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the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: but my mercy shall not depart away from him ... . And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever” (2Sa 7:12-16). Wherefore after David's death, when his son Solomon built the temple, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “If thou wilt walk in my statutes, ... then will I perform my word unto thee which I spake unto David thy father, and I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel” (1Ki 6:12-13). After the completion of the building of the temple the glory of the Lord filled the house, and God appeared to Solomon the second time, renewing the assurance, “If thou wilt walk before me as David thy father walked, ... then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father” (1Ki 9:2-5). The Lord was faithful to this His word to the people of Israel, and to the seed of David. When Solomon in his old age, through the influence of his foreign wives, was induced to sanction the worship of idols, God visited the king's house with chastisement, by the revolt of the ten tribes, which took place after Solomon's death; but He gave to his son Rehoboam the kingdom of Judah and Benjamin, with the metropolis Jerusalem and the temple, and He preserved this kingdom, notwithstanding the constantly repeated declension of the king and the people into idolatry, even after the Assyrians had destroyed the kingdom of the ten tribes, whom they carried into captivity. But at length Judah also, through the wickedness of Manasseh, filled up the measure of its iniquity, and brought upon itself the judgment of the dissolution of the kingdom, and the carrying away of the inhabitants into captivity into Babylon.
In his last address and warning to the people against their continued apostasy from the Lord their God, Moses had, among other severe chastisements that would fall upon them, threatened this as the last of the punishments with which God would visit them. This threatening was repeated by all the prophets; but at the same time, following the example of Moses, they further announced that the Lord would again receive into His favour His people driven into exile, if, humbled under their sufferings, they would turn again unto Him; that He would gather them together from the heathen lands, and bring them back to their own land, and renew them by His Spirit, and would then erect anew in all its glory the kingdom of David under the Messiah.