Babylonian Exile

In Jer 29:5-7 the Prophet Jeremiah calls his deported compatriots to: “Build houses and inhabit [them], plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and bear sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters husbands, so that they bear sons and daughters. Increase yourselves there and do not decrease. Seek the šālôm of the city where I [=Yhwh] have led you into exile, and pray for it, because in its šālôm will your šālôm lie”. This article present three models for the interpretation of these verses and taking account of the discussed interpretations develops some new perspectives.

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Esta tese tem como objeto de estudo o tema da esperança nos oráculos de salvação de Dêutero-Isaías (Is 41.8-13; 14-16; 43.1-7; 44.1-5). O exílio babilônico tornou-se um divisor de águas na história de Israel. Ao mesmo tempo que foi um período terrível, também foi um tempo para grandiosas produções teológicas. Busca-se compreender como a esperança se desenvolveu entre os israelitas exilados e as israelitas exiladas na Babilônia e qual foi a relevância para a fé. O livro do Dêutero-Isaías foi escolhido para ser a base do desenvolvimento da presente pesquisa, com foco nos oráculos de salvação, os quais são fundamentais para compreender todo o desenvolvimento teológico durante o exílio. A dor e o sofrimento, ocasionados pela perda do Templo de Jerusalém e pela deportação, fez com que as pessoas exiladas lamentassem diante de Javé. O culto alternativo durante o exílio tornou-se o espaço adequado para o desenvolvimento da esperança via os oráculos de salvação. Uma vez que o Deus de Israel se comoveu pela dor de seu povo, ele colocou em prática o seu projeto de esperança. O tema da esperança se desenvolveu dentro de aspectos teológicos e antropológicos, no qual as pessoas exiladas puderam reconhecer os seus pecados e perceber que Javé não os abandonou. O Deus de Israel coloca toda a história em movimento para a construção de um futuro utópico, no qual as pessoas exiladas puderam sonhar com uma volta para a terra prometida. Deste modo, a profecia assumiu um papel importante na conscientização das pessoas exiladas, uma vez que eles estavam imersos na religiosidade e cultura babilônica. O desenvolvimento da esperança mostra-se importante para toda a humanidade, em especial para a América Latina, lugar em que se vive em “exílio”.

This thesis has as its object of study the theme of hope in the oracles of salvation of Deutero-Isaiah (Is 41:8-13; 14-16; 43:1-7; 44:1-5). Babylonian exile was a watershed in Israel's history. While it was a terrible time, it was also a time for great theological productions. One seeks to understand how hope developed among the exiled Israelites in Babylon and what was the relevance to the faith. The book by Deutero-Isaiah was chosen to be the basis for the development of this research, focusing on the oracles of salvation, which are fundamental to understand all theological development during exile. The pain and suffering, caused by the loss of the Temple in Jerusalem and the deportation, caused the exiled people to lament before Yahweh. Alternative worship during exile became an appropriate space for the development of hope via the oracles of salvation. Once the God of Israel was moved by the pain of his people, he put his hope project into practice. The theme of hope was developed within theological and anthropological aspects, in which people in exile were able to recognize their sins and realize that Yahweh did not abandon them. The God of Israel sets the whole story in motion to build a utopian future, in which people in exile could dream of a return to the promised land. In this way, prophecy took on an important role in raising awareness of the exiled people, since they were immersed in Babylonian religiosity and culture. The development of hope is important for all humanity, especially for Latin America, a place where we live in “exile”.

In Judeans in Babylonia, Tero Alstola presents a comprehensive investigation of deportees in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. By using cuneiform documents as his sources, he offers the first book-length social historical study of the Babylonian Exile, commonly regarded as a pivotal period in the development of Judaism. The results are considered in the light of the wider Babylonian society and contrasted against a comparison group of Neirabian deportees. Studying texts from the cities and countryside and tracking developments over time, Alstola shows that there was notable diversity in the Judeans’ socio-economic status and integration into Babylonian society.

Tero Alstola (2020). Judeans in Babylonia: A Study of Deportees in the Sixth and Fifth Centuries BCE. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 109. Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004365421.

This paper investigates the many and varied attitudes towards the Babylonian exile in Persian period biblical literature, in particular, in Third Isaiah, the books of Haggai, Zechariah, Ezra and Nehemiah, 1 and 2 Chronicles and Esther. This paper finds that there are significant disagreements between these texts with regard to the duration of exile, the status of those left behind and the importance of the exile for the future of the people of Israel. The conclusion drawn is that the understanding of the exile in Persian period Yehud was not formulated at once. Biblical literature contains several different voices and opinions on exile, which biblical scholarship must remember to detect and appreciate in order to get a better understanding of the individual texts’ constructions of exile and their nuances.

This chapter is aimed at examining the literary evidence within the book of Ezekiel and in Neo-Babylonian sources that may shed light on the temporal, geographical, and cultural aspects of this prophetic book—information that scholars often bring to either corroborate or refute the surface narrative of Ezekiel, that of the prophet active among the Jehoiachin-Judean exiles in Babylonia. The discussion leads to even more complex questions concerning two aspects of the sociology of exile. First, as regards relations with outsiders, what does the book tell us about the Judean deportees’ familiarity with and acculturation to the host society (and possibly with other neighboring groups of deportees)?; and second, what does the book tell us about interactions between the Jehoiachin exiles and those who remained in Judah after the Jehoiachin deportation in 597? In addition, the study presents a concise theology of exile, seen in terms of the significant theological contributions that Ezekiel (and his followers) may be credited with in formulating, or in re- formulating, the Judahite religion in the face of destruction and exile. This chapter argues that, while avoiding references to daily life in Babylonia, but at the same time revealing a high level of familiarity with Babylonian culture and ideas, the book of Ezekiel speaks to the Jehoiachin-Judean exiles through terminology, theological themes, and ideological content rooted in Yahwistic/Judahite religious traditions. The combination of Babylonian conceptions and Judahite ideology locates the prophet and his book firmly among the Babylonian exilic community of the early sixth century BCE.

Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah express a different approach to the future of Israel to that given in the Former Prophets. First, the nature and the dating of this part of the Hebrew Bible are discussed, suggesting the end of the 5th and the very beginning of the 4th century B.C. as the time of its origins. Then the retrospection of the past in the two Books of Chronicles is presented, with its very specific attitude towards the Exile. The article focuses its attention on the detailed analysis of Ezra 4,1-5, that represents the very core of this book. Having in mind the identity of the delegation coming to Jerusalem as seen by the author of Ezra and the completely different self-presentation of the delegates from the north, the serious conflict that ensues is described, this bearing analogies with the former antagonisms and tensions between the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel. On the basis of this conflict a new reality emerges, namely Judaism. The religion of the pre-exilic Israel was deeply transformed, limiting itself only to those Judeans who came back from the Exile. As a result of this separation, the question of the “true Israel” started to be more crucial, giving new direction to the project of the national and religious identity of biblical Israel.

This paper studies several hitherto unpublished or unedited Late Babylonian documents which shed light on the ethno-linguistic composition of the population of the countryside in southern Babylonia in the sixth century BCE. The new evidence includes information on Judeans that can be linked to the data of the so- called Yahudu
archive.

1-2 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah express a different approach to the future of Israel to that provided in the Earlier Prophets. Firstly, the nature and the dating of this part of the Hebrew Bible are discussed, suggesting the end of the fifth and the very beginning of the fourth century B.C. as the time of its origins. Secondly, the retrospect of the past in 1-2 Chronicles is presented with a very specific attitude towards the Exile. The article focuses on the detailed analysis of Ezra 4:1-5, a passage representing the very core of this book. Against the backdrop of the identity of the deputation visiting Jerusalem as seen by the author of Ezra and the completely different self-presentation of the envoys from the north, the serious conflict that ensues is described. It bears analogies with the former antagonisms and tensions between the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel. On the basis of this conflict, a new reality emerges, namely Judaism. The religion of the preexilic Israel was profoundly transformed, having been exclusively limited to those Judeans who had come back from the Exile. As a result of this separation, the question of the "true Israel" became more crucial, setting new direction for the project of the national and religious identity of biblical Israel.

The paper examines the cuneiform evidence from sixth-century Babylonia (and beyond) for information on the form and aims of Neo-Babylonian imperial rule over its western provinces. While new texts, which hitherto have not been considered in this context, can be brought to bear on the issue, direct evidence from these provinces is still scarce. These documents will thus be supplemented by drawing on the rich information concerning state institutions and resource extraction in the imperial centre. It is argued that in the first half of the Neo-Babylonian period, until ca. 585 BCE, Babylonian imperial rule in the western periphery can be conceptualized primarily as a straightforward exploitative tributary regime. From about the mid-reign of Nebuchadnezzar onwards, however, there is a shift towards a more sustainable resource extraction through the creation of stable pockets of Babylonian presence in the periphery. This diachronic shift was meant to steady and organize the initial ad hoc Babylonian approach. These measures, however, did not prevail, and the chaotic years which followed the 43 years reign of Nebuchadnezzar illustrate the fragility of the relatively short-lived Babylonian imperial age.

The Babylonian exile of the Jews is a Romantic iconography frequently depicted by German and French artists, that assumes in the context of Italian Risorgimento the value of a metaphor of the national movement’s conditions after the unsuccessful uprisings in 1848. To pave the way for this political interpretation of biblical imagery were massive use of biblical metaphors by Italian patriots and wide-spread circulation of poetic versions that propose of the psalms a secular, completely unorthodox interpretation. The article focuses on the literary and cultural groundings of the Art spectator’s ambivalent expectations during the Italian Risorgimento and it questions the artist’s use of this unvisible thread before and after the national unification.

Revista Vox Scripturae, v. 25, n. 1, 2017.
http://vox.flt.edu.br/edicao/31/volume-xxv-numero-1-abril-2017

Resumo
Na década de 1990, o estudioso Hans Barstad desenvolveu a ideia, proposta inicialmente por Robert P. Carroll, do “Mito da Terra Vazia”, em que a concepção de um território judeu abandonado com grande parte do povo exilado teria sido uma criação posterior de uma pequena comunidade judaica zelosa por Sião que havia retornado de Babilônia. Segundo essa teoria, a sociedade em Judá continuou funcionando normalmente com seus camponeses, artesãos, comerciantes e funcionários do Templo. No entanto, estudos recentes têm questionado essa hipótese e indicado — por meio de evidências arqueológicas, documentais e demográficas — um evento marcante na história de Israel que pode ser identificado com o exílio e a destruição apresentados na Bíblia Hebraica. Portanto, a presente comunicação tem como objetivos analisar essas descobertas e pesquisas recentes de forma panorâmica e demonstrar de que modo elas iluminam a compreensão do que significou, de fato, a destruição de Judá e o exílio da população daquela terra no século VI AEC.

Abstract
In the 1990s, the scholar Hans Barstad developed the idea, initially proposed by Robert P. Carroll, of the “Myth of the Empty Land”, in which the conception of an abandoned Jewish territory with much of the people exiled would have been a later creation of a small Jewish community zealous for Zion, who had returned from Babylon. According to this theory, society in Judah continued to function normally with its peasants, artisans, merchants and Temple officials. However, recent studies have challenged this hypothesis and indicated — through archaeological, documentary and demographic evidence — a striking event in the history of Israel that can be identified with the exile and destruction presented in the Hebrew Bible. The purpose of this paper is therefore to analyze these recent findings and researches in a panoramic way and to demonstrate how they illuminate the understanding of what the destruction of Judah and the exile of the people of that land meant in the sixth century BCE.

Premodern Armenian literature is largely the preserve of the monastic clergy and many of its genres reveal the particular proclivities of this social class in terms of the subjects selected for elaboration and the approach employed in handling those. This paper therefore argues for a high degree of intertextuality over several centuries in a rather closed environment of textual circulation in tracing the contours of the literary treatment of the career of the great capital, thriving artisan center, and international trade hub that was Ani.

In view of their training in scriptural studies the clerical authors tended to apply the perspective of the Deuteronomic Historian to their understanding of history, attributing victory largely to divine providence and defeat to divine punishment of the people’s corporate sin. Within this interpretive framework the seminal model of Paradise—Fall—Dispersion, witnessed first in the account of human origins and later in depicting the Jewish captivity in Babylon, was employed to elucidate events of Armenian history such as the rise, fall, destruction, and depopulation of Ani.

Meanwhile, the complementary narrative emerging from the study of material culture plots a parallel course, which intersects with the previous at various junctures, but also significantly diverges from it. In contrast to aspects of the former tradition interlocked in a literary intertextuality largely divorced from the physical space, the latter provides insight on internal developments, illumining aspects of the middle-class merchant and artisan community, and plotting economic trends from construction programs. Moreover, in connecting the city to wider networks of exchange on a longer timeline, it points to the city’s long-term fate being determined by less tangible factors like the contours of caravan routes rather than the visually powerful images of war and natural disaster.

There is a discrepancy of 165 years in the dating of the ancient Babylonian-Persian era between Jewish and secular authorities. This blog post demonstrates that the "missing years" are fictitious and that the traditional Jewish chronology is correct.

The description of the relationship between YH-WH and Jerusalem in Ezekiel 16 has troubled readers, ancient and modern.  In this article, it is argued that the problems are actually more severe than has been realized in recent scholarship.  Against many readings, there is no “adoption” in this text, and indeed YH-WH does nothing for Jerusalem’s benefit at all; instead, YH-WH is depicted as saving Baby Jerusalem for his own sexual and emotional benefit.  The revulsion that readers feel is intentional on the part of Ezekiel, and sensitivity to the rhetoric of the chapter shows that his description was meant to force his (male) Israelite audience to emotionally identity with the victim, Jerusalem, against YH-WH.  The crucial interpretive question, then, is why Ezekiel would describe the deity this way.  It is suggested that this is one part of Ezekiel’s radically re-thought exilic theology, in which YH-WH acts for no one’s benefit but his own, and the obligations Israel has towards YH-WH are due not to love and mutual admiration, but an emotion-less but overwhelming debt.

This article presents the detailed exegesis of the text of Esd 4,1-5. First, the place of this text in the structure of the Book of Esdra is described and the translation into Polish is given. Then, detailed remarks follow regarding all the verses included. Verse 1 gives the identity of the delegation coming to Jerusalem as seen by the author of the Book of Esdra. Verse 2 preserves the self-presentation of the delegates from the north, and the article stresses the fact that they were believers in YHWH. The answer given in v. 3 by the Jerusalem authorities is analysed in detail. Verses 4-5 describe the conflict with “the people of the land”, in many respects having analogies with similar antagonisms between Jerusalem and Judah and the population of the former Kingdom of Israel. By the end of the article some important conclusions are proposed, among them the question as to whether the Jerusalem authorities would accept the proposal of collaboration in the cult existing in Jerusalem presented immediately after 539 by the delegates coming from the north. The crucial question regards the long-lasting and still valid issue of the identity of the “true Israel”.

In the Hebrew and Greek canonical versions of her book, Esther, the beautiful Jewish orphan, is taken with all the beautiful young virgins into the Persian king's harem. Mordecai, her cousin and foster father, has commanded Esther not to reveal her people and her kin, and the text assures us twice that she did not (MT/LXX 2:10, 20). Of all those taken into the harem, Esther wins the favor of the king-and only in the final scenes of the book does she reveal to him her relationship to Mordecai and that she is a Jew.

Generally, readers have a negative idea of the Exile. Psalm 137 has fuelled the idea that this was a time of sorrow and despair. This image of the Exile influenced, for instance, Luther's ideas on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. The four essays in this volume deconstruct and reconstruct this image. Bob Becking tries to recreate a history of the exile. On the basis of the available evidence, this could be no more than a fragmented history, nevertheless showing that the fate of the exiles was not as bad as often supposed. Anne Mareike Wetter reveals that the biblical image of exile is multi facetted. She shows how a tradition of a people tied to their God-given land was challenged by the reality of foreign occupation. And how that people eventually succeeded in translating this experience, appropriating them through a transformation into a counter-tradition that enabled them to cope with the new situation, without breaking entirely with their cultural and religious herita...

This article deals with the two non-Jewish kings, Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king and Cyrus, the Persian king, and their position in the Jewish literature. Evaluations about this two non-Jewish kings in the Jewish texts provides us an opinion with regard to the Jewish attitude and manner against foreigners. The text refers that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and its temple, and drove Jews into exile. On the other hand, Cyrus permitted them to return back to their home and rebuild the city and the temple. Despite these two different approach to them, in line with Jewish faith, both kings were regarded the Yahve’s envoys who performed his plans regarding Jewish people. To this understanding, the former punished Jewish people with a command by Yahve because of their sins. In contrast, the latter allowed them to return back to their homes by the permission of Yahve because of waking His spirit up.

Jewish history has been punctuated by numerous exilic experiences since its beginnings, and at its genesis stands the Babylonian exile. This event marked the end of the First Temple Period (ca. 1200 -586 BCE), but also initiated the crucial changes that will eventually shape and give rise to Judaism. Until now, most reconstructions of the reality of the Babylonian exiles have relied on Biblical evidence (e.g. Jeremiah, Ezekiel) and few cuneiform tablets dated to the Persian period (i.e. the Murašu archive, ca. 454-404 BCE). This is to say that our understanding is based principally on secondary sources of debatable accuracy, as well as upon a generalization of conditions from later periods of Jewish history.

Een onderzoek naar de historische achtergronden van de Babylonische ballingschap en het theologische perspectief daarop in het boek Jeremia; met nadrukkelijk aandacht voor de recent gepubliceerde Babylonische teksten m.b.t. de ballingen in Babel (Pearce 2014).

This article argues that Isa xlvi 1-2 represents a prophecy given on the occasion of the Babylonian New Year's festival. It is based on the condition and "behaviour" of the Babylonian cult statues carried in procession. This prophecy is not only directly dependent upon a group of Babylonian omens, called "processional omens", but also follows the Babylonian custom of divining portents from the condition and movement of the statue of Marduk at the New Year's festival.

Previous studies of the book of Ezekiel have overlooked its peculiar association with the expression בית ישראל (“house of Israel”). While most commentaries content themselves with briefly mentioning that Ezekiel is the main promoter of the idiom (83x; 56.5% in the Hebrew Bible), an investigation of its function and meaning within the overall rhetoric of the prophet is lacking. This article addresses this shortcoming and analyzes the term בית ישראל by means of three arguments: its distribution and connotations within the Hebrew Bible and the book of Ezekiel, the effects of the exilic period on Judean deportees, and the use of the theoretical concept of “collective memory” to read Ezek 20. I conclude that בית ישראל directly answered to the crisis of the exile and offered a new identity to the Babylonian exilic community. This idiom emphasized the role of past cultural traditions (e.g., the exodus), religion, and kinship for the maintenance and perpetuation of its identity.

Interpreters have struggled mightily with Paul's declaration that "all Israel will be saved," primarily because most modern interpreters assume that "Israel" is simply a synonym for "the Jews." But once it is understood that the latter is a subset of the former, Paul's larger argument makes much more sense and fits much better in the larger context of apocalyptic Judaism in the Second Temple period.

The portrayal of the fates of the dynasties of the North in Kings shows that, in
Deuteronomistic theology, only one king in a royal house need cause the people to sin to
mandate the destruction of the entire house. Since Manasseh also causes the people to
sin, we might assume that the Deuteronomic History (Dtr) intends the same fate for the
Davidides. However, Dtr is deliberately ambiguous in regard to the future of the
Davidides following the exile—besides the specific reference to Manasseh's sin, it also
includes (but does not explicitly annul) the unconditional covenant with David, and
includes a conclusion that permits readers to interpret the narrative as forecasting either
hope for Davidic restoration or annulment of the Davidic covenant. This ambiguity suits
the exilic period of composition of Dtr, when the fate of the Davidides was unknown, and
so should not be taken as evidence for redaction.

The article tries to describe the theology of David’s testimony in Isaiah 55:3-5 in light of its historical background, to wit the last decade of the Babylonian exile, and in relation to the internal quandary of Judean Exiles. The study undertakes an inquiry into the question of whether the eternal covenant in Isaiah 55:3-5 is the continuation of the Sinaitic Covenant, or rather does its content go beyond the Mosaic Law, creating a totally new relationship of God with Israel. The study also draws attention to the existence of a redactional addition, which swifts the weight of the original message from a revanchist Judeo-centrism toward the irenic ethnic-centrism typical of the Book of Jonah.

The rapid and unmarked transition from the oracle against Assyria/Nineveh in Zephaniah 2.13-15 to the condemnation of Jerusalem in 3.1-7 rhetorically underscores the deep and troubling continuity between Jerusalem and Assyria/Nineveh. This article examines this continuity in light of two important elements of the book of Zephaniah: the depiction of Assyria (and those nations aligned with it) as prideful and the scribal character of 3.1-7. The finding is that Zeph. 3.1-7 presents Jerusalem and its leaders as paralleling the arrogant Assyrians and like-minded nations in a way that spurs Zephaniah’s exilic scribal audience to adopt a fundamental attitude of humility. Such humility accepts the authority of Yahwistic teachers and instructional texts in order to avoid future judgment against Jerusalem. In a scribal context, repudiating Assyrian-style pride may also entail rejecting education (putatively) aligned with Assyria/Babylon.

This paper is an attempt to offer new insight into the development of Judaism and the forces that helped shape it. It focuses on the conflict that erupted in Judea when the Babylonian exiles returned. My argument is that the Biblical story of the return was told by religious zealots who had nothing but scorn for the “inhabitants of the land,” the people who were not exiled. My thesis is based on an analogy to what I is happening to life in modern Israel. Like their Biblical ancestors, the Israeli religious right, many of whom have made Aliyah, has taken control of a secular Israel to impose its own more restrictive values. Like their Babylonian forebears, they believe passionately in their ideals and, fortified with the sense that they are doing God’s work, seek nothing less than to purify the land and its people. The returnees rebuilt the Temple, reestablished sacrificial rites, proclaimed that Judeans should divorce their “foreign” wives and live according to Mosaic Law. Although a weak political minority at first, as their numbers grew, they gained political superiority and remade the political and religious structure of Judea.

However, the land to which they returned was not the land they left. Their efforts to rebuild the Temple were stymied by their “enemies” -- the people who for three generations had lived on the homes of the exiles, taken over their lands and their property, and, together with their Persian overloads, had set up new governmental and administrative structures. With no kingship or priesthood, no central place of worship, and with all the figures of authority gone into exile or killed, we have to assume that they rebuilt their society on new, and probably, less stringent laws. And the returnees wanted to overthrow the new order to establish their own. This is the conflict. The returnees won and the story they told is our Bible.