Bagoses gave a set-back to the revival of the Persian Empire. Under Darius Codomannus (336–330) the advancing Greek power brought matters to a head, and at the battle of Issus in 333 Alexander settled its fate. The overthrow of Tyre and Gaza secured the possession of the coast and the Jewish state entered upon the Greek period. (See § 25.)
During these two centuries the Jews in Palestine had been only one of an aggregate of subject peoples enjoying internal freedom provided in return for a regular tribute. They lived in comparative quietude; although Herodotus knows the Palestinian coast he does not mention the Jews. The earlier Persian kings acknowledged the various religions of the petty peoples; they were also patrons of their temples and would take care to preserve an ancient right of asylum or the privileges of long-established cults.[1] Cyrus on entering Babylon had even restored the gods to the cities to which they belonged.[2] Consequently much interest attaches to the evidence which illustrates the environment of the Jews during this period. Those who had been scattered from Palestine lived in small colonies, sometimes mingling and intermarrying with the natives, sometimes strictly preserving their own individuality. Some took root in the strange lands, and, as later popular stories indicate, evidently reached high positions; others, retaining a more vivid tradition of the land of their fathers, cherished the ideal of a restored Jerusalem. Excavation at Nippur (q.v.) in Babylonia has brought to light numerous contract tablets of the 5th century B.C. with Hebrew proper names (Haggai, Hanani, Gedaliah, &c.). Papyri from Elephantine in Upper Egypt, of the same age, proceed from Jewish families who carry on a flourishing business, live among Egyptians and Persians, and take their oaths in courts of law in the name of the god “Yahu,” the “God of Heaven,” whose temple dated from the last Egyptian kings. Indeed, it was claimed that Cambyses had left the sanctuary unharmed but had destroyed the temples of the Egyptians. In Elephantine, as in Nippur, the legal usages show that similar elements of Babylonio-Assyrian culture prevailed, and the evidence from two such widely separated fields is instructive for conditions in Palestine itself.[3]
20. The Restoration of Judah.—The biblical history for the Persian period is contained in a new source—the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, whose standpoint and period are that of Chronicles, with which they are closely joined. After a brief description of the fall of Jerusalem the “seventy years” of the exile are passed over, and we are plunged into a history of the return (2 Chron. xxxvi.; Ezra i.). Although Palestine had not been depopulated, and many of the exiled Jews remained in Persia, the standpoint is that of those who returned from Babylon. Settled in and around Jerusalem, they look upon themselves as the sole community, the true Israel, even as it was believed that once before Israel entered and developed independently in the land of its ancestors. They look back from the age when half-suppressed hostility with Samaria had broken out, and when an exclusive Judaism had been formed. The interest of the writers is as usual in the religious history; they were indifferent to, or perhaps rather ignorant of, the strict order of events. Their narratives can be partially supplemented from other sources (Haggai; Zechariah i.–viii.; Isa. xl.–lxvi.; Malachi), but a consecutive sketch is impossible.[4]
In 561 B.C. the captive Judaean king, Jehoiachin, had received special marks of favour from Nebuchadrezzar’s son Amil-marduk. So little is known of this act of recognition that its significance can only be conjectured. A little later Tyre received as its king Merbaal (555–552) who had been fetched from Babylonia. Babylonia was politically unsettled, the representative of the Davidic dynasty had descendants; if Babylon was assured of the allegiance of Judah further acts of clemency may well have followed. But the later recension of Judaean history—our sole source—entirely ignores the elevation of Jehoiachin (2 Kings xxv. 27 sqq.; Jer. lii. 31–34), and proceeds at once to the first year of Cyrus, who proclaims as his divine mission the rebuilding of the Temple (538). The Judaean Sheshbazzar (a corruption of some Babylonian name) brought back the Temple vessels which Nebuchadrezzar had carried away and prepared to undertake the work at the expense of the royal purse. An immense body of exiles is said to have returned at this time to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, who was of Davidic descent, and the priest Jeshua or Joshua, the grandson of the murdered Seraiah (Ezra i.–iii.; v. 13–vi. 5). When these refused the proffered help of the people of Samaria, men of the same faith as themselves (iv. 2), their troubles began, and the Samaritans retaliated by preventing the rebuilding. The next historical notice is dated in the second year of Darius (520) when two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, came forward to kindle the Judaeans to new efforts, and in spite of opposition the work went steadily onwards, thanks to the favour of Darius, until the Temple was completed four years later (Ezra v. 2, vi. 13 sqq.). On the other hand, from the independent writings ascribed to these prophets, it appears that no considerable body of exiles could have returned—it is still an event of the future (Zech. ii. 7, vi. 15); little, if anything, had been done to the Temple (Hag. ii. 15); and Zerubbabel is the one to take in hand and complete the great undertaking (Zech. iv. 9). The prophets address themselves to men living in comfortable abodes with olive-fields and vineyards, suffering from bad seasons and agricultural depression, and though the country is unsettled there is no reference to any active opposition on the part of Samaritans. So far from drawing any lesson from the brilliant event in the reign of Cyrus, the prophets imply that Yahweh’s wrath is still upon the unfortunate city and that Persia is still the oppressor. Consequently, although small bodies of individuals no doubt came back to Judah from time to time, and some special mark of favour may have been shown by Cyrus, the opinion has gained ground since the early arguments of E. Schrader (Stud. u. Krit., 1867, pp. 460–504), that the compiler’s representation of the history is untrustworthy. His main object is to make the new Israel, the post-exilic community at Jerusalem, continuous, as a society, with the old Israel.[5] Greater weight must be laid upon the independent evidence of the prophetical writings, and the objection that Palestine could not have produced the religious fervency of Haggai or Zechariah without an initial impulse from Babylonia begs the question. Unfortunately the internal conditions in the 6th century B.C. can be only indirectly estimated (§ 18), and the political position must remain for the present quite uncertain. In Zerubbabel the people beheld once more a ruler of the Davidic race. The new temple heralded a new future; the mournful fasts commemorative of Jerusalem’s disasters would become feasts; Yahweh had left the Temple at the fall of Jerusalem, but had now returned to sanctify it with his presence; the city had purged its iniquity and was fit once more to become the central sanctuary. So Haggai sees in Zerubbabel the representative of the
- ↑ Thus a decree of Darius I. takes the part of his subjects against the excessive zeal of the official Gadatas, and grants freedom of taxation and exemption from forced labour to those connected with a temple of Apollo in Asia Minor (Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, xiii. 529; E. Meyer, Entstehung des Judenthums, p. 19 seq.; cf. id. Forschungen, ii. 497).
- ↑ In addition to this, the Egyptian story of the priest Uza-hor at the court of Cambyses and Darius reflects a policy of religious tolerance which illustrates the biblical account of Ezra and Nehemiah (Brugsch, Gesch. Aeg. pp. 784 sqq.; see Cheyne, Jew. Relig. Life after the Exile, pp. 40–43).
- ↑ From Têma in north Arabia, also, there is monumental evidence of the 5th century B.C. for Babylonian and Assyrian influence upon the language, cult and art. For Nippur, see Bab. Exped. of Univ. of Pennsylvania, series A., vol. ix. (1898), by H. V. Hilprecht; for Elephantine, the Mond papyri, A. H. Sayce and A. E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri Discovered at Assuan (1906), and those cited above (p. 282, n. 1). For the Jewish colonies in general, see H. Guthe, Ency. Bib., art. “Dispersion” (with references); also below, § 25 sqq.
- ↑ See Ezra and Nehemiah with bibliographical references, also T. K. Cheyne, Introd. to Isaiah (1895); Jew. Religious Life after the Exile (1898); E. Sellin, Stud. z. Entstehungsgesch. d. jüd. Gemeinde (1901); R. H. Kennett in Swete’s Cambridge Biblical Essays (pp. 92 sqq.); G. Jahn, Die Bücher Esra u. Nehemja (1909); and C. C. Torrey, Ezra Studies (1910).
- ↑ There is an obvious effort to preserve the continuity of tradition (a) in Ezra ii. which gives a list of families who returned from exile each to its own city, and (b) in the return of the holy vessels in the time of Cyrus (contrast 1 Esdras iv. 43 seq.), a view which, in spite of Dan. i. 2, v. 2 seq., conflicts with 2 Kings xxiv. 13 and xxv. 13 (see, however, v. 14). That attempts have been made to adjust contradictory representations is suggested by the prophecy ascribed to Jeremiah (xxvii. 16 sqq.) where the restoration of the holy vessels finds no place in the shorter text of the Septuagint (see W. R. Smith, Old Test. and Jew. Church, pp. 104 sqq.).
