Amos 8:11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord:

The intertestamental period is that time between Malachi and John the Baptist. The bible is silent on what happened during those years. Historians provide a record of what happened during that period but it is a secular view. God was silent in scripture but that does not mean He was not present.

During this time there was the end of the reign of Alexander the Great. His kingdom was divided up into four parts. Jerusalem fell under other rulers and their history can be researched. At this time there arose a sect called the Maccabees. Their activities are found in the Apocrypha, the books of the Maccabees. Those are a set of historical artifacts that God did not author. They have been removed from most bible versions.

Out of the Maccabean revolt sprang up a sect call the Pharisees. The Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes did not have a place in the Old Testament economy but arose out of lack of understanding of God’s will. God had remained silent for too long. There is much to learn about this period of time, so much so that we do not have time to go into it here with any great detail.

The essential truth here is that without God’s leadership man reverts back into a place of taking authority for himself, his self-interests and divisions arise within the community. If you had not guessed one of the tactics of war is divide and conquer. The enemy of God was having his way with Israel. Elitism, ambition, greed, zealous piety, and confusion were rampant during this time.

Then the Romans came.