After working diligently, the tree did indeed begin to produce some young and tender branches, but the main top of the tree began to perish. This represents the apostasy of Israel over a period of 1,500 years. Now in the days of Moses the Lord offered to make Israel a holy nation “above all people” of the world. The Lord gave this same promise to Enoch and his people and they became the greatest people on earth,4 but the children of Israel never proved themselves worthy to receive the same blessing as Enoch and his people. In fact, a short time after the Israelites promised to keep their covenant with the Lord,5 Moses found them worshiping a golden calf after the abominable fertility rites of the Egyptians.6 The Lord therefore took away his promise of making Israel the greatest nation on earth and gave them a far lesser promise and a lesser law.
After Moses was gone, the great prophet-general, Joshua, led Israel into the promised land. However, there was further apostasy which finally resulted in a period of dark ages, which lasted until the golden age under David and Solomon. But when Solomon died around 922 B.C., the northern ten tribes separated from the southern tribes of Judah and Levi. Just 201 years later (721 B.C.) the northern ten tribes had degenerated to the point where the Assyrians were able to come over and conquer them and carry the northern ten tribes away to the headwaters of the Tigris river. This left the Jews and Levites the exclusive custodians of the temple and the scriptures at Jerusalem.
In 587 B.C. the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem, smashed the beautiful temple of Solomon, turned the city into a pile of rubble, and carried off the survivors to Babylon. However, Babylon herself was conquered by Persia in 539 B.C. and the next year Cyrus, the Persian king, allowed 50,000 Jews to trek back to Jerusalem. By 516 B.C. they had completed their second temple and dedicated it to the Lord. Nevertheless, their religious devotion remained extremely shallow and before long another dark ages had set in, which lasted until the coming of Christ. The Jews as a nation rejected their Messiah when he appeared among them and subjected him to all of the indignities described by the prophet Isaiah as mentioned in the 53rd chapter of his book. At the same time it should be pointed out that all of Christ’s original converts were Jews. Nevertheless, the number was not sufficient to revitalize the remnant of Israel as a people.