefs of it’s people which caused the Kingdom of Israel to weaken. Finally, the Babylonians and Assyrians conquered the Israelites. All of these events have ties to our time and to other events in history. It is because of this that we can learn many things from the fall of the Israelites.

One of the major events that lead to the fall of the Israelites was when the kingdom divided. They divided into two separate kingdoms: Judah in the south and Israel in the north after king Solomon died (//A Brief History of Israel//, P. 7). The northern tribes refused to recognize Solomon’s son and successor Rehoboam as the new king and separated from the other tribes in the kingdom (P. 7). These tribes became Israel and were comprised of eleven tribes and part of another one. The tribes that did recognize Rehoboam became the kingdom of Judah containing three tribes and some of another (P. 8). Later the Israelites were conquered as separate kingdoms. The Assyrians conquered the Israelites just over two hundred years after the divide and all of its people were exiled to the Harbor River system ("Judaism", Encyclopedia Britanica). Two hundred years later in about 500 BCE the Babylonians conquered the kingdom of Judah and the people were brought to Babylon to work as slaves ("Judaism"). It can be assumed that if they had never divided they might have been able to resist an attack from other civilizations. It is reasonable to believe this because there have been many other examples through out history. One of the most famous would be the Roman Empire’s “divide and conquer” strategy. In this strategy they would create conflict within a group of people, which would divide and weaken them. At this point the groups were much easier to conquer. What we can learn from this is that a unified group of people is much stronger than a divided one.

Another major factor that took place during the demise of the Israelites was the disrespect for their people’s beliefs. After the divide, Israel lost one of it’s tribes to Judah because they threatened their religion. King Jeroboam attempted to establish rival centers of warship in Jerusalem with lay priests. This caused the northern Levites to abandon Israel for Judah (“Israelite”, P. 10). Religion was very important to the Israelites and they believed very strongly in their god Yahweh (“Daily Life in Ancient Israel”, Ernest Lussier). Because of this it is understandable that the Levites would have taken so much offense to Jeroboam’s attempts that they abandoned Israel. It is also believable that this would have greatly affected the prosperity of Israel. The respect for citizen’s values and beliefs also affects the prosperity of countries today. We can see that in countries such as Canada, Norway and Sweden (where the peoples beliefs are greatly respected) the quality of life is very high. This is why we can learn that the more a country respects it’s citizens, the more prosperous it will be.

And finally, the major turning point in the history of the Israelites is an ongoing conflict today. The fall of the Israelites happened in two separate events: when the Assyrians conquered Israel and when the Babylonians conquered Judah (A Brief History of Israel, P. 10). Both the Babylonians and the Assyrians are ancestors of a group of people called the Palestinians who currently live in the same area where the Israelites lived (P. 10). But after the Second World War, the Palestinians lost their land to the Jews who were given this land by the UN for the cruelty done to them in the Holocaust. Many Palestinians lost their home and lives as they were kicked off their land to make room for the Jews coming to Israel. The fight for this land is still going on to this day. It is hard to come to a conclusion as to how the conflict can be fairly resolved, but it is easy to assume that this has been an ongoing problem through out history. It started at the battle of Jericho when the Israelites kicked the Canaanites out of modern day Israel and repeated it’s self when Israel and Judah were conquered. Because of this we can learn that history is doomed to repeat it’s self.

There are many different things to learn from the demise of the Israelites. First, that unified groups of people are much stronger than divided ones. Second, that the more respectful a government is to their citizens, the more prosperous they will be. And finally, that history repeats it’s self. These three things support the idea that we can learn many things from the fall of the Israelites.