READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FALL AND RISE OF JUDAH

I.

JUDAH UNDER THE ASSYRIANS

GRADUALLY the barriers were broken down and Assyria gained a strangle-hold upon Palestine: henceforth the small Judaean state plays a larger part in the history of Assyrian plots and counter-plots. Although the date of his accession is disputed, Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, was contemporary with the fall of the northern kingdom (722 BC). He was one of the greatest of the kings of Judah, and tradition has highly extolled him, contrasting him with his father who, for some reason, was not buried in the royal tombs. Considerable reforming zeal is ascribed even to the beginning of his reign. It is possible that his accession marked an anti-Assyrian reaction; according to the Chronicler he cleansed the temple. The year of Ahaz’s death seems to find Philistia exulting at the removal of some threat, but the reference may be to the change of throne, not in Judah, but in Assyria (Shalmaneser died in 722). On the other hand, the vigorous condemnation of internal abuses in Judah by the prophet Micah would suggest that the reputation which Hezekiah came to enjoy must have been earned in his later years: on chronological grounds, too, it can be argued that Hezekiah was only a youth when he ascended the throne. The northern kingdom, as we have seen, did not submit tamely to its misfortunes, and the disturb­ances which led to the introduction by Sargon of bedouin colonists in 715 were followed almost at once by a more formidable rising. Judah, Philistia, Edom and Moab—all once reckoned as tributaries of the god Ashur—now joined with ‘Piru’ (Pharaoh) of Musri, ‘a king who could not save them’. Sargon promptly sent his general into Philistia, where Ashdod with ‘Ashdod-super-Mare’ and Gath were the chief centres of revolt (712 BC). Azur, king of Ashdod, had previously been deposed for his intrigues against Assyria, and his brother Akhi-Miti (O.T. name ‘Ahimoth’) set up in his place. But the Assyrian nominee was rejected by the ‘men of Hatti’ (the ‘Hittites’); and the Yamani (or Yatna), whom they preferred, was, as his name suggests, a Yemenite from south Arabia, or, more probably, an Ionian of Cyprus. He was, however, forced to flee to Melukhkha, whose king was so timid, or so complaisant, as to send him back to Sargon. Nubia (Cush) and Mizraim proved, as usual, a vain help. The Assyrians plundered Samaria and ‘all the House of Omri.’ Jerusalem, however, appears to have escaped; and although one of Isaiah’s most impressive utterances on the levity of the careless city is usually ascribed to the terrible crisis a decade later in the days of Sennacherib, it illustrates a typical scene of riotous festivity after unexpected deliverance.

Sargon’s death (705 BC) doubtless aroused new hopes of shaking off the Assyrian yoke. It was probably now, and not earlier, that Merodach-Baladan of Babylon, who had already been behind the disturbances in the west-land, entered more decisively into Judaean politics. Hezekiah, making a marvellous recovery from a dangerous illness, and confident of deliverance from Assyria, received an embassy which the king of Babylon, in conformity with old royal custom, courteously sent to greet him. Presents were also brought, and Hezekiah—certainly not merely in ostentation—disclosed his treasures and the contents of his armoury. A coalition with Babylon was on foot, in which Arabs and others participated, and, coming after the king’s unexpected recovery, it was characteristically regarded by later writers as a gross act of apostasy, which would assuredly be punished, not indeed in his own days, but by the deportation of his sons.

Meanwhile Sennacherib lost no time in attending to Babylon. He then turned to the west (700 BC). Luli of Tyre and Sidon, with Cyprus as his base, successfully resisted a combined attack by land and sea, but the Sidonite Tuba’al (Ithobaal) was placed in charge of the Phoenician cities as the Assyrian nominee. Many of the revolting states (Edom, Moab, Ashdod, etc.) submitted, but Askalon (under Sidka) and Jerusalem were obstinate. Sennacherib marched south. On his course he took Joppa, Bene-Berak (to the east), Beth-Dagon and Azur, all under the jurisdiction of Askalon and situated in what was south Danite territory. Askalon itself fell, and Sidka, with his household and his gods, was carried away, his place being taken by a son of the earlier king Rukibtu, who bears the significant Assyrian name, Sharru-Ludari (‘the king is truly eternal’).

Sennacherib then turned towards Ekron, whose faithful king, Padi, was kept a prisoner in Jerusalem by Hezekiah. At Eltekeh he defeated a large force under the kings of Musri and Melukhkha, and captured the city together with Timnah (south-west of Beth-Shemesh). Next, Ekron was taken, and the anti-Assyrian leaders impaled. Lachish was besieged by Sennacherib in person: the well-known bas-reliefs depicting the siege are in the British Museum. One by one Libnah and other cities of western Judah were subdued. A force was detached to demand the capitulation of Jerusalem: the biblical narrative gives us an excellent idea of Assyrian propaganda for the purpose of winning over the popula­tion. Though the events that followed are not quite clear, and different views can be maintained, it would seem that the foreign Urbi troops (Arabs) introduced—like the Kashshi mercenaries in Abdi-Khiba’s day—to defend the city were thoroughly untrustworthy. Hezekiah was shut up ‘like a bird in a cage,’ and forty-three of his western cities were cut off and allotted to the pro­Assyrian kings of Ekron, Ashdod and Gaza. 200,150 men are stated to have been taken captive, and a heavy tribute was imposed. Sennacherib describes the train that followed him to Nineveh: princesses and ladies of the court, male and female musicians, thirty talents of gold, eight hundred of silver, thrones, couches, precious stones—‘an enormous treasure’. But although Judah was beaten to the ground, it would appear that in some way Jerusalem escaped the worst: the inviolability of the sacred city was preserved. Its god Yahweh prevailed over the gods of Assyria. It was a profound event in the religious history of Jerusalem, though precisely how the city was saved is uncertain. There are traditions of some sudden calamity to the Assyrian army. The question is complicated by the fact that the biblical narratives contain various difficulties which have led to the view that there has been some confusion with the events in a later invasion in connection with Sennacherib’s campaign against Arabia (about 690), or, better, with Esarhaddon’s campaign (675); in either case, the prominence of the Egyptian Tirhakah would be far more natural then than earlier.

There is at present no evidence that any later campaign by Sennacherib involved a second attack upon Jerusalem. Indeed, the rest of Hezekiah’s reign is very obscure. It is uncertain whether his fights with the Philistines were to break the earlier pro-Assyrian parties, like Padi of Ekron, or to recover the cities which Sennacherib took away. At all events, his measures for the water-supply (presumably belonged to the earlier date; and although he became celebrated for the Siloam-conduit, some watercourse was already in existence, and, to judge from the pottery remains, was of great antiquity.

During the next few decades the western states were under the control of Assyria, and helped to swell the forces which it became necessary to send against the bedouins or against Egypt. Hezekiah’s son Manasseh, in his long reign of fifty-five years (? 692—638), was contemporary with both Esarhaddon (681—669) and Ashurbanipal (668—625). He has the worst of reputations for his heathen cults and his bloodshed; and later writers saw in him the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the exile of Judah. The worship of the ‘host of heaven’, which he is said to have introduced, points to the influence of Assyrian astral cults. Excavation has unearthed seals and cylinders; and contract tablets (c. 650), found at Gezer, relating to the sale of fields, testify to the presence of Assyrians, the use of their language, and the Assyrian method of dating. In fact, under Manasseh, Palestine came more directly under Assyrian influence than before; and his reign, on this account, may be regarded as another important landmark in the internal development of the land.

Viewed comprehensively, the age is seen to be one of remarkable interest. The Levant was again beginning to play a more prominent part in Asianic politics. Lydia comes within the horizon of Assyria. Egypt is waking up from its long slumber; and Phoenicians and Arabs are being urged to withstand the Mesopotamian power. The ambitions of Assyria were now concentrated upon the peoples beyond the coast-lands, and Esarhaddon recognized that Egypt was his most dangerous adversary. Ionians and Carians serve as mercenaries in Egypt (the latter also in the Judaean court), and Phoenicians are in league with Cyprus, and with Cilicia, and other states in Asia Minor. There is unrest in the north: a new Indo-European wave is about to transform entirely the face of ancient Oriental history. Fortunately, the age can be viewed from different angles.

In 677 Sidon, under Abdi-Milkut, was destroyed for its revolts: it was part of a movement in which Egypt and Syria were involved. A few years later Esarhaddon concluded a treaty with Baal, king of Tyre. Baal broke his word and allied with Tirhakah of Egypt. Esarhaddon’s stele at Zenjirli(in the Berlin Museum) represents Baal and another crouching before the mighty king, who holds them with cords passed through rings in their lips. Later, Baal and other kings sent each a daughter to the Assyrian harem; young princes were also despatched to Nineveh to be kept as hostages. Such customs as these, explicitly mentioned now and again, were quite familiar, and would be in vogue, mutatis mutandis, in the relations between lesser kingdoms and their vassals. When Yakinlu of Arvad died, his ten sons journeyed to the Assyrian king in order that one of them might be appointed to succeed his father: the ten Phoenician names are recorded with commendable accuracy by the Assyrian scribe. Esarhaddon himself records how he honoured them: ‘I clad them in coloured garments, I gave them rings of gold, and permitted them to stand erect in my presence’. Rebels might occasionally recover royal favour, but recalcitrant cities like Accho would be pitilessly destroyed, the people and gods deported, and the leaders impaled around the city. A Judaean king, however, could be scarcely less.

The destruction of No-Amon (Thebes) in 663 left its mark upon Hebrew literature, but little is known of Palestine under Manasseh. The revival of Egypt under Psamatiko (Psammetichus I, 663—609), and the decline of Assyrian influence there, would not be without its repercussion upon Judah; and when Psamatiko had the Lydian troops of Gyges, and (according to Herodotus) drove out the Assyrian garrisons a few years later (658—5), we may suppose that Palestine gained its first introduction to ‘Lud’ (Gen. X, 22). At all events, in the great conflict between Ashurbanipal and his brother Shamash-Shum-Ukin of Babylon (652), all the western states, as once before in the days of Merodach-Baladan, ranged themselves, and in vain, against Assyria. What part Egypt took in this is unknown. Chaldaeans and Aramaeans of Babylonia, Arab tribes (of the Syrian desert), together with Palestine, were up in arms. The Arabs, always a disturbing element (e.g. already in 676), were particularly troublesome, especially tribes of Kedar and Nabaite (O.T. Nebaioth). There was fighting beyond the Jordan from Damascus to Zobah, Hauran, Moab and Edom; while farther south the Nabaite were aiding the fugitive Arabs. Assyria, it is true, claimed victories, and enormous booty, particularly of camels. But the turbulence did not cease, and there can be little doubt that a steady pressure was being exerted by desert-tribes upon the settled states, and that we are witnessing another stage in the movements which began nearly a century earlier, and finally led to the Edomites being pushed out of their old seats by the Nabataeans. All these and other changes were gradually reshaping the internal conditions of Palestine, although their mark upon the O.T. narrative can scarcely be recognized.

It is quite possible that Judah suffered during the Assyrian invasions of Egypt (675, 671, 667 and 663), and, on the strength of Is. VII, 8, it has often been calculated that there was some fresh deportation of Ephraim, perhaps in connection with a pro-Egyptian revolt. Be that as it may, for some reason Manasseh was carried off in chains to Babylon, and fresh colonists settled in Samaria by Esarhaddon and, apparently, by Ashurbanipal Necho of Egypt, who had been removed by Ashurbanipal, had been sent back with every mark of royal favour—it was Assyrian policy to conciliate the Delta—and therefore the Chronicler’s statement that Manasseh was captured and afterwards allowed to return is not to be regarded as incredible. It is only natural that before Manasseh returned he must have been able to assure Assyria of his loyalty; but it is characteristic of the Chronicler’s ideas of history that he ascribes Manasseh’s freedom to his submission to Yahweh—which is hardly the same thing. He also records building operations and military organization, and it is conceivable that, as a vassal of Assyria, Judah would be expected to oppose the advance of an Egypt that was gaining in strength and had not forgotten its ancient claims upon Palestine and Syria.

In any case, we have on all sides hints of political activity, though it is to be regretted that we have not the evidence for any reconstruction of this period of tumultuous history. Unsettled internal conditions are, however, suggested by the confusion at the king’s death. His son and successor Amon, aged twenty-two, was slain a year later by his own servants in the palace. The crime was avenged by the ‘people of the land’ (the classes next to the royal and ecclesiastical orders), who placed on the throne his son Josiah, a boy of eight (c. 637). Naturally there was a regency, as in the case of the young Joash.

II.

JOSIAH AND THE DECLINE OF JUDAH

We now reach the last years of the kingdom of Judah, a tragic period, fortunately illumined by the writings of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Nahum, Zephaniah and other prophets. The reign of Josiah was contemporary with that fierce struggle in which the protagonists were the dying Assyria and the young neo-Babylonian empire. Directly or indirectly the conflict involved practically the whole of the Near East. There was an interconnection of peoples, for a parallel to which we must go back to the Amarna Age. With a self-conscious and ambitious Egypt in the south, and with the movements of Scythian and other hordes in the north, everything was in the melting-pot, and no one could have foreseen who would inherit the might of Assyria. During the last years of Ashurbanipal the western states were freeing themselves from the Assyrian yoke. The invasion of Scythian bands (635—625) presumably facilitated this step; but too little is known of their movements. Apparently the Scythians left Judah untouched; but there are passages in Jeremiah and Zephaniah which are commonly inter­preted as depicting the consternation of the country at the uncouth ruthless horsemen prowling like wolves around the cities. Beth-Shan, which presumably owes its name Scythopolis to this Scythian inroad, has as yet revealed no certain trace of the hordes; yet the city, hard by which Circassians even now pasture their steeds, lay on a famous military and trading route and would be among the first to suffer. A few years later came the fall of Nineveh (July-August, 612), hailed with delirious joy by those who supported the Babylonian cause, or who, like Nahum, had seen the downfall of Thebes and anticipated the avenging might of Yahweh upon Assyria. The writings of Nahum are remarkable for their rich vocabulary, their wealth of description, and the exhibition of a patriotism which exulted in the impending ruin of Israel’s brutal foe, and did not concern itself, as did some of the prophets, with the moral or spiritual aspects of history.

The Babylonians in the south, and the Medes in the north, were dividing the spoils between them. The Assyrian government, as is now known, made Harran its centre, until it was captured by the enemy (610 BC). Egypt, meanwhile, had been intermittently supporting Assyria against the Babylonians and their allies, and had an army in Syria in 616. Naturally Palestine was not unaffected by the intervention of Egypt in the death-struggle. Necho (newly ascended in 609) marched to Carchemish, doubtless not without the hope of securing Palestine, whether in friendly understanding with Assyria, or, more probably, by his own strength. Josiah’s position was a difficult one, and the decay of Assyria, along with the growing strength of Egypt and Babylonia, must have occasioned cross-purposes and intrigues such as have already been met with in the days of Hosea and Isaiah. According to our later sources, Necho went up to fight at Carchemish, Josiah came out from Jerusalem, and, disregarding Necho’s conciliatory envoys, forced a battle at Megiddo, where he was mortally wounded, and taken back to Jerusalem. The earlier source, however, represents Necho going towards (or against) Assyria—the preposition suggests an act of hostility— and it describes what is essentially an unjustifiable attack upon Josiah, ‘when he saw him’. It is not easy to find a satisfactory explanation of the data, but, on the whole, the late source seems to have preserved the better version of the incident. It is not improbable that, after Manasseh’s subservience to Assyria, there was an anti-Assyrian reaction, as there had been when Hezekiah succeeded Ahaz. No doubt there was a powerful Egyptian party, too, as in the days of Hezekiah and, later, among Josiah’s successors. Moreover, it is to be observed that in the Chronicler’s story Necho is evidently loath to attach Josiah. Josiah himself was presumably favouring Babylonia, even as Hezekiah probably also joined with Merodach-Baladan—and probably Manasseh with Shamash-Shum-Ukin—against Assyria. Further, from the fact that Megiddo was the scene of the fight, it would seem that Josiah could command other than Judaean forces. Judah, and its various neighbours, Ephraim in particular, were never isolated political units, and it is inherently probable that, when occasion offered, Judah would attempt to control an Ephraim which the Assyrians had placed under one of their own governors, even as there were times when Judah was controlled by Samaria. Josiah might well think that Assyria’s extremity was his opportunity; and it is noteworthy that his reforms extend into Samaria, and that the whole land as far as Riblah in the district of Hamath could apparently be regarded as Israelite. Josiah, we may conclude, had been supporting Babylonia against Assyria, and was anxious neither to help Egypt against his enemy, nor to enable Egypt to profit from his enemy’s weakness. Be that as it may, he met his end, and Egypt now had Palestine at her feet.

As regards Josiah’s reforms, the first steps are ascribed, either (a) to the twelfth year of his reign, which would probably correspond to the year of Ashurbanipal’s death, or, (b) and, doubtless more correctly, to the eighteenth (621 BC) The temple was being repaired, and a sacred roll was found which aroused the priests and the king to the magnitude of the abuses which had crept into the worship of Yahweh. The efforts to purge and centralize the cults are very fully detailed: they constitute the supreme event in the religious history of Judah and Jerusalem, from the point of view of the Temple: the works of earlier pious kings being merely an approximation. But as we read the details we recover an astonishing picture of what had evidently been introduced even in the days of Solomon and had been tolerated even by the most godly kings. They present a vivid account of the accepted national religion before the days of Josiah’s great reform. The old writers clearly thought that the book of Deuteronomy was discovered, and certainly the relationship between it and Josiah’s deeds shows that the old religion had not been in accordance with what that book itself inculcated. Ostensibly the book had long been lost. It was, to be sure, not unusual to place inscriptions or records in secret and sacred places, and, consequently, in the discovery of an old-time roll there was nothing unprecedented. But here we have what purports to be a Mosaic document, and we should have to assume that all knowledge of its contents and of its most impressive injunctions had passed out of memory from the days of Solomon. Like the alleged discovery of Numa’s laws in Rome—not to cite other parallels—each tradition must be examined on its merits, and the weight of critical opinion is, on a variety of grounds, entirely against the old view that the newly-discovered roll—short enough to be read twice in a day—was our book of Deuteronomy, at least in its present form.

On general grounds it is, of course, by no means unlikely that Josiah intended to centralize and reform the current religion, more especially if he sought to control his northern neighbour. His desecration of Bethel—the sanctuary founded by the schismatic Jeroboam on the southern border of Ephraim—was an intelligible step. Religion and politics were closely interconnected, and a natural consequence of an anti-Assyrian policy would be the attack upon the astral cults which is ascribed to him: at all events, in later days the women attributed their misfortunes to the iconoclasm of those reformers who had put down the cult of Ishtar (Astarte), the queen of heaven. On the other hand, contemporary references to the reform are dubious. Jeremiah, for his part, praises the virtues of Josiah. The king was neither an ascetic nor self-indulgent: he ate and drank, and it was well with him; he did justice and righteousness, and judged the cause of the poor—‘Is not that to know me? saith Yahweh.’ But the precise nature and extent of Josiah’s reforms and Jeremiah’s changing attitudes to them raise very difficult questions which cannot be entered upon here. Whatever Josiah’s reforms may have been, they came too late to save the country; they do not appear to have ameliorated the social and political conditions of Judah. Jeremiah became more and more hopeless of the future of the Judaean state, and he adopted a thorough-going pro-Babylonian attitude which, though it had apparently also been held by Josiah, seemed now only to hasten the disintegration of a state divided against itself.

Josiah’s ill-fated death after the fighting at Megiddo must have been a profound shock to the Babylonian party. Once more it is the ‘people’ who intervened, and Josiah’s son Shallum, or Jehoahaz, by his Libnah wife, became king. But Necho, then with his army at Riblah, had him put in chains, and sent him to Egypt where he died. A heavy indemnity of nearly half-a-million pounds sterling was exacted from Judah, and another son, Eliakim (by Josiah’s Rumah wife), was appointed, his name being changed by Necho to Jehoiakim. (The point of this change is not clear; it may be some indication of Egyptian suzerainty.) Evidently the new king was more acceptable to Egypt. To the burden of the indemnity, which fell mainly upon the supporters of Jehoahaz, there were added the luxuriousness of Jehoiakim, his ostentatious building and the employment of forced labour. The prophet Jeremiah was the more convinced that city and land were doomed, and, to the people gathered together at the Temple on a ceremonial occasion, he uttered a famous denunciation, warning them against their misplaced confidence in the inviolability of the sacred place. Formally brought before the priests—who seem to have been Egyptian in their sympathies—he found support among the princes and the people, and escaped the fate of an earlier colleague, Uriah, who for a similar attack had been forced to flee to Egypt, and had been extradited and slain.

Necho’s intervention did not save Assyria, and he now found himself confronted by the victorious Chaldaeans. At the battle of Carchemish (605 BC) he was decisively beaten, and the attempt of Egypt to make itself heir to the Assyrian empire failed once and for all. It is one of the supreme turning-points in history. The sovereignty passed from Assyria to the Chaldaeans, and Jehoiakim, Necho’s protégé, now found him­self subject to Nebuchadrezzar II, one of the most imposing of old Oriental monarchs. The significance of Carchemish was not unnoticed; prophets saw the approach of Yahweh’s Day of Vengeance upon Egypt, and the punishment of Judah for its apostasy. A vivid account is given of the mission of Jeremiah’s scribe Baruch to read to the king, on a cold day in December 604, the summary of all the prophet’s previous utterances. Once more the princes sided with Jeremiah; but the mes­senger was received with contumely, and the reckless king threw the roll into the fire. The statement that Jeremiah again dictated his words to Baruch, and that ‘many like words’ were added to the new copy, is a valuable side-light upon the early vicissitudes of the present book of Jeremiah.

For a time Judah was left to itself. As in Ephraim in earlier days there were divided parties, favouring Egypt or—in this case—Babylonia. The Egyptian party gained the upper hand and Jehoiakim rebelled against his suzerain. Thereupon Yahweh punished him by sending against him bands of Chaldaeans, Aramaeans, Moabites, and others. There is a hint that they were forced to withdraw, again in accordance with Yahweh’s words to his prophets; which represents Yahweh’s indignation with those who despoil his heritage. To the same occasion we may also ascribe the flight of Rechabites to the capital from the invading bands; and their loyal adherence to their puritanical tradition is contrasted with the inconstancy of Judah. But the Chaldaean advance-guards were followed by the main forces; Nebuchadrezzar himself drew near to punish the rebellious city, and Jehoiakim perished miserably amid the panic and confusion.

His son Jehoiachin, or Coniah, a youth of eighteen, is credited with a reign of three months. The enemy were at the gates, and, seeing that resistance was futile, he, with the queen-mother, his wives, and the royal household, came out and capitulated. They were carried off into exile (597 BC). At this, the first great captivity of Judah, thousands of the leading men and the craftsmen were taken away, among them the priest-prophet Ezekiel. The temple was partially despoiled. The catastrophe marks an era. Jehoiachin, according to the story of Josephus, had generously surrendered himself on the under­standing that Jerusalem would not be harmed; but the Chaldaeans broke their word. On the other hand, Jeremiah treats the youth and the queen-mother with some severity. It may be that much had been hoped from the young king: certainly there sprang up an easy optimism which looked for his triumphant return, and it was destroyed by the prophet, convinced that the worst had yet to come.

For nearly forty years the unfortunate Jehoiachin was kept a prisoner. But Mattaniah, another son of Josiah (by his Libnah wife), who was among the exiles, was sent back to take the place of his nephew. Nebuchadrezzar changed his name to Zedekiah, and made him take an oath of allegiance. For a time Zedekiah was loyal; then he began the dangerous policy of sending his messengers to Egypt to hire horses and troops. He appears before us as a weakling, and his treachery becomes a blot on his character; he had broken his solemn oath by Yahweh, and must not expect to prosper. Egyptian policy was now more active, and Psammetichus II in his fourth year (c. 590) made an expedition into Palestine, though not perhaps for military reasons. It was left for his successor Hophra (Apries) to undertake energetic efforts to gain—if need be by force—fresh allies in order to recover Palestine for Egypt.

Edom, Moab, Ammon and Tyre and Sidon were in secret alliance with Zedekiah: on one side were prophets, like Hananiah, declaring that the Babylonian wooden yoke would be broken; on the other was Jeremiah, maintaining that Nebuchadrezzar was Yahweh’s servant, and the yoke one of iron that could never be shattered. Among the exiles, too, there were brave hopes of a dawning freedom. The occasion called forth a document most famous in the history of Judaism. Jeremiah wrote a letter in which he enjoined the exiles to settle down quietly and seek the good of the land, for their welfare was bound up with it. It established a precedent, laying down the correct attitude of Jewish exiles to the government of the country, while, at the same time, the prophet insisted that, although the exiles might be far removed from the temple at Jerusalem, Yahweh was none the less able to hearken to them.

Zedekiah was probably compelled to visit Babylon and explain his conduct. But Judah was thoroughly demoralized. The long series of misfortunes had led to excesses in the religious and social life. Sacred oaths were broken, Sabbaths desecrated, and the ritual and moral laws set at nought. Tammuz and other cults found a place in the temple, to the horror of Ezekiel who saw in a vision the approach of inevitable doom. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel regard Nebuchadrezzar as Yahweh’s instrument against Jerusalem, and in their stern attitude towards their city they find a striking parallel in the Jewish historian Josephus, who in his day believed that God was on the side of the Romans, and that Jerusalem was doomed to destruction because of its evils and fratricidal strife, and who repeatedly counselled the city to surrender.

The unrest in Palestine demanded Nebuchadrezzar’s presence. We see him hesitating whether the sword was to be turned first against Jerusalem or Rabbah of Ammon. The lot fell upon Judah, and one by one the minor cities were lost, until only Lachish and Azekah remained. The actual siege of Jerusalem began on the eleventh day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Nebuchadrezzar. Ezekiel is forbidden to mourn the death of his wife, the desire of his eyes: it is a symbol that the beloved sanctuary would fall unmourned. Yet, although it was to be the fate of Jerusalem to be overthrown, some day ‘he whose right it was’ should recover it; and although Jeremiah was convinced that the situation was hopeless, he too is not without trust that ‘houses and fields and vineyards shall yet again be bought in this land’. But, in the meanwhile, he could only counsel submission to Babylon. Yahweh himself was fighting against the doomed city. Little wonder that the prophet of woe was thrown into prison for his temerity.

Hophra attempted to draw off the investing forces. His movements were no doubt part of a greater effort to seize the Phoenician coast. The siege of Jerusalem was temporarily raised, and the people, as ever, indulged in the wildest expectations. Jeremiah’s gloomy warning that the Chaldaeans would certainly return again naturally did not alleviate his lot. Hophra’s army was defeated, the investing troops returned, and the plight of Jerusalem was worse than before. Meanwhile, a grossly treacherous act had been committed. Before their brief respite the people had solemnly undertaken to emancipate their Hebrew slaves. This was not, perhaps, in order that there might be fewer mouths to feed— Sennacherib in his day had driven back the men who endeavoured to escape from the beleaguered city—possibly it was a fine gesture to win the good-will of Yahweh. At the Egyptian diversion, rashly thinking that the siege was permanently raised, the people had broken their word, and had again enslaved their servants. For this new act of perfidy, following after Zedekiah’s broken oath, Yahweh was about to annul his covenant, to ‘emancipate’ his people, and proclaim ‘liberty’ to the sword, the pestilence and the famine, and to scatter them in exile. It may be that the later tradition of Nebuchadrezzar’s treatment of the young Jehoiachin, which makes the Babylonians responsible for the initial perfidy, was intended as a set-off to these two acts of Judaean treachery.

Unceasingly Jeremiah urged surrender, and although he was naturally accused of weakening the morale of the soldiers it is evident that he did not stand alone. Divided counsels rent the unhappy city, and while he himself did not ‘fall away’ to the enemy, he was convinced that reliance upon Egypt was the wrong policy—better surrender to a Semite foe than join a weak and constantly faithless Egypt. Dissension and famine did their work, and at last, on the ninth of the fourth month of the eleventh year, the walls of the city were breached. Zedekiah and the army endeavoured to escape across the Jordan, but the attempt to remove the government failed. The king was captured near Jericho, and brought before Nebuchadrezzar at Riblah. His sons were slain before his eyes, and he himself suffered the common lot of rebels and was blinded. He was carried off to Babylon, and the words of the prophet were fulfilled: he saw the king, he went to Babylon, but he did not see the land of Babylon. All Josiah’s sons had indeed been ill-fated, and the elegy of Ezekiel, which their tragic end called forth, is a good example of a Hebrew dirge.

A month passed before orders were given for the destruction of Jerusalem. The general Nebuzaradan came and destroyed the temple, the palace and the important buildings; the city was put to the flames, and the temple-vessels were taken away. The prisoners were collected in readiness for their long journey. The scene was at Ramah, and we hear the compassionate mother Rachel weeping for her children. Among the captives was Jeremiah. Nebuzaradan gave him his freedom, although, according to another story, Nebuchadrezzar was directly responsible for the lenient treatment of one who, after all, had played a very important part in helping him to victory.

Thus ended the Southern Kingdom. The fall of the city was an unforgettable event (586 BC). The literature it evoked created a precedent, so that we sometimes have passages which apparently reflect this disaster, but which on internal grounds must refer to another more or less like it: the most obvious illustrations are furnished by the apocryphal and apocalyptical books of Baruch. To a Jeremiah, however, ready to renounce temple and ritual, the destruction was the prelude to reconstruction. From the ful­filment of his worst anticipations he could pass to the new era which would arise out of the ruins of the city. Events had justified his policy of submission to Babylon, and a new chapter was now opened in the relation between the prophet and his country.

III.

THE EXILE

Babylon adopted a conciliatory policy. A native governor was appointed over the cities of Judah—Gedaliah, whose father had shown himself friendly towards Jeremiah in the past. The seat of the new government was Mizpah (Nebi Samwil), about five miles north-west of Jerusalem, and Jeremiah, now an old man, was one of the most trusted counsellors. Gedaliah very wisely enjoined loyalty on the part of the population, while undertaking to act as intermediary between them and the Babylonians. A pacific policy won over the wandering guerilla bands, remnants of the Judaean army; fugitives returned from the neighbouring lands, and the normal agricultural life was resumed. Hopes of a happier future could be cherished. A new note in his prophecies is what Jeremiah’s character would lead us to expect: the book of ‘Lamentations,’ traditionally ascribed to him, has quite another standpoint. But the new reconstruction after the destruction was foredoomed. There was unceasing intrigue. Some of the royal family entertained hopes of a restoration—evidently not all had been carried away. They found an ally in Baalis king of Ammon, and plotted to assassinate Gedaliah. Johanan, one of his captains, discovering this, at once perceived that the plot, if successful, could only lead to the downfall of the new community. Unfortunately Gedaliah, more generous than acute, refused to take warning, and a band of raiders, headed by the prince Ishmael ben Nethaniah, treacherously slew him at a communal meal. The tragic day, the third of the seventh month, became one of the principal fasts of the Jews. An attempt by Ishmael to carry off the princesses and others who were at Mizpah with Gedaliah was frustrated by Johanan; but so fearful were the people of the consequences of the new émeute, in which some of the Babylonian troops them­selves had been killed, that flight to Egypt seemed the only solution. Jeremiah, however, stoutly opposed this: even for Egypt there were disasters in store. But he was overruled, and Johanan and other captains, together with a large body of Jews, went down to Tahpanhes, carrying with them the aged prophet and his faithful scribe Baruch. Still the cup of bitterness was not yet full. The conviction grew among the women that their troubles were the result of apostasy—not from Yahweh, but from the worship of the Queen of Heaven. It is the end of Yahwism among the refugees in Egypt—the last scene of the miserable drama and with it closes the career of one who perhaps more than any other figure of Israelite history has fascinated students of the O.T.

The syncretism which combined other cults with the worship of Yahweh was not regarded by the prophets as true Yahwism; yet not only had it prevailed in Palestine, but there was then, or at least a little later, a Jewish colony at Elephantine, in Upper Egypt, which worshipped Yahweh together with two female deities, and was in touch with the authorities in both Judah and Samaria. But as a matter of fact our sources are under the influence of certain rather one-sided views of the events, and it is not easy to determine the history of the exilic period. On the one hand, there were deportations of Jews on no very considerable scale. Besides that in 597, there was a second in 586, and possibly a third, a few years later, it may be in connection with the murder of Gedaliah. Efforts were certainly made even at the first captivity to disarm the land by removing all the craftsmen and smiths. On the other hand, the events after both 597 and 586 prove that in spite of all its disasters the land remained vigorous, and indeed these western lands were always able to regain strength quickly. Consequently, we must not exaggerate the extent of the desolation, and in no circumstance can we suppose that the districts were denuded of their inhabitants. A considerable body must have remained behind, even though they were of the poorest; and one of the most important tendencies of modern criticism has been to test more carefully the ordinary view in Ezra-Nehemiah that, with an empty or at least ‘heathen’ Palestine and the extinction of true religion among the refugees in Egypt, the pure worship of Yahweh prevailed only among the exiles in Babylon, whose destiny it was to bring back to Judah and Jerusalem new light from the East.

The books Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah form essentially a single work. They establish a continuity between the old Judah which went into exile and the new organization when, shortly after the accession of Cyrus to the Babylonian throne (539), the exiles brought back the holy temple-vessels and returned each man to his own city. This view of the history, however, ignores the native population which had never gone into exile; and the problems of our period turn partly upon the precise character of this return, and partly upon an estimate of the internal conditions in Palestine after the fall of Jerusalem. As regards the latter we are very poorly informed. While the Chronicler’s history simply passes over the years of exile, the older source, after the fall of Jerusalem (586), provides an abridgment of the events re­corded more fully in the book of Jeremiah, and reports that, at the death of Nebuchadrezzar (562), his son and successor, Evil-Merodach (Amel-Marduk), freed Jehoiachin, who, together with other rebellious kings, had been kept a prisoner in Babylon. No further information is preserved in the O.T., although Tyre was once more very favourably treated, and Merbaal, who had been carried off when Ithobaal III surrendered to Nebuchadrezzar (c. 573), was actually allowed to return. Under Nabonidus (Nabunaid), Babylonia continued to maintain a strong hold over the west, and in 554—3, shortly after Jehoiachin had been freed, the king had to lead his troops through ‘Amor’ and besiege ‘Adum-mu’ (Edom, or? el-Jof), proof of serious unrest to which, however, there is no evident reference in the O.T. All the ‘kings’ as far as Gaza on the ‘border of Egypt’ are said to have contributed to the building of his temple in Harran; and, whatever freedom the western lands enjoyed, they remained the vassals of Babylonia, and were expected to be loyal. Later traditions were preserved of the Jews at the court of Babylon (Book of Daniel), though very confused ideas were current of the period as a whole. With the growing threat of Persia the influence of Nabonidus weakened in the west, and when at length Babylonia fell (539), Palestine and Syria naturally came into the hands of Cyrus.

A noteworthy feature of the biblical sources is the obvious antipathy both to the native population of Judah and more especially to the Samaritans. Though this is not inexplicable it deserves careful attention. There were considerable internal changes. The weakened state of both Judah and Ephraim gave the opportunity for the neighbouring peoples to enter. There was little love lost between the rivals. Tyre was always ready to gloat over Jerusalem; Edom, too, was envious; the god Milcom (i.e. Ammon) possessed Gad; Moab and Ammon ‘magnified themselves against Israel; and Philistia was not slow to pay off old scores. The land of Israel was ‘profaned’ by strangers. The people, however, regarded themselves as possessors of the land, and the sort of change that could and did ensue is illustrated by the genealogical lists in 1 Chron. II, IV, which reflect the movement of clans of Edomite or South Palestinian affinity, from the south of Judah, to the district of Jerusalem, and their inclusion among the Judaean division of the Israelite tribes. This movement, which was of immense significance, may have been due to the pressure exerted upon south Judah by Edomites (whence the later name Idumaea); and the Edomites, in turn, were no doubt the victims of those more important movements which make the Nabataeans and other Arab tribes a new factor in the later history.

As a consequence of these vicissitudes there was an emergence of indigenous elements, a greater prominence of simpler types and of men of desert origin. Not only had the structure of the old civilization been violently broken, but the new importance of these classes meant less advanced social and religious conditions. The fall of the monarchies, first of Ephraim and then of Judah, led to ruder conditions, such as had prevailed when ‘there was no king in Israel, and every man used to do that which was right in his own eyes’. At Tyre there were actually ‘judges,’ and in Israel the word ‘king’ is often avoided, and local leaders would probably also be called ‘judges,’ as they had been before the monarchy. Moreover, circumstances combined to bring the north and the south closer together. Jerusalem was no longer the political and religious centre; other places (Shechem, Mizpah) became more prominent. The fall of the two kingdoms would not mean the extinction of men of the spirit of an Amos, a Hosea or a Micah. There was always a more elemental type of thought outside the towns, and puritanism had before now taken its inspiration from the desert. If anything, Judah in spite of, if not rather because of, its Jerusalem, was more depraved than Ephraim. The north with all its mingled population had had time to become stabilized, and Ezekiel (could speak of it, in spite of its mixed origin, as the elder sister: this fact is of extreme importance as indicating that a new ‘Israel’ had grown up in place of the old. And even if its religion was ‘heathen,’ there was a priest of the old order at Bethel who knew how Yahweh should be worshipped, and Bethel presumably escaped the Judaean disasters. Accordingly, the enquiry into the significance of the sanctuary at Bethel for the history of the development of the religion and law of Israel during the seventh­fifth centuries is of more than ordinary interest.

While Bethel lay only a few miles north of the ruined Jerusalem, men of Shechem, on the other hand, were ready to worship at the holy city. Later, the Samaritans even claimed the right to take part in the rebuilding of the temple. In the writings of both Jeremiah and Ezekiel we find a living interest in Ephraim; and on these and other grounds we may assume that there was a rapprochement between the two districts which in the past had so often been deadly foes. The whole course of subsequent history and religion in Palestine shows that there must have been a common foundation of Judaism and Samaritanism, and it is most naturally to be found in this, the exilic age, rather than in any other. Even later there was a traditional bond between north and south; and although the biblical history recognizes a united Israel only for the period before Jeroboam’s revolt— ignoring, for example, the age of the Omri dynasty— the exilic age was one in which, before the great Samaritan schism and the historic enmity between Jews and Samaritans, close interrelations can be safely assumed. Further, not only are there weighty and independent arguments for literary productions of an elevated character in Ephraim after the fall of Samaria (722), but the book of Deuteronomy in its present form presupposes a united Israel and may, with great probability, be assigned to this age. On various grounds, then, we are justified in concluding that in Palestine, during the Exile, the religious conditions, however deplorable from the highest standpoint of prophets and priests, were not necessarily desperate, and there is no reason to suppose that the two neighbours were necessarily held apart by the memory of ancient rivalries.

Apart from the Judaean exiles themselves, it is not improbable that by this time Jews, whether associated with their Phoenician brethren or not, were beginning to be found scattered over the known world. Later, at least, we find Jews at Nippur in Babylonia, while at Elephantine there flourished a far more cosmopolitan colony. There were Carian, Ionian and Lydian guards in the eastern Delta, and Egyptian and Assyrian influences meet and blend at Teima in north Arabia, where the religious antiquary Nabonidus seems to have found a refuge (c. 548). It was another age of international politics, and it left its mark upon Jewish thought. The Jewish exiles could carry on their work, and even amass wealth. Some rose to high positions of trust. Life therefore might be tolerable, and communications with the home-land could be maintained. The glory of Babylon, and the extent and power of its empire, could give the exiles a wider horizon. Certainly, they of ‘the exile’ (golah) felt their superiority over the idolaters at home; and to the exiled aristocrats, as so many of them were, the destruction of their sacred city was a grief which time only heightened. There was no doubt a temptation to accept the religion of their new homes, but that remarkable man, the priest-patriot Ezekiel, would certainly be among the influences that kept alive the belief in Yahweh’s care for his own city, land and people. What the over­throw of Jerusalem came to mean for her devoted children is pathetically illustrated in writings of varied origin. In the so-called ‘Lamentations,’ a lover of Zion and a loyal servant of the king, resentful of the boasting of Edom, and the failure of Egypt to help, is aghast at the sufferings of his class, and laments the fall of the old regime. There are lurid pictures of bloodshed and famine, the criminality and negligence of priests and prophets, and the pride of the foe. Zion’s sufferings have reached their limit.

IV.

THE RESTORATION

Not all could view with the detachment of a Jeremiah the destruction of temple-ritual and symbolism, nor believe that the Babylonian oppressor was the tool of Yahweh. It would seem that the old conciliatory policy of Babylon underwent change; the conditions of life were harder. Palestine did not submit tamely to Babylonia. It is highly probable that the murder of Gedaliah led to punitive measures which justified the flight of the panic-stricken Jews into Egypt. Nabonidus, as already mentioned, had trouble in the west. The middle of the sixth century BC was no quiet age, and it is not to be supposed that Palestine was without stirring internal movements. Gradually, as we scan the prophetical writings, we pass from the iniquity of Jerusalem and her well-deserved fate to the excesses of the enemy. Yahweh was angry a little, but the enemy afflicted Israel beyond all measure. The instruments of his anger impiously boasted of their own strength—how could a pure God witness the evil of the foe? Yahweh would chastise in moderation, but he would not make an end of Israel; if Israel turned to him they would find him. There are pictures of despair, cries for vengeance, and we pass on to the heralds of con­solation. There are expectations of the restoration of Israel, with its own Davidic prince or king2. There are programmes for the future, the most striking being that of Ezekiel. This, ostensibly written about 572, is part sketch, part vision, of a new ecclesiastical constitution. One of its most remarkable features is the relatively insignificant position of the secular head. He is called ‘prince’; and he is, so to say, a compromise between a thorough-going monarchy and a supreme priesthood.

Impassioned address reaches its height in the so-called Second or Deutero-Isaiah: ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God, speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and proclaim unto her that her time of service is over, her guilt pardoned, she hath received of Yahweh’s hand double for all her sins.’ The day of desolate Zion is at hand, and the processes of history, once for the chastisement of Israel, are now for her exaltation. The Persians were multiplying successes; the fall of Babylon was at hand. The great events produced some stirring broad-sheets; it was the day of ‘the vengeance of Yahweh, the vengeance of his temple.’ The imminent overthrow of the oppressive city is viewed from different standpoints; besides amazement and glee, there is also the subdued conviction that it would mean only a change of masters. Especially famous are the hopes entertained of Cyrus: he is Yahweh’s ‘shepherd’ (a familiar Assyrian and Babylonian term), his servant, his friend, his anointed. Passing from conquest to conquest, he is destined to execute the purpose of Yahweh, to restore the exiles, and rebuild Zion. A new Exodus is at hand. And in fact, according to the Chronicler, when Cyrus became king of Babylon he was stirred by Yahweh in the first year of his reign to proclaim that he was charged to rebuild the temple, and to allow all who wished to return to Judah (539-8). Accordingly, many returned under Shesh-Bazzar, the prince, and under Zerubbabel and Jeshua (or Joshua), the priest, and the foundations were laid in the following year. But when the ‘adversaries of Judah and Benjamin’ were not allowed to co­operate they started intrigues and plots, and the building was hindered for some fifteen years. However, in the second year of Darius (520) the prophets Haggai and Zechariah spurred on Zerubbabel and Joshua to undertake the work. To the enquiries of suspicious Persian officials the Jews reported that they had the permission of Cyrus, and that the work had been in progress since their return. Appeal was made to Darius, who confirmed the decree, and generously helped the Jews, and the temple was completed at the end of the king’s sixth year (10 March, 515). So runs the apparently straightforward statement of the ‘Chronicler’s history (Ezr. I—VI).

On the other hand, from the independent prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah it would seem that only in the second year of Darius did the new era dawn. Yahweh had been angry, but he had now ceased from his wrath and had come back to his city, jealous for his people. The years of misery lie behind; the promise is for the immediate future. The exiles in Babylon are summoned to escape; evidently there had been no return, at least none of any importance. The temple is desolate, though some sort of cult was practised; and there is a bad season, the penalty for neglecting the sanctuary. Evidently there had been no attempt, at least none of any importance, to rebuild the temple. It is the destiny of Zerubbabel to undertake and complete the work. In the face of these and other data the opinion has gained ground, since the work of the Dutch critic Kosters (1895), at the prophets are a surer guide to the history of the Return than the Chronicler. In contrast to his account, which throws back the return to the very commencement of the new Persian empire, another story tells how Zerubbabel first won the favour of Darius, who carried out what Cyrus had proposed, and gave permission for the Return, allowing the Jews extensive privileges. Here, Darius rather than Cyrus appears to have been the original patron of the Jews, and our sources seem to be the result of a fusion of two stories, one the return of Zerubbabel in the second year of Darius, and the other, the earlier return of Shesh-Bazzar in the first year of Cyrus. Unfortunately the critical problems are excessively difficult, and they turn largely upon our knowledge of the conditions in the age of the two great reforming leaders, Ezra and Nehemiah, under a later Persian king, Artaxerxes.

No doubt the Persian ethical religion would have an attraction for the Jews; no doubt, also, the conciliatory policy, at all events of the earlier Achaemenidae, justified their highest hopes. There is, moreover, a certain agreement between the cylinder-inscription of Cyrus and the words of Is. XLIV, 28, XLV, 1. In the inscription Cyrus, it is true, is called the deliverer of oppressed peoples, he is chosen by Marduk, hailed as a saviour, and he claims to have returned the gods of various towns and to have restored temples and houses in the neighbourhood of Babylon. But Cyrus certainly did not come up to the anticipations of the prophets. He did not destroy the Babylonian gods, he was no true monotheist, and his tolerance would have been distasteful to the true Israelite. Moreover, Cambyses showed special favour to the Jewish colony of Elephantine, and Uzahor, an Egyptian official of both Cambyses and Darius, tells how he persuaded his lord to give instructions for the restoration of the temple at Sais. These special marks of favour show what could and did happen, but they do not prove the accuracy of the Chronicler’s narrative, which must be judged in the light of the independent testimony of the prophets.

At the death of Cambyses there was widespread revolt (but it is difficult to decide whether Judah shared in the excitement when Assyria and Egypt rose against Persia, or whether its quiescence—Palestine is not named among the rebel­lious provinces—brought its reward. The evidence of the pro­phets shows, at all events, that Zerubbabel was the figure of a new age. In a striking passage Haggai proclaims the advent of Yahweh, the coming glory of the temple, and the exaltation of Zerubbabel. He is Yahweh’s servant and chosen one, his signet ring, and the symbol of Yahweh’s might. All obstacles are to disappear before him; he will achieve his work, not by might, but by Yahweh’s spirit. We have to understand the events in the light of the Messianic hopes which were kindled when a scion of David was not merely governor of Judah, but the promise of a more ambitious future. In an age which saw both this Davidic prince and the building of a new temple it goes without saying that the scanty writings of Haggai and Zechariah are far from representing all the ideas and hopes of the time. A veritable monarchy was in the air, and it is probable that the extant account of the history of the Judaean monarchy itself, with its emphasis upon the inauguration of the dynasty, the character of the several kings, and the import­ance of temple, priest and prophet reflects something of these years. The books of Samuel-Kings in their present form are of exilic and later date; and when one looks for an age when the importance of the Davidic dynasty would impress itself upon the old writers, this age of the reconstruction of Judah under Zerubbabel at once suggests itself. So also, as we read the account of the first temple, Solomon’s ‘Prayer of Dedication’ has a new interest when one notes the exilic standpoint, and the reference to the penitence of captive exiles. In other words, the account of the early monarchy, and even of the first Temple, may well have been influenced by the circumstances at the second Temple, and the beginning of what bade fair to be a new monarchy.

Zerubbabel and all the aspirations of the age disappear without leaving a trace—we have here one of the most perplexing problems of the biblical history. There are, however, some fragmentary hints of importance. The prophet Zechariah is distinguished for his visions, all of which centre upon the conditions of his day: the building and completion of the temple, the future prospects of Judah. They contain a pronounced Messianic note, and the hope of a speedy national happiness. In them Zerubbabel and the high-priest Joshua play a remarkable role. In one vision, Joshua, as the spiritual head and representative of the people, is clad in filthy garments, symbolical of a pollute priesthood, and is cleansed of his guilt; while, in another, sin is symbolically removed from the land. In the former, Joshua is promised permanent authority, provided he remains faithful; whereas Zerubbabel, ‘my servant, the shoot’, is the secular head and holds a somewhat subordinate position. But in a third vision, the text of which has been altered, there is a significant hint of some conflict between the civil and the priestly leaders. It is healed, and the council of peace is between them; Zerubbabel is to complete the temple, and the two are to rule in perfect harmony, each crowned and sitting on his own throne. But here the priest has the subordinate position. There are, as before, Messianic expectations, but the vision suddenly breaks off: ‘and it shall come to pass, if ye will but hearken to the voice of Yahweh your god....” The rest is lost, and, as the vision now runs, the roles of both secular and priestly leader are hopelessly obscured.

This hint of serious conflict between the ecclesiastical and the secular arms finds parallels in the very late and anti-monarchical version of the rise of the first king of all Israel, and in the Chronicler’s story of Uzziah’s leprosy, the penalty for encroaching upon priestly prerogatives. A certain tendency to diminish or neutralize kingly power can be seen both in the book of Deuteronomy and in Ezekiel’s programme; and these evidences become cumulatively important when, after the blank which follows the history of 520—516, the curtain is lifted again about sixty years later, and a new regime holds the field. This internal political change is the cardinal fact in the history of the post-exilic age, and it is a natural assumption that a serious conflict between the monarchy and the priesthood was one of the outstanding events during this dark interval.

At this later period (c. 450) the Judaean state is on the point of becoming a religious community, if not a Church. The Jews are settled in a singularly circumscribed area around Jeru­salem. Jerusalem itself is desolate and weak, and it is uncertain whether its unhappy condition is the result of the disasters of 586—that is, nearly 140 years previously—or whether, as seems much more probable, Jerusalem suffered another disaster after 520—516. If Jerusalem had been signally favoured by Darius, even as the Jews of Elephantine had special privileges from Cambyses, it is no less likely that, as the latter in due course suffered from the enmity of the local Egyptians, so Jerusalem and its new temple had to meet the hatred of jealous neighbours, especially of Edom and Samaria. There are various biblical passages which it has seemed only natural to read in the light of events before 520—516, but which may, with perhaps greater probability, belong to a rather later date. In the prominence of Zerubbabel and the Messianic hopes we have to recognize a new era of both religious and political significance. Ambitious dreams of religious and in less propitious circumstances, would certainly inspire a city which had a reputation for haughty independence and intransigence. The fear of a reconstituted and powerful Jerusalem which we encounter at a later period, and the jealousy with which surrounding peoples watch this mistress of Palestine, throw indirect but invaluable light upon the blank years c. 516­-450. And if to this we add the internal rivalries, both between priestly and civil power, and between the native population and those who returned from exile, it is easy to see that there was much inflammable material. The history of the unhappy land of Judah under Josiah and his successors, the Exile, the revival under Zerubbabel, and the ruin and misery which we find in the days of Artaxerxes bring with them most fundamental his­torical problems, yet, between the fall of Jerusalem (586) and the return of Ezra (? 458), or rather of Nehemiah (445)— for the work of Ezra should doubtless follow that of Nehemiah —the historical material is woefully scanty and isolated, and direct evidence is of the slightest.

The sixth century BC thus becomes an age of permanent interest as we go behind our sources and discover some of the profound changes that were taking place in and around Palestine. Events of epoch-making significance for the internal development of the land can be clearly recognized. The great surrounding empires had either fallen, or were nearing the end of their lengthy history. Their creative period was past, whereas Judah in the Persian age underwent reconstruction, and entered upon a career which ceased only with the rise of Christianity and the downfall of Jerusalem. In fact, while the social and political crises of the eighth to fifth centuries B.C. form the end of one chapter of Oriental history and the beginning of the next, an old Israel gives place to a new Israel. The ordinary reader of the Old Testament is scarcely conscious of the true significance of these years; and modern research, while recognizing the supreme importance of the sixth century B.C. for the development of Judaism, and therefore, also, of Christianity, is only slowly determining its meaning for the origin of the Old Testament. For the Old Testament, it can be said, was then just beginning to assume its present shape, and the problems of the internal history of Israel must be handled pari passu with those of the literary vicissitudes of the narratives.

From what precedes it is now obvious that there was no continuous development from the earliest days of Israel to the times of Zerubbabel, Nehemiah and Ezra. The rise and earliest history of the monarchy can be traced only in the broadest outlines, and catastrophic events sever the monarchy from the highly-developed Judaism which grew up in the post-exilic age. Moreover, not only had Palestine had a long history before the entry of Israelites from the deserts south of Palestine (thirteenth century), but there were later movements and immigrations, all of which influenced the internal conditions of Palestine, and stood much closer to the rise of the O.T. books than did the Israelite Exodus and Conquest, many centuries previously. Much of what is related of the Israelite conquest of Palestine would apply to later immigrations, though it will always be uncertain how far these later events have coloured the genuine traditions of the thirteenth century, and, from the O.T. alone, it will be impossible to sever the early from the late. The reader must remember that he is looking at the past through the eyes of invaders who felt themselves distinct from and superior to the native population; he shares their descent into Egypt, their Exodus, and their conquest of Palestine, ignoring the standpoint of their kinsmen who did not go down. He views the divided Monarchy through Judaean spectacles, and when Samaria falls (722 B.C.) he fixes his gaze upon Judah alone. Finally, he throws in his lot with the exiles of Judah, and participates in their new oblivious of those who had never left the land, and whose perspective of events would differ entirely from that of those who came back from Babylon to restore the true religion of Yahweh. Consequently, to obtain a just view of the history we have to allow for these characteristics of the biblical narrative, and the preceding account of the outlines of the historical thread must be supplemented by an independent survey of the main features in the internal development of Israel.

CHAPTER XIX

LYDIA AND IONIA