The Restoration of the Divided Kingdoms

to provide to the one who labored for the salvation of them and of the whole cosmos, but not so that 'the one who vivifies all things' might be denied.

It is necessary to cast the blasphemies, which the Jews bring against the Savior crucified for the sake of the whole creation, into the house of the God-breathed writings and into the vessel contained therein, so that they may be convicted of being unheeding, rather than opposing the prophecies concerning Christ and his cross.

4.129 Zach. XI, 14: And he cast away the second rod, the staff, to scatter the covenant between Judah and between Israel.

4.130 Our Savior and Lord has taken two rods, the beauty of which he first summoned, having previously cast away that called beauty, revealing the mysteries already made clear; now, having cast away the one called the staff, he scattered the covenant between Israel and Judah.

4.131 What is the staff called the staff? From the great song it is again to be learned. And the things of the song are held thus, as they were previously set forth: 'When the Most High divided the nations, as he scattered the sons of Adam, he set boundaries of nations according to the number of the angels of God, and there became a divided people of the Lord, his Jacob, a staff of inheritance, his Israel.' These things are said concerning the whole nation of the Hebrews being one rod and one portion. And for a long time the whole nation remained unsuitably acting as one rod, according to that which is proclaimed in the Psalms to the King and Forethinker of all: 'Remember your assembly, which I will gather from the beginning; I will redeem the rod of your inheritance.'

4.132 This one kingdom was divided into two leaderships, as Judah is called, and Ephraim, with those remaining in Jerusalem having the succession under the house of David from the tribe of Judah, and those having descended into Samaria having Jeroboam as leader, having sinned against Israel, being from the tribe of Ephraim.

4.133 And for a long time the wickedness of the division remained, with the king of Judah and the tyrant of Samaria apostatizing and contending against one another, until God may have mercy, and again show the twelve tribes as one kingdom, with only Judah holding as...

Concerning this restoration, it is brought forth in Hosea the prophet, the All-King saying: 'The sons of Israel and the sons of Judah shall be gathered, and they shall set for themselves one beginning and shall ascend from the land, because great is the day of Jezreel' (Hosea 2:23).

One must attend to the prophecy declaring that those being restored into one kingdom ascend from the land, making it clear that they exist down in the land, having been scattered by their own division away from the single hegemony. After the covenant of the schism having worked in the midst of Judah and Israel for a time, a scattering and a resolution of it occurs by the grace of the Savior, so that from the departure of the difference of the schisms, the so-called splintered rod might become one under a single king as before, he having the succession from Judah, so that there might be one flock and one shepherd existing under the lawful king of the whole nation.

Concerning such a restoration of the two kingdoms into one lawful beginning, it is brought forth in the prophet Ezekiel; and thus the prophetic voice has: 'And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, take for yourself a rod and write upon it Judah and the sons of Israel lying near to it; and a second rod you shall take for yourself and write it: To Joseph, the rod of Ephraim and all the sons of Israel placed toward him. And you shall join them to one another to yourself into one rod to bind them, and they shall be in your hand' (Ezekiel 10:9-11).

And it shall be when they say to you, sons of your people, saying: 'Do you not announce to us what these things are to you?' (Ezekiel 11:17). And you shall say to them: 'Thus says the Lord, the Lord: Behold, I will take the tribe of Joseph through the hand of Ephraim and the tribes of Israel lying near to him, and I will give them upon the tribe of Judah; and the rods shall be upon which you have written them in your hand before them, and you shall say to them: 'Thus says the Lord, the Lord: Behold, I take the whole house of Israel from the midst of the nations, where they entered there and were, and I will gather them from all those around them and I will bring them into the land of Israel; and I will give them into one nation in my land and in the mountains of Israel' (Ezekiel 11:14-16).