Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/196

184 their captives. Their wisest policy would undoubtedly be to destroy every link of nationality which might keep them knitted together in bands dangerous to their masters. If these masters then really acted on this policy, it must be the extremest improbability to expect that we should have the captive Israelites remaining as distinct tribes, whether in the land of their captivity or elsewhere.

At the time of the Babylonian captivity, we are informed that the poor of the land were left to be vinedressers and husbandmen, and others escaped to them also afterwards of a higher class and in great numbers, over whom Gedaliah was appointed ruler: "Now when all the captains of the forces which were in the fields, even they and their men, heard that the King of Babylon had made Gedaliah governor in the land, then they came to Gedaliah to Mizpah; likewise all the Jews that were in Moab and among the Ammonites and in Edom returned out of all the countries whither they were driven, and came to the land of Judah." (Jeremiah, xl. v. 7 and 11.) At the same time great numbers must have perished by the concomitants of war, pestilence and famine, as well as by the sword, while those taken away were no doubt men taken in arms, with the principal persons and others available as slaves. Yet in the account given of the Babylonian conquests, we find fewer captives enumerated than we might have expected. In the 2nd Kings, ch. xxiv. v. 14, it is said that "Nebuchadnezzar carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths; none remained save the poorest sort of the people." Here then we find the general expression, in the usual style of eastern amplification, "all Jerusalem, and all the princes and all the mighty men of valour," to mean at the utmost only some ten thousand captives, with the craftsmen and smiths, who could not be very numerous, as added afterwards of less account.

The phrase, "even ten thousand captives," may however be itself considered a general expression, signifying only an indefinite large number. In the 52nd chapter of Jeremiah we have a more precise account of the numbers, v. 27 and following: "Thus Judah was carried away captive out of his own land. This is the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive, in the seventh year, three thousand Jews and three and twenty. In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar he carried away captive from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty and two persons. In the three and twentieth year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, carried