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 CAPTIVITIES

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CAPTIVITIES

taken asylum at Masphath, was compelled to accom- pany it thither.

(2) The Exile and its Effects. — We are left to con- jecture the number deported from Juda by the Babylonians. The 200,150 captives whom Sennach- erib the Assyrian took from the Southern King- dom three generations before its downfall we can reasonably surmise to have been settled in Assyria, i. e. Northern Mesopotamia, perhaps in the neighbour- hood of the Israelitish communities (see above). These cannot be nrk 1 as properly in the Babylon- ian Exile. We have no data for a close estimate of the numbers brought away by the Chaldeans. As- suming the dates of Jeremias. Hi. 28-30 to be correct, none of the deportations there noted took place in the years of the great disasters, viz. 597 and .586. Adding these minor expatriations — a sum of 4600 — to the 10,000 of the first capture of Jerusalem, gives 14,- 600; and since the final catastrophe was more sweep- ing than the former we are warranted in trebling that number as a rough estimate of the total of the Baby- Ionian Captivity. The exiles were settled in the Kingdom of Babylonia, partly at the capital, Baby- lon, but mostly in localities not very distant from it, along the Euphrates and the canals which irrigated the great Chaldean plain. Nehardea, or Neerda, one of the principal of these Jewish colonies, lay on the great river. (Josephus, Antiquities, XVIII, ix, 1.) Nippur, an important city between the Euphrates and the Tigris, also contained many Hebrew captives within its walls or vicinity. One of the main canals which fertilized the inlerlluvial plain, passing through Nippur, was the n&r Kabari, which is identical with the river Chobar "in the land of the Chaldeans" of Ezeeh., i. 1, 3; iii, 15. [See Hilprecht, Explorations in Bible Lands (l(ll).'!). 410 sq.] Other colonies were at Sora and Pumbeditha. It has been plausibly con- jectured that Nabuchodonosor, whom the cuneiform records show as a builder and restorer, would not fail to uiilize the great labour power of the Hebrew cap- tives in the work of reclaiming and draining waste lands in Babylonia ; for, as its present condition proves, that region without artificial irrigation and control of the overflow of the rivers is a mere desert. The country about Nippur seems to have been thus re- stored in ancient times. In any case it is a priori quite probable that the mass of the exiles were for a time at least in a condition of mitigated slavery. The condition of slaves in Babylonia was not one of grind- ing serfage; they enjoyed certain rights, and could, by redemption and other means, ameliorate their lot and even gain entire freedom. It is evident that soon after their deportation many of the Jews in i lhaldea were in a position to build homes and plant gardens (Jer., xxix, 5). Babylonia was pre-eminently a land (if agriculture, and the Southern Israelites, who at home, on the whole, had been a vine-growing and pastoral people, now by choice, if not by necessity, gave themselves i<> the tilling of the soil and the rear- ing of rattle in the rich alluvial flats of Mesopotamia

(cf. I Esd., ii. 66). The products <>f Babylonia, es- pecially grain, formed the staples of its busy internal commerce, and doubtless the great marts at Babylon, Nippur, and elsewhere, attracted many Jews into

mercantile pursuits. The trading activities and the exact and well-regulated commercial methods of Babylonia must have greatly stimulated and devel- oped the innate commercial genius of the expatriated race.

The fact that the Jews were allowed to settle in colonies, and this according to families and clans, had a vital bearing on the destinies of that people. It kepi alive the national spirit and individuality, which would have disappeared in the mass of surrounding heathendom if the Southern Israelites had been dis persed into small units. There arc indications that this national life wa 1 by a certain social

organization, in which reappeared the primitive divisions of leading family and tribal stocks, and that their heads, the "elders", administered under royal licence the purely domestic affairs of the settlements (cf. Ezeeh., viii, 1 ; I Esd., ii, 2; II Esd., vii, 7). As long as the Temple stood it was the centre and pledge of Jewish hopes and aspirations, and even the first exiles kept their mental vision fixed on it as a beacon of early deliverance. The negative and ill-presaging voice of Ezechiel was unheeded by them. When Jerusalem and the Temple fell, the feeling was one of stupor. That Jehovah could forsake His dwelling- place and allow His sanctuary to be humbled to the dust by deriding Gentiles was inconceivable. But there was the terrible fact. Was the Lord no longer their God and greater than all other gods? It was a crisis in the religion of Israel. The providential res- cue was at hand in prophecy. Had not Jeremias, Ezechiel, and others before them repeatedly foretold this ruin as the chastisement of national infidelity and sin? This was remembered now by those who in their fanatical deafness had not listened to them. So far from Jehovah being a defeated and humbled God, it was His very decree that had brought the catastrophe to pass. The Chaldeans had been merely the instruments of His justice. He now stood plainly revealed to the Jews as a God of moral righteousness and universal sway, as a God who would tolerate no rival. Perhaps they had never before realized this; certainly never as now. Hence it is that the Exile is a great turning-point in the history of Israel — a pun- ishment which was a purification and a rebirth. But Exilic prophecy did not merely point to the great religio-ethical lesson of the visitations of the past : it, raised more loudly than ever the note of hope and promise. Now that Jehovah's purpose had been ac- complished, and the chosen people been humbled beneath His hand, a new era was to come. Even the mournful Jeremias had declared that the captives would return at the end of seventy years — a round number, not to be taken literally. Ezechiel, in the midst of the desolation of the Exile, boldly sketched a plan of the resurgent Sion. And Deutero-Isaias, probably a little later, brought a stirring and jubilant message of comfort and the assurance of a joyful, new life in the fatherland.

Several minor but important factors contributed to the preservation and cleansing of the religion of Israel. One was negative: the forcible uprooting from the soil where Chanaanitish idolatries had so long survived, detached the Jews from these baneful traditions. The others are positive. Without the Temple no sacrifices or solemn worship could be law- fully practised. The want was in part supplied by the keeping of the Sabbath, especially by religious as- semblies on that day — the beginnings of the future synagogues. The Mosaic Law. too. assumed a new importance and sac-redness, because Jehovah therein manifested His will, and in some sort dwelt, as an ordaining Presence. The writings of the Prophets and other Scriptures, in so far as they existed, also ri Ceived a share of the popular veneration hitherto concentrated on the Temple and external rites. In short., the absence of sacrifice ami ceremonial worship during half a century had a tendency to refine the monotheism and, in general, to spiritualize the religion of the Hebrews.

(3) The Prelude <>/ the Restoration. — Nabuchodono- sor after a long and prosperous reign was succeeded by his son Evil MiTodach, the Amil Marduk of the monuments. The latter showed himself benign to the long-imprisoned ex-king Joachin (Jechonis leasing him ami recognizing in > measure his royal dignity. After a short reign Evil Merodach was de- posed, and within the space of four years (5(10-556) the throne was occupied by three usurpers. Under the last of these, Nabonidus, the once all-powerful