Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/433

 ISRAEL of phets. vs of i exile rus : &quot; rc- life, endeavour to bring it to reason. The king, who agreed with the prophet, did not venture to assert his opinion against the dominant terrorism. The town in these circum- stances was at last taken by storm, and, along with the temple, reduced to ruins. Cruel vengeance was taken on the king and grandees, and the pacification of the country was ensured by another and larger deportation of the inhabitants to Babylon. Thus terminated in 586 the kingdom of Judah. The prophets had been the spiritual destroyers of the O id I sra ,el. In old times the nation had been the ideal of religion in actual realization ; the prophets confronted the nation with an ideal to which it did not correspond. Then to bridge over this interval the abstract ideal was framed into a law, and to this law the nation was to be conformed. The attempt had very important consequences, inasmuch as Jehovah continued to be a living power in the law, when He was no longer realized as present in the nation ; but that was not what the prophets had meant to effect. What they were unconsciously labouring towards was that religious individualism which had its historical source* in the national downfall, and manifested itself not exclusively within the prophetical sphere. With such men as Amos and Hosea the moral personality based upon an inner con viction burst through the limits of mere nationality ; their mistake was in supposing that they could make their way of thinking the basis of a national life. Jeremiah saw through the mistake ; the true Israel was narrowed to himself. Of the truth of his conviction he never had a moment s doubt ; he knew that Jehovah was on his side, that on Him depended the eternal future. But, instead of the nation, the heart and the individual conviction were to him the subject of religion. On the ruins of Jerusalem he gazed into the future filled with joyful hope, sure of this that Jehovah would one day pa rdon past sin and renew the relation which had been broken off though on the basis of another covenant than that laid down in Deutero nomy. &quot; I will put my law upon their heart, and write it on their mind ; none shall say to his neighbour, Know the Lord, for all shall have that knowledge within them.&quot; 10. The exiled Jews were not scattered all over Chaldaea, but were allowed to remain together in families and clans. Many of them, notwithstanding this circumstance, must have lapsed and become merged in the surrounding heathenism ; but many also continued faithful to Jehovah and to Israel. They laboured under much depression and sadness, groaning under the wrath of Jehovah, who had rejected His people and cancelled His covenant. They were lying under a sort of vast interdict ; they could not celebrate any sacrifice or keep any feast ; they could only observe days of fasting and humiliation, and such rites as had no inseparable connexion with the holy land. The observance of the Sabbath, and the practice of the rite of circumcision, acquired much greater importance than they formerly possessed as signs of a common religion. The meetings on the Sabbath day out of which the synagogues were afterwards developed appear to have first come into use during this period ; perhaps also even then it had become customary to read aloud from the prophetic writings which set forth that all had happened in the pro vidence of God, and moreover that the days of adversity were not to last for ever. Matters improved somewhat as Cyrus entered upon his victorious career. Was he the man in whom the Messianic prophecies had found their fulfilment 1 ? The majority were unwilling to think so. For it was out of Israel (they argued) that the Messiah was to proceed who should establish the kingdom of God upon the ruins of the king doms of the world ; the restitution effected by means of a Persian could only be regarded as a passing incident In the course of an historical process that had its goal entirely elsewhere. This doubt was met by more than one pro phetical writer, and especially by the great anonymous author to whom we are indebted for Isa. xl.-lxvL &quot; Away with -sorrow ; deliverance is already at the door! Is it then a humiliating thing that Israel should owe its freedom to a Persian 1 Nay, is it not rather a proof of the world-wide sway of the God of Jacob that He should thus summon His instruments from the ends of the earth 1 Who else than Jehovah could have thus sent Cyrus 1 Surely not the false gods which He has destroyed 1 Jehovah alone it was who foretold and foreknew the things which are now coming to pass, because long ago He had prearranged and predetermined them, and they are now being executed in accordance with His plan. Rejoice therefore in prospect of your near deliverance ; prepare yourselves for the new era; gird yourselves for the return to your homes.&quot; It is to be observed, as characteristic in this prophecy, how the idea of Jehovah as God alone and God over all- in con stantly recurring lyrical parentheses He is praised as the author of the world and of all nature is yet placed ia positive relation to Israel alone, and that upon the principle that Israel is in exclusive possession of the universal truth, which cannot perish with Israel, but must, through the instrumentality of Israel, become the common possession of the whole world. &quot; There is no God but Jehovah, and Israel is His prophet.&quot; For many years the Persian monarch put the patience of the Jews to the proof ; Jehovah s judgment upon the Chaldeans, instead of advancing, seemed to recede. At length, however, their hopes were realized ; in the year 538 Cyrus brought the empire of Babylon to an end, and Edict of gave the exiles leave to seek their fatherland once more. Cyrus. This permission was not made use of by all, or even by a majority. The number of those who returned is stated at 42,360 ; whether women and children are included in this figure is uncertain. On arriving at their destination, after the difficult march through the desert, they did not spread themselves over the whole of Judah, but settled chiefly ResettJe- in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. The Calebites, for ment example, who previously had had their settlements in and around Hebron, now settled in Bethlehem and in the dis trict of Ephrath. They found it necessary to concentrate themselves in face of a threatened admixture of doubtful elements. From all sides people belonging to the surround ing nations had pressed into the depopulated territory of Judah. Not only had they annexed the border territories where, for example, the Edomites or Idumseans held the whole of the Negeb as far as to Hebron ; they had effected lodgments everywhere, and as the Ammonites, Ashdod- ites, and especially the Samaritans had amalgamated with the older Jewish population, a residue of which had remained in the country in spite of all that had happened. These half-breed &quot; pagani &quot; (Amme haaref, o^Aoi) gave a friendly reception to the returning exiles (Bne haggola) j particularly did the Samaritans show themselves anxious to make common cause with them. But they were met with no reciprocal cordiality. The lesson of religious isolation which the children of the captivity had learned in Babylon, they did not forget on their return to their home. Here also they lived as in a strange land. Not the native of Judasa, but the man who could trace his descent from the exiles in Babylon, was reckoned as belong ing to their community. The first decennia after the return of the exiles, during which they were occupied in adjusting themselves to their new homes, were passed under a variety of adverse circum stances and by no means either in joyousness or security. Were these then the Messianic times which, it had^ been foretold, were to dawn at the close of their captivity? XIII. 53