In this respect there was no essential
difference between Israel and Judah. It was in Israel that the
reaction against Baal-worship originated which afterwards passed
over into Judah; the initiative in all such matters was Israel's.
There the experiments were made from which Jerusalem learned the
lesson. How deep was the interest felt in the affairs of the larger
kingdom by the inhabitants even of one of the smaller provincial
towns of Judah is shown in the instance of Amos of Tekoah.
Step by step with the decline of Israel after the death of
Jeroboam II. did Judah rise in importance; it was already
preparing to take the inheritance. The man through whom the
transition of the history from Israel to Judah was effected, and
who was the means of securing for the latter kingdom a period of
respite which was fruitful of the best results for the
consolidation of true religion, was the Prophet Isaiah. The
history of his activity is at the same time the history of
Judah during that period.
Isaiah became conscious of his vocation in the year of King
Uzziah's death; his earliest discourses date from the beginning
of the reign of Ahaz.
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