When Israel entered into relationships with the nations round about on a friendly basis, the glory of the Lord departed from the house of the Lord, the temple lost its glory and remained a mere shell for a time, while prophets pleaded, entreated, warned, and we get the long and terrible story of Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel and others, calling back to a break with these nations, a purging, a cleansing. That is why, when a remnant returned, Ezra and Nehemiah laboured so ardently to get out the mixture from the people in their merged relationships, because the principle was still there that any kind of spiritual alliance was spiritual fornication and God could have nothing to do with it. Israel’s persistence in complicity with those nations led to the ruin of their temple.

It is again a type with its backward aspect, God creating for His temple, He being in touch, in fellowship, and communion. Then there came complicity with Satan, resulting in the ruin of the temple, the ruin of that race and that man, personally and corporately.