{"id":64184,"date":"2019-10-08T09:49:21","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T06:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=64184"},"modified":"2023-05-04T16:40:32","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T13:40:32","slug":"short-term-gain-long-term-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/short-term-gain-long-term-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Short Term Gain; Long Term Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[539,568,423,434],"acf":{"old_id":"64184","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33992,"related_cahpter":"325","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"The enemy of my brother becomes - my destroyer?\u00a0","content":"

It\u2019s war once more, a pretty frequent occurrence in the Biblical world (actually pretty frequent in today\u2019s world as well). This time, Ahaz, the King of Judah, is fighting against the allied forces of King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah of Israel. Both Kings have taken turned their aggression against the southern kingdom, and they are pursuing the war with great advantage, hoping to conquer Jerusalem.<\/span><\/p>\n

In desperation the King of the Judeans turns to the great regional superpower, to Assyria, to intervene on his behalf and on behalf of his realm: \u201cCome up and save me from the clutches of the king of Aram and from the clutches of the king of Israel who are rising up against me.\u201d To entice the Assyrian emperor to intervene, Ahaz sweetens the deal by collecting whatever silver and gold was still to be found in the Temple treasury and in the monarch\u2019s own possession and offers that horde to the dangerous overlord.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bribe worked, and the Assyrian king invaded Damascus, routing the armies of the Aramean king, sending its population into exile, and assassinating King Pekah in the process.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the short term, King Ahaz\u2019s strategy worked well. He stopped the two attacking kings, he protected Jerusalem from their invasion, and he maintained the relative independence of his own kingdom. All good, right?<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, not so much in the long run. By inviting in the Assyrians, King Ahaz plundered his own treasury and that of the Holy Temple. No longer with resources of his own, his impoverished kingdom would struggle under his successors to hold at bay the very empire that he had lured onto his own territory. In rapid succession, those same Assyrians would overrun and exile the Northern Kingdom of Israel, sundering the 12 tribes in a way that has never been repaired, and removing a buffer state in the north that had served to shield the Kingdom of Judah and occasionally to ally with them as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

The clout of marauding empires now proceeds in full force, invited and encouraged by a Jewish king! The notion that one can pillage the Temple and survive is now a real option, invented by the Jewish king. And the reliance on pagan powers who intervene not for some idealistic vision of good but in raw pursuit of their own power and control is now the reality which all subsequent Judean communities must confront.<\/span><\/p>\n

The challenge for us all is not to fall for the misguided allure of short-term advantage at the expense of long-term security and peace. Like any addiction, the repeated hits will fall short of solving the problem, at ever greater cost. And ultimately we are destroyed by the series of poor choices that looked like they relieved the problem while in reality they only postponed and magnified it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t say we weren\u2019t warned!<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: James Tissot, The Flight of the Prisoners, c. 1896-1902 \/ wikimedia<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":64185,"id":64185,"title":"2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners","filename":"2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/short-term-gain-long-term-disaster\/2kings16-tissot_the_flight_of_the_prisoners\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"2kings16-tissot_the_flight_of_the_prisoners","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":64184,"date":"2019-10-08 06:49:08","modified":"2020-01-01 12:09:22","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":800,"height":546,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners-300x205.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":205,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners-768x524.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":524,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","large-width":800,"large-height":546,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","1536x1536-width":800,"1536x1536-height":546,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","2048x2048-width":800,"2048x2048-height":546,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","post_full_size-width":800,"post_full_size-height":546,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners-615x420.jpg","home_baner-width":615,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Short Term Gain; Long Term Disaster","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"The enemy of my brother becomes - my destroyer?\u00a0","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":64185,"id":64185,"title":"2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners","filename":"2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/short-term-gain-long-term-disaster\/2kings16-tissot_the_flight_of_the_prisoners\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"2kings16-tissot_the_flight_of_the_prisoners","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":64184,"date":"2019-10-08 06:49:08","modified":"2020-01-01 12:09:22","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":800,"height":546,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners-300x205.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":205,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners-768x524.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":524,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","large-width":800,"large-height":546,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","1536x1536-width":800,"1536x1536-height":546,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","2048x2048-width":800,"2048x2048-height":546,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","post_full_size-width":800,"post_full_size-height":546,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners-615x420.jpg","home_baner-width":615,"home_baner-height":420}},"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false,"send_noty":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64186,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64184\/revisions\/64186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}