CAPTIVITIES
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CAPTIVITIES
Josephus as their leading settlement. The exiled of the
Ten Tribes remained and multiplied, never returning
to Palestine. (See authorities cited by Sehurer in art.
"Diaspora" in sup. vol. of Hastings' Bib. Diet., 92.)
Wellhausen and others who assume that the banished
Israelites of the Northern Kingdom lost their identity
and disappeared in the surrounding populations dis-
regard the explicit testimony to the contrary of
Josephus in his "Antiquities": "the ten tribes are
beyond the Euphrates until now, and are an immense
multitude [>i>pidc5es Aireipoi], not to be estimated by
numbers." We may well believe that the swarm-
ing Hebrew population of Southern Russia is com-
posed in large part of descendants of the Israelites
expatriated in Northern Assyria and the regions
south of the Caspian. No particulars of the lot of
these transplanted inhabitants of the Northern King-
dom have reached us. We may only surmise from
the manner in which they multiplied that their situa-
tion was at least a tolerable one.
(3) Assyrian Harrying of Juda. — The annihilation of its sister kingdom laid open petty Juda to the full pressure of Assyria. Thenceforward that unhappy state, placed between the rival Assyrian and Egyp- tian Empires, was at the mercy of whichever hap- pened at the time to be the stronger. A miraculous intervention did indeed hurl back Sennacherib's As- syrian armv from the walls of Jerusalem in the reign of Ezechias (Hezekiah), but the country outside the city suffered cruelly from the ravages of that expedi- tion. A monument of Sennacherib, who was Sar- gon's son and successor, records that he captured forty-six fortified towns and numberless smaller places of Juda, and took away as spoil, presumably to As- syria, 200,150 people and an immense number of beasts and herds. (Cf. IV K., xviii, 13, in confirma- tion of this.)
II. The Babylonian Captivity. — (1) The De- struction of the Kingdom of Juda. — Yet Jerusalem, trie Temple, and the dynasty remained intact. Under the succeeding rulers, Manasses and Anion, the king- dom slowly recovered, but their potent example and approval Ted the nation into unprecedented syncretic excesses. So flagrant was the idolatry, the worship of the Baalim under the symbols of obelisks and pil- lars or sacred trees, and the degrading cults of Astarte and Moloch, that not even the holy precincts of the Temple of Jehovah were free from such abomina- tions. The morality of a people given over to licen- tious and cruel syncretism may be imagined. The sweeping religious reform under Josias seems not to have penetrated much beneath the surface, and the inveterate pagan propensities of the nation broke out in later reigns. The Prophets denounced and warned in vain. Except in the spasm of Josias' reform they were not listened to. Only a supreme national chas- tizement could purify this carnal people, and effectu- ally tear idolatrous superstitions from their hearts. Juda was to undergo the fate of Israeli.
A prelude to the process of national extinction was the defeat of Josias and his army by Pharao Nechao at Mageddo or Migdol. Egypt had thrown off the Assyrian suzerainty and was threatening Assyria itself. Josias had encountered the Egyptians, prob- ably in an effort to keep the independence Juda had enjoyed during his reign. But by this time the second Assyrian Empire was tottering to its fall. Before Nechao reached tin- Euphrates Nineve had surrendered to the Modes and Babylonians, the As- syrian territories had been shared between the vic- tors, and instead of Assyria Nechao was confronted by the rising Chaldean power. The Egyptians were
defeated at Carehemish in the year till") by Nabu-
chodonosor (Nebuchadnezzar), the son and heir of the Babylonian king Nabopolassar. If was now the Chaldean Kingdom, with its capital at Babylon, which loomed large upon the political horizon.
Joakim (Jehoiakim), a son of Josias, was forced to ex-
change Egyptian for Babylonian vassalage. But a
fanatical patriotism urged defiance to the Chaldeans.
The people looked upon the Temple, Jehovah's dwell-
ing-place, as a national segis which would safeguard
Juda, or at least Jerusalem, from the fate of Samaria.
In vain Jeremias warned them that unless they turned
from their evil ways Sion would go down before the
enemy as the sanctuary of Shiloh had long before.
His words only stung the Jews and their leaders to
fury, and the Prophet narrowly escaped a violent
death. In the third year of his reign Joakim re-
belled, and Juda was able to ward off for four or five
years the inevitable taking of Jerusalem by Nabu-
chodonosor. Joachin (Jehoiachin), who meanwhile
had succeeded to the crown of Juda, was forced to sur-
render the beleaguered city, 597 B. c. His life was
spared, but the conqueror dealt Jerusalem a terrible
blow. The princes and leading men, the rank and
file of the army, the citizens of wealth, and the arti-
ficers, numbering in all 10.000, were carried captive
to Chaldea. The Temple and palace were rifled of
their treasures. Sedecias (Zedekiah), an uncle of
Joachin, was placed over the shadow of a kingdom
remaining. (IV K., xxiv, 8 sqq.) After nine years
of a reign characterized by gradual decay and re-
ligious and moral chaos, revolt flamed forth again,
fed by the always illusory hope of succour from Egypt.
Jeremias' warnings against the folly of resistance to
Chaldean domination were futile; a blind, fanatical
fury possessed princes and people. When the patri-
otic cause momentarily triumphed, the advance of the
Egyptian army causing Nabuehodonosor to raise
temporarily the siege of Jerusalem, the Prophet's was
the solitary voice that broke the exultant peal by
the persistent refrain of ruin at the hands of the Chal-
deans.
The issue verified his prediction. The Egyptians again failed the Israelites in their hour of need, and the Babylonian army closed in on the doomed city. Jerusalem held out more than a year, but a dreadful famine weakened the defence, and the Babylonians finally entered through a breach in the wall, 586 b. c. Sedecias and the remnant of his army escaped in the night, but were overtaken on the plain of Jericho, the king captured, and his followers routed (Jer.. lii. 7-9). He was carried to the Babylonian camp at Reblatha in Emath, and cruelly blinded there, but not before he had seen his sons put to death. The royal palace was burnt. A similar fate met Solomon's splendid Temple, which had been the stimulus and stay of the religious-national outbreaks. Its sacred vessels, of enormous value, were taken to Babylon and in part distributed among the pagan shrines there; the large brass fixtures were cut to pieces. The destruction of the larger houses and the city wall left Jerusalem a ruin. The people found in Jerusalem and, presumably, the greater number of those who had not sought refuge in the city were deported to Chaldea, leaving only the poorest sort to till the land and save it from falling into an utter waste. Some local government being necessary for these remaining inhabitants, Masphath (Mizpah), to the north of Jeru- salem, was chosen as its seat , and Godolias (Gedaliah), a Hebrew, left asoverseer of the remnant. On learn- ing this, many Israelites who had fled to neighbouring countries returned, and a considerable colony centred at Masphath. But a certain Ismahel, of the Davidic stock, acting at the instigation of the Ammonite king, treacherously massacred Godolias and a number of his subordinates. The murderer and his band of ten were leading away to Arnmon the terror-stricken rest
of the co unity, when the latter were rescued by a
Hebrew military officer connected with the adminis- tration. Hut tear that the Chaldean vengeance for the overseer's death would smite indiscriminately drove the colony into Egypt, and Jeremias, who had
