The Assyrian colonists in Samaria 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 YHWH, 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 come.
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 institutionalized as their religion; one which was in effect, an unholy fusion of Judaism and idol worship and practiced by a people who were Assyrian in origin.
This was what prevailed in the nation of Israel for centuries, in the territory some time ago known as the Northern Kingdom, and continued into the days of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah-King of the spiritual nation known as Israel.
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 the Assyrian-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.
During the time the Lord Jesus Christ sojourned on our earth, that is, between 4 BC and 30 AD, these colonists no longer saw themselves as being Assyrians. They had by then, been staying in Israel for about seven hundred and fifty (750) years, and had completely lost touch with their Assyrian roots.
This situation did not come about only with time, but was also speeded-up and aided by the frequent political turmoil in their homelands, which brought about changes in governments, in the part of the east which was known as the Fertile Crescent.
Over the many centuries of their occupation of the nation of Israel, therefore, they came to delude themselves as being the children of Jacob, and by logic, the children of Abraham (John 4: 12, 20), simply because for a long time they dwelt on the lands of Abraham, and somehow followed the religion of Abraham?s children, maybe dressed like them, and ate their kind of foods.
It was then difficult for anybody who knew of their Assyrian ancestry or lineage, to convince them that they were not the children of Jacob and of Abraham, as they (Samaritans) had come to consider themselves.
Before the time of Jesus Christ, they had become so much steeped into their brand of Judaism as to have built for themselves on Mt. Gerizim, a counterpart of the Temple of God in Jerusalem. They also had come to evolve for themselves, a version of the Torah (the Five Books of Moses), which they called the Samaritan Pentateuch.
With their dedication to their version of the Pentateuch, a worship of God in a highly visible Temple built on top of a mountain, and a way of life very much akin to the children of Jacob (and of Abraham), they lived in a joyful hope of a life in the bosom of Abraham after death.
But to any discerning spiritual person, the hopes of these Assyrians as being qualified for and or eligible to enjoy life in the bosom of Abraham were false hopes, since they could never prove descent from the loins of Abraham.
Abraham?s bosom, a place of rest and comfort, for the souls of righteous men who exit earth on their way to spend Eternity in Heaven, belonged to only those righteous people born out of the loins of Abraham biologically, or spiritually, for all the true followers of Jesus of Nazareth.
In the Old Testament days, no people (non-Jews), who were simply imitators of the lifestyle of the children of Abraham, no matter for how long, could ever have access to Abraham?s bosom. This is because, no non-Jews could find in their genes, the DNA of Abraham.
From Jesus? parable of the Good Samaritan, we are told of a Samaritan who was more righteous than most children of Abraham. This Samaritan showed more commitment to the obedience of (the Samaritan version of) the Law Moses, than even some priests and Levites of Israel, in his day.
And even though this Good Samaritan did better than most Israelites in showing love for fellow men, which according to Jesus, summed-up the whole Law of Moses, this could not earn him life in the bosom of Abraham when he passed on, eventually.
Reason for this was simple: he had not the DNA of Abraham in his genes that would qualify him to enter Abraham?s bosom. All throughout the days of Jesus Christ on earth, the Samaritans remained as strangers to Israel, unqualified to enter Abraham?s bosom.
The Samaritans were outside the Commonwealth of Israel, no matter whatever beliefs to the contrary they held. To all Jews including the Messiah, the Samaritans were strangers to Israel; this we are told from Luke 17: 11-19 and John 4: 9.
Let us go back briefly to the history of Israel we were following. As mentioned earlier on, God masterminded the return to Israel of all Jews of both the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, when he stirred the heart of king Cyrus to bring this about.
Beginning in the year 536 BC, by the authorization of king Cyrus, many long caravans of returnee-Jews trekked out of the land of their captivity, back home to Israel. These caravans continued to flow into Israel over a very long period of time, ending in about 445 BC.
As mentioned earlier, these caravans of returnee-Jews were led at various times by such servants of God as Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah. The Bible books Ezra and Nehemiah contain all the details of these return-journeys.
When the returnee-Jews arrived back in their lands, after being in exile for over a period of one hundred and eighty-five (185) years, they were to meet a strange and hostile people on these lands. The Assyrian governors and their kinsmen, who were put there by successive kings of the empires which carried Israel into captivity, were very hostile to the Israelites.
Of course, having become very comfortable in these lands over centuries, the colonists had come to consider themselves as the landowners, and were therefore not ready for any intruders. Again, from the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, we get to know who the leaders of these enemy-colonists of Israel were.
They were: Tatnai, Shetharboznai, Tobiah, Sanballat, and others. Also, all the persecutions, impediments to the rebuilding efforts, and challenges which the returnee-owners of the land suffered at the hand of these Assyrian usurpers, are chronicled in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
From the year 445 BC, when the last convoys of exiled returnee-Jews arrived back home, to the year 4 BC, when Jesus Christ the Messiah was born, a fierce hatred and animosity had developed and festered till it became dangerous for Jews to encounter Samaritans.
This hostility continued till the time the Messiah started to execute his God-instructed mission to earth. It had then become so fierce that, Jews and Samaritans could neither walk freely on each other?s lands, nor offer each other water to drink.
It was against this background of the Samaritan-Jew animosity, that Jesus taught the Parable of the Good Samaritan, aimed at provoking his Jewish audience to wake up to the obedience to the love commandments of the Law of Moses.
Since the arrival of these Samaritan colonists, till the days the Son of Man walked the length and breadth of Israel, they occupied the middle portion lands of present day Israel. They were thus strategically positioned, as to be a real thorn in the flesh the children of Abraham.
And this explains why no Israelites would want to travel through Samaria on one?s way from say Jerusalem in the south, to Nazareth in Galilee to the north. It also explains why the north-south route of Israel at the time of Jesus? earthly ministry, lay roughly parallel to the north-south flow of the river Jordan, and clear of the lands of Samaritan occupation.
And for any Jew who must of need pass through Samaria on a journey, as Jesus and his disciples often found themselves in that need (Luke 9: 51-56, John 4: 3-4), that Jew must be adequately prepared and ready to experience hostility, attacks by robbers and bandits, once on Samaritan soil.
Maybe, in Jesus? parable of the Good Samaritan, the traveler who went from Jerusalem toward Jericho in the direction of Samaria, alone, was asking for real trouble to come upon him.
As for the Zebedee Brothers?James and John?who were also known as the Sons of Thunder, and an ever present pair of disciples in all the travels of Jesus of Nazareth, the lasting solution to Samaritan opposition and hostility to Jews, laid in their calling upon Heaven to rain down fire and brimstone in Sodom and Gomorrah style, upon them.
I know many people today, who would have easily subscribed to this suggested line of action of the then soon-to-be-ordained apostles ?James and John? to end the Samaritan opposition, if they ever could have been a part of the Messiah?s convoys in his travels within Israel.
Let us pause here to recap some of the things said so far in this article about the Samaritans.
The Samaritans were Assyrians who came to inhabit parts of Israeli lands in the year 721 BC, after their king conquered and carried into captivity, all the Israelites who were occupying these lands. The Samaritan occupation of Israeli lands continued into the days that Jesus Christ walked our earth.
After staying in these lands for many centuries, making every effort, to imitate the faith and lifestyle of the true children of Abraham, these Assyrian colonists deluded themselves into believing that they had transformed into becoming the true children of Abraham.
And why would they not delude themselves, after many centuries of living in Israel, to think of themselves as being true children of Abraham? After all, they had lost all physical, emotional, and cultural links with the lands of their births.
The only visible links they had were with Israel. Israel, being in fact, Jacob, the Samaritan saw himself as being related to him alone. To the Samaritan, no one else was his ancestor or relative. To claim son-ship to Jacob seemed to be his only option and apparent right.
The way of life and occupations of the Samaritans had come to change over the centuries of their sojourn. Their religion looked more like Judaism than idol worship. Their diet must have changed, to the Israeli kind, which was cut out for them (Israelites) by the Jewish religion. Their manner of dressing must also have changed in conformity with the dictates of their new-found religion. (?the concluding part to this article is in Part Three: Soon to be published).
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The writer is a Bible-expositor and author of the book: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners? Prayer for salvation. His email address is: [email protected].
