He also warned them saying, “if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me; Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation” (Leviticus 26:27-31).

However, even after this stern warning, Israel eventually gave in to the Canaanite religion. “And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree: And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger: For they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing” (2 Kings 17:9-12).

Israel was to be a light to the nations round about them to bring them back to God. However, the Canaanite's Babylonish religion became a major stumbling block for the children of Israel and their cooperation with the Gentiles became the basis of God's judgment upon them.

Some of Israel's kings adopted the religion of Babel, others rejected it, but their toleration of it eventually led to the dividing of the kingdom, and ultimately, the destruction of Jerusalem and their Babylonian captivity in 586 BC.

Unfortunately, it was King Solomon who led the way, for we read, “And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. And the LORD was angry with Solomon” (1 Kings 11:6-9).

When Solomon died, his son Rehoboam also “forsook the law of the LORD” (2 Chronicles 12:1), and under his reign, “Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done. For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree. And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel” (1 Kings 14:22-24).

There were certain times of repentance when kings like Hezekiah, “did that which was right in the sight of the Lord” (2 Kings 18:3), “and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah” (2 Chronicles 31:1). King Josiah also, “put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven” (2 Kings 23:5).

However, wicked kings like Manasseh relapsed again into idolatry and, “did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, like unto the abominations of the heathen … For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them” (2 Chronicles 33:2, 3).

This agonizing cycle went on for about 400 years, but the Lord was longsuffering towards them and, “sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy” (2 Chronicles 36:15-16).

How sick could Israel be that there was no remedy? In the book of Ezekiel we are told exactly how wicked they had become. The Lord brought Ezekiel to the Temple at Jerusalem and said, “seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary” (Ezekiel 8:6)?

And, “behold northward at the gate of the altar … in the entry … was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy” (Ezekiel 8:5, 3). This, evidently, was an idol of Baal. And in a room adjacent to the court were the ancients of Israel burning incense to, “every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about” (Ezekiel 8:10), And at “the door of the gate of the LORD'S house which was toward the north …there sat women weeping for Tammuz” (Ezekiel 8:14), yet another pagan god.

Finally, Ezekiel was brought, “into the inner court of the LORD'S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east” (Ezekiel 8:16).

These are the sins of Israel, why the Lord said, “I should go far off from my sanctuary”, and why the glory of God departed from the midst of Israel. Israel had fully given into the Babylonish religion, which the Lord had time and again warned them against. How often “he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath” (Psalm 78:38). But now they had brought the Babylonish worship right into the Temple of the Lord, into the very place that was set apart to worship Him.

He told the nation Israel, “my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images” (Isaiah 42:8), and seeing that there was no remedy left to turn them from their wicked ways, “the glory of the LORD departed from off the threshold of the house, and … went up from the midst of the city” (Ezekiel 10:18, 11:23). This was indeed one of the saddest moments in all the history of Israel, the glory of God departed.

They had forsaken their Creator, their Shield and Defender and now they had none to protect them. The Lord then, “brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon. And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon” (2 Chronicles 36:17-20).

The Lord had forewarned them saying, “if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me; Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins … and my soul shall abhor you. And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation” (Leviticus 26:27-31).

Such is the sad record given to us in the Word of God concerning Israel's compromise with the religion of Babel. This religion spread throughout the whole world and is symbolized by a great whore riding on the backs of the nations down through history, and upon her forehead was a name written, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” (Revelation 17:5).

She is, “the great whore that sitteth upon many waters [waters = nations Rev. 17:15]: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication” (Revelation 17:1-2), for, “she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication” (Revelation 14:8).

The prophet Jeremiah said, “the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad” (Jeremiah 51:7). Her deadly intoxicant filled those early inhabitants of Babel and they staggered like drunkards out into the darkness of this world bringing with them her abominations.

There was not a people, nation, tribe, language or kingdom that escaped her deadly poison. Egypt and Canaan were intoxicated with her wine, and Israel dwelling in the midst of these nations finally succumbed to her sorceries. They took of her cup and drank it, and they provoked the Lord, “to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images” (Psalms 78:58).