Exile and the Prophets’ Hope

Restoring the Foundations · Article 7 of 14

Our conclusion in this article: the exile was a warning God kept, not a promise God broke. Before Israel entered the land, God said of the exile to come, “I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God” (Leviticus 26:44).

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB), current public-domain edition, checked word for word. The WEB prints God’s name as Yahweh. Notes on the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek are at the end.

A Fair Question

The last article heard Joshua say that not one of God’s good words had fallen, and it ended with his warning that the evil things would come as surely as the good. They did. “In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria” (2 Kings 17:6). Later Babylon came for Judah: “He burned Yahweh’s house, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem” (2 Kings 25:9).

Yet God had told David, “I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place and be moved no more.” (2 Samuel 7:10). They were moved. The temple was ash, and no son of David reigned in Jerusalem.

So here is the question for this article: If God’s promises cannot fail, how did Israel end up in exile?

The Bible’s answer is surprising. The exile was written into the covenant before Israel crossed the Jordan, and so was the return. We will look at the warning, the reasons Scripture gives, the promise inside the warning, the return that came, and the hope that reached past it.

Part 1: Written Before It Happened

The warning in the covenant

At Sinai, the covenant curses build to the loss of the land itself:

I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. (Leviticus 26:33)

Moses repeated it on the plains of Moab: “Yahweh will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers.” (Deuteronomy 28:36). Israel had no king yet, and the warning already named the king who would go into exile with them. The sharpest line is this: “as Yahweh rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so Yahweh will rejoice over you to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be plucked from the land that you are going in to possess.” (Deuteronomy 28:63).

All of this is explicit. The exile was not something God failed to prevent. It was something God said he would do if Israel broke the covenant. When it came, his word was not failing; it was being kept.

Why it came

The narrator of Kings does not leave us to guess: “It was so because the children of Israel had sinned against Yahweh their God” (2 Kings 17:7). God had warned them: “Yet Yahweh testified to Israel and to Judah, by every prophet and every seer” (2 Kings 17:13). “Notwithstanding, they would not listen, but hardened their neck” (2 Kings 17:14). And “Also Judah didn’t keep the commandments of Yahweh their God” (2 Kings 17:19).

Chronicles tells us why God kept sending prophets: “because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place; but they mocked the messengers of God, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until Yahweh’s wrath arose against his people, until there was no remedy.” (2 Chronicles 36:15-16). The warnings were mercy. Judgment came after mercy had been refused.

Jeremiah shows what the people trusted instead. At the temple gate he said, “Don’t trust in lying words, saying, ‘Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, are these.’” (Jeremiah 7:4). They believed the building that bore God’s name made them safe. God named what he had actually asked: “Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people” (Jeremiah 7:23). Those of us who once trusted an organization because it carried God’s name will feel this. Jeremiah is speaking to Judah about the temple, not about any group today. That the same mistake can be made with any institution is our conclusion, and a fair one.

Later Scripture reads the exile the same way. Daniel, in Babylon, prays: “Therefore the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us, for we have sinned against him.” (Daniel 9:11). That is a canonical connection by naming: the exile is the curse written in Moses’ law.

Part 2: The Promise Inside the Warning

If the books of Moses ended with the curse, the exile would end the story. They do not. The same chapter of Leviticus goes on:

If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers... then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. (Leviticus 26:40-42)

Then comes the verse at the top of this article: God would not reject them in the land of their enemies “to break my covenant with them” (Leviticus 26:44). He promised, in advance, not to break his covenant during the very exile he was threatening.

Deuteronomy says the same. Straight after the warning of scattering: “But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God, and you will find him when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deuteronomy 4:29). “He will not fail you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them.” (Deuteronomy 4:31). And at the close of the covenant speeches:

that then Yahweh your God will release you from captivity, have compassion on you, and will return and gather you from all the peoples where Yahweh your God has scattered you. (Deuteronomy 30:3)

Israel will “return to Yahweh your God” (Deuteronomy 30:2), and Yahweh “will return and gather you” (Deuteronomy 30:3). Then the deepest promise: “Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your offspring, to love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:6). God would not only bring them back. He would change the heart that had led them away.

So the answer to our question begins here. The texts are explicit: the curse of exile and the promise of return were given together, before Israel entered the land. Our conclusion is that the exile was a warning God kept, not a promise God broke.

Part 3: Seventy Years and a Partial Return

The number Jeremiah gave

Jeremiah said, “these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.” (Jeremiah 25:11). To the captives he wrote, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.” (Jeremiah 29:10). Meanwhile they were to “Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive” (Jeremiah 29:7).

Later writers look back on the seventy years from different sides. Chronicles says the land lay desolate “until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths” (2 Chronicles 36:21), the wording of Leviticus: “Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate” (Leviticus 26:34). Chronicles names Jeremiah, not Leviticus, so that link is a canonical connection by shared wording. Daniel read in Jeremiah of “the desolations of Jerusalem, even seventy years.” (Daniel 9:2). Scripture describes the seventy years as service to Babylon, Babylon’s time, the land’s Sabbaths, and Jerusalem’s desolations. It does not give us a start and end date in our calendar, and we will not build one.

The return that came

God kept his word. “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that Yahweh’s word by Jeremiah’s mouth might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia” (Ezra 1:1), and those “whose spirit God had stirred to go up, rose up to build Yahweh’s house which is in Jerusalem.” (Ezra 1:5). This was real fulfillment, and it is explicit.

But the books of the return do not read like the end of the story. When the new temple’s foundation was laid, “the old men who had seen the first house... wept with a loud voice.” (Ezra 3:12). God himself asked through Haggai, “How do you see it now? Isn’t it in your eyes as nothing?” (Haggai 2:3). Zerubbabel was “governor of Judah” (Haggai 1:1), not a king on David’s throne. And the returned community prayed:

“Behold, we are servants today, and as for the land that you gave to our fathers to eat its fruit and its good, behold, we are servants in it. It yields much increase to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. (Nehemiah 9:36-37)

They were back in the land and called themselves servants in it. That the return was real but partial is our conclusion; the people who lived through it said as much.

Part 4: A Hope Beyond the Return

The prophets promised more than the first return delivered, and they named who would receive it.

“No more be plucked up”

Amos told the northern kingdom, “Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.” (Amos 7:17). He announced that God would destroy “the sinful kingdom... except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” says Yahweh. (Amos 9:8). In the same chapter he said:

I will plant them on their land, and they will no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them,” says Yahweh your God. (Amos 9:15)

That restates the promise of 2 Samuel 7:10, spoken by a prophet who had already announced the exile. Ezekiel, writing from the exile, says Israel will dwell in the land “they, and their children, and their children’s children, forever.” (Ezekiel 37:25). The prophets treat the planting promise as still future and permanent. That 2 Samuel 7:10 was therefore not used up by the first settlement or by the return under Cyrus is our conclusion.

A new covenant, with named recipients

“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says Yahweh. (Jeremiah 31:31-32)

The people broke the old covenant. God’s answer is not to drop Israel but to change where his law is written: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart.” (Jeremiah 31:33). He adds, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34). Then he ties Israel’s future to the sun and moon: “If these ordinances depart from before me,” says Yahweh, “then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before me forever.” (Jeremiah 31:36).

At his last supper Jesus said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22:20). Hebrews quotes Jeremiah with the recipients unchanged: “a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Hebrews 8:8). Both are canonical connections by quotation. How people from the nations come to share in it, grafted in “among them” (Romans 11:17), is the subject of the twelfth article.

A new heart, God’s Spirit, and opened graves

Ezekiel promised the same inward change and tied it to the land:

I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. You will keep my ordinances and do them. You will dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers. (Ezekiel 36:26-28)

Then came the valley of dry bones, and God explains it himself: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost. We are completely cut off.’” (Ezekiel 37:11). “Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel.” (Ezekiel 37:12). “I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live.” (Ezekiel 37:14).

That the vision is about the nation’s revival is explicit (37:11). That its picture of opened graves draws on the hope of bodily resurrection is our conclusion. Daniel states that hope plainly: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” (Daniel 12:2). The thirteenth article takes it up.

One king, “my servant David”

Ezekiel: “My servant David will be king over them. They all will have one shepherd.” (Ezekiel 37:24). Hosea: “Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek Yahweh their God, and David their king” (Hosea 3:5). Jeremiah: “they will serve Yahweh their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up to them.” (Jeremiah 30:9). Amos: “In that day I will raise up the tent of David who is fallen” (Amos 9:11).

David had long been dead, and Jeremiah 30:9 says God will raise up this David. That “David” here names a coming son of David is our conclusion; Jeremiah elsewhere calls him “a Branch of righteousness” who will “grow up to David” (Jeremiah 33:15).

Jeremiah also left a sharp word about David’s line: of King Coniah, “no more will a man of his offspring prosper, sitting on David’s throne and ruling in Judah.” (Jeremiah 22:30). Beside it stands God’s oath, “David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel.” (Jeremiah 33:17). Jeremiah sets them side by side, and the eighth article takes up how the Messiah’s line meets both. Kings ends with this same Jehoiachin (Coniah) lifted out of prison in Babylon, where he “ate bread before him continually all the days of his life” (2 Kings 25:29). The narrator does not say why he ends there. That it leaves a small sign of hope for David’s house is our conclusion.

One like a son of man

Daniel saw “one like a son of man” come “with the clouds of the sky” to the Ancient of Days, and “Dominion was given him, and glory, and a kingdom” (Daniel 7:13-14). The same vision says “the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom” (Daniel 7:18). Before the high priest, Jesus said, “you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of the sky.” (Matthew 26:64), a canonical connection by shared wording. The vision adds that “all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him” (Daniel 7:14). Some read this as worship due only to God, because the same Aramaic verb, pelach, is used of serving gods: “They don’t serve your gods” (Daniel 3:12). But in the same chapter the kingdom “will be given to the people of the saints of the Most High”, and “all dominions will serve and obey him” (Daniel 7:27); the Aramaic leh can refer to the Most High or to the people, and readers differ. The son of man receives dominion from the Ancient of Days. That this is service to God’s appointed king is our conclusion.

Part 5: Five Hard Questions

“The new covenant belongs to the church now”

This reading most often cites Hebrews: “In that he says, ‘A new covenant’, he has made the first obsolete. But that which is becoming obsolete and grows aged is near to vanishing away.” (Hebrews 8:13). If the first is obsolete and vanishing, the argument goes, so are Israel’s promises.

But what is made obsolete is “the first” (Hebrews 8:13), the first covenant, made at Sinai (8:7, 9). Hebrews says nothing about Israel becoming obsolete, and five verses earlier it quotes the recipients by name (Hebrews 8:8). Paul asks the question directly: “I ask then, did God reject his people? May it never be!” (Romans 11:1). Of Israelites who reject the gospel he says, “Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (Romans 11:28-29). Our conclusion: the first covenant was made obsolete; the named recipients of the new one were not changed.

“The return under Cyrus fulfilled everything”

The return was real, and Ezra says it fulfilled Jeremiah’s word (Ezra 1:1). But the returned community called itself “servants today” (Nehemiah 9:36), Amos’s “no more be plucked up” (Amos 9:15) was not yet true of a land under foreign kings, and Ezekiel’s one shepherd, “my servant David” (Ezekiel 34:23), did not reign. After Jesus rose, his disciples asked, “Lord, are you now restoring the kingdom to Israel?” He answered, “It isn’t for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set within his own authority.” (Acts 1:6-7). That he corrects the timing rather than the hope is our conclusion. Peter later speaks of “the times of restoration of all things, which God spoke long ago by the mouth of his holy prophets.” (Acts 3:21).

“Seven times” and the times of the Gentiles

Many of us were taught a chronology built from this period. It reads the “seven times” of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Daniel 4:16) as a larger prophecy about God’s kingdom, counts a “time” as 360 days from Revelation 12:6 and 14, counts each day as a year from Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6, and so reaches 2,520 years. It identifies that period with “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24), starts it at Jerusalem’s fall, and arrives at 1914. Many sincere people built their lives on it, so we should state it fairly.

Now hear Daniel 4. The interpretation is for one man: “it is the decree of the Most High, which has come on my lord the king” (Daniel 4:24). Its purpose is stated: “seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he will.” (Daniel 4:25). And the narrator records the fulfillment: “This was fulfilled the same hour on Nebuchadnezzar.” (Daniel 4:33). The chapter does not mention Jerusalem, Israel, or the Gentile times. Luke 21:24 gives no length and does not refer to Daniel 4. The chronology also leans on Ezekiel 21, where the last king of Judah loses his crown: “This also will be no more, until he comes whose right it is” (Ezekiel 21:27). That verse does speak of a crown left waiting for its rightful owner, which fits the hope this article traces, but it gives no length and does not mention Daniel 4. Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6 each state their own day-for-a-year rule for their own situation; Daniel 4 states none. Revelation 12 speaks of “a time, times, and half a time” (Revelation 12:14) and 1,260 days, but not of Daniel 4 or of years.

So the calculation needs links the text never makes: a second fulfillment of Daniel 4, a conversion of days to years, the joining of Daniel 4 to Luke 21:24, and a starting date Scripture does not give in our calendar. Our conclusion is that the chronology rests on those links rather than on the texts. Jesus’ words stand: “It isn’t for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set within his own authority.” (Acts 1:7).

“Micah 5:2 proves the Messiah existed before his birth”

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come out to me who is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings out are from of old, from ancient times. (Micah 5:2)

Trinitarian readers take “from ancient times” (Micah 5:2) to mean the ruler has existed eternally; Witness readers take it to mean he lived as a spirit before his birth. Both read the “goings out” as his own life before Bethlehem.

The Hebrew behind “from ancient times” (Micah 5:2) is literally from days of old, and Micah uses nearly the same words two chapters later for Israel’s past: “in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.” (Micah 7:14). Amos uses it of David’s house: “I will build it as in the days of old” (Amos 9:11). And Bethlehem Ephrathah is David’s town: “David was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehem Judah, whose name was Jesse” (1 Samuel 17:12). Matthew’s quotation of Micah does not include the line about goings out (Matthew 2:6). Our conclusion, which the context supports, is that the ruler’s goings out are his origins in David’s ancient line from Bethlehem. The verse does not say what the goings out were, so this is our conclusion, not Scripture’s words. The tenth article makes the full case on whether Jesus existed before his conception.

“Israel’s sin cancelled the covenant”

This one needs a close reading, because Scripture uses the very word: “Yahweh rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of his sight.” (2 Kings 17:20). The Hebrew verb in that verse is the one God used when he said, “I will not reject them” (Leviticus 26:44).

We should soften neither. Kings says God rejected Israel from the land and from his sight. Leviticus says he would not reject them “to destroy them utterly and to break my covenant with them” (Leviticus 26:44). Jeremiah uses the same verb and makes the second kind impossible: “If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,” says Yahweh. (Jeremiah 31:37). Our conclusion is that God rejected Israel in judgment, out of the land, but never out of the covenant.

Where We Stand

What Scripture says explicitly: The covenant warned of exile before Israel entered the land (Leviticus 26:33; Deuteronomy 28:36, 63). Israel and Judah were carried away because they would not listen to prophets sent in compassion (2 Kings 17:7-20; 2 Chronicles 36:15-16). The same texts promised God would not break his covenant in exile, would gather Israel, and would circumcise their heart (Leviticus 26:40-45; Deuteronomy 4:29-31; 30:1-6). Cyrus sent the exiles home to fulfill Jeremiah’s word (Ezra 1:1), and they called themselves servants in their own land (Nehemiah 9:36-37). The prophets promised permanent planting, a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, a new heart and God’s Spirit, opened graves, and one king, David their king (Amos 9:15; Jeremiah 31:31-37; Ezekiel 36:26-28; 37:11-14, 24-25; Hosea 3:5).

Canonical connections: Daniel names the exile as the curse in Moses’ law (Daniel 9:11). Chronicles uses Leviticus’s wording for the land’s Sabbaths (2 Chronicles 36:21). Jesus names the new covenant in his blood, and Hebrews quotes Jeremiah with the recipients unchanged (Luke 22:20; Hebrews 8:8). Jesus takes up Daniel 7 (Matthew 26:64).

Our conclusions: The exile was a warning God kept, not a promise God broke. The return was real but partial. Later Scripture reads 2 Samuel 7:10 as still ahead. “David” in the prophets names a coming son of David. Ezekiel 37 draws on the hope of bodily resurrection, and Kings’ ending leaves a sign of hope for David’s house (both our conclusion). Micah 5:2’s goings out are the ruler’s origins in David’s line (our conclusion; Article 10 takes up whether Jesus existed before his conception). God rejected Israel from the land but not from the covenant.

What Scripture does not say: It does not say the exile proved God unfaithful. It does not date the seventy years in our calendar. It does not say the return under Cyrus completed the prophets’ hope. It does not apply Daniel 4’s seven times to anyone but Nebuchadnezzar, or give the times of the Gentiles a length. And it does not say the new covenant passed from the house of Israel and the house of Judah to another people.

What This Means for Us

So, if God’s promises cannot fail, how did Israel end up in exile? Because his warnings cannot fail either. He said exile would come if Israel broke the covenant, and it came. In the same breath he said he would not break his covenant with them, and he did not. He brought them back, and through the prophets he promised far more than the first return delivered.

That means God’s faithfulness is not fragile; it survived Israel’s worst failure. It means grace is never permission to presume: the people who chanted “Yahweh’s temple” (Jeremiah 7:4) were not safe because of a building. And it means exile is not the end for anyone who turns back: “You shall seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13).

The prophets’ hope has a name. The apostles proclaimed Jesus, the son of David, through whose blood the new covenant was given, and they called people to repent, believe, confess him as Lord, be baptized in his name, and live led by God’s Spirit: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38). The hope is bodily, as Ezekiel’s valley pictured: “he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11).

For Study

Questions

1. Where do Leviticus and Deuteronomy warn of exile, and where do they promise return?
2. What reasons do 2 Kings 17 and 2 Chronicles 36 give for the exile?
3. Why did the returned community call themselves servants (Nehemiah 9:36)?
4. Who are the named recipients of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8?
5. In a paragraph, answer this article’s question.

Verify it yourself

• Deuteronomy 30:1-10: the return and the circumcised heart.
• Daniel 9:1-19: Daniel reads Jeremiah and confesses the curse.
• Ezekiel 37: the dry bones, the two sticks, and the one king.
• Daniel 4: read the whole chapter and note who the seven times are for.

Notes on the Text

Where the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek bears on the argument (WEB verse numbers):

• Deuteronomy 30:2-3; Jeremiah 29:14: Israel’s returning and God’s returning use the same verb, shuv. The phrases “release you from captivity” and “turn again your captivity” pair that verb with a noun that sounds like it, shevut (captivity or fortunes).
• Leviticus 26:44; 2 Kings 17:20; Jeremiah 31:37; 33:26: “reject,” “rejected,” “cast off,” and “cast away” all render one verb, ma’as.
• Jeremiah 29:10: “for Babylon” is literally to Babylon.
• Jeremiah 31:31; Hebrews 8:8: “new covenant” is berit chadashah and diatheke kaine. In Hebrews 8:8 the SBL Greek text has autous, “finding fault with them”; Tregelles and the Byzantine text (Robinson-Pierpont) read autois, which can be read finding fault, he says to them (SBLGNT apparatus).
• Hebrews 8:13: there is no noun after “the first”; the context (8:7, 9) supplies the covenant.
• Ezekiel 37:9-14: “wind,” “breath,” and “Spirit” all render ruach.
• Amos 9:11; Acts 15:16: “the tent of David” (sukkat David) becomes “the tabernacle of David” (ten skenen Dauid) when James quotes Amos.
• Daniel 4: the Aramaic numbers this chapter three verses lower (WEB 4:16 is Aramaic 4:13). The word “times” is iddanin, a general word for periods; the chapter does not give its length.
• Micah 5:2 (Hebrew 5:1): “goings out” (motsa’ot) comes from the verb yatsa, used earlier in the verse (“one will come out”). The noun occurs only once elsewhere, in a different sense, as the margin reading (Qere) of 2 Kings 10:27. “From ancient times” is literally from days of old (mimey olam), nearly the same phrase, kimei olam, as in days of old, is found in Micah 7:14, Amos 9:11, and Malachi 3:4. Olam can mean “forever,” and the King James Version reads “from everlasting” here; in those other verses the same phrase looks back to Israel’s past.
• Matthew 1:17: “the exile to Babylon” and “the carrying away to Babylon” render one Greek word, metoikesia.

Looking Ahead

The prophets close by waiting. “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me! The Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple.” (Malachi 3:1). When the New Testament opens, Matthew counts the generations around the exile, “from the carrying away to Babylon to the Christ, fourteen generations.” (Matthew 1:17). And Zechariah praises God, who “has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David” (Luke 1:69). The next article, The King Arrives, asks: Who is this son of David, and what kingdom did he announce?

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