Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/197

Rh away captive of the Jews seven hundred forty and five persons; all the persons were four thousand and six hundred." So far from ten thousand therefore having been carried away in the first subjugation, there does not appear, according to this particular detail, to have been half that number altogether in all the invasions of Judæa carried away by the Babylonians; and yet it is described in the eastern style of amplification, "thus Judah was carried away captive out of his own land."

As however the number of 10,000 captives is stated to have been carried away by Nebuchadnezzar, though at variance with the more precise account of the contemporary writer, probably Baruch, as above cited, we may, for the sake of the argument, allow that double that number might have been carried away altogether by the Babylonians, or about 20,000 captives. When we consider the great difficulty that exists in providing for large bodies of people traversing any considerable space of country desolated by war, the above estimate may be fairly allowed as the utmost that can be reasonably assumed. When Ezra came back from Babylon with fewer than 4000 souls with him, under the most favourable circumstances, he was four months engaged in the journey; and a large army returning with so many as 10,000 captives must have taken a still longer time, and had to encounter many difficulties, which would cause great numbers to perish.

For the Israelites taken away. by the Assyrians, of whom no particular numbers are recorded, we may take the above numbers as a criterion whereby to judge of their probable amount. As the people of the ten tribes were more numerous than their brethren of Judah, we may suppose double the number of them to have been carried away, or 40,000, making 60,000 captives altogether to have been carried away by the Assyrians and Babylonians. But 60,000 captives, or double that number, would be only an inconsiderable portion of the people of Samaria and Judæa, even after they had been subjected to the evils of war, pestilence, and famine for a long succession of years. Still a large remnant of them would be left, as we know a large remnant was left, which no conqueror could carry away. These would then form the main body of the nation; and if to these a large body, the majority probably of those carried away, or rather of their descendants, actually did return, we may presume justly that the predictions were then fulfilled which promised them restoration to their former possessions as one people.