Daniel ix, 23-27.

 

 

CHAPTER I

THE SCATTERING OF ISRAEL

The history of the Seventy Weeks Nation has all the fascination of real tragedy. The words put into the mouth of Shylock by Shakespeare, “Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe,” ¹ are amply borne out by the struggles they faced and the persecution they endured in the period we are about to review. For the purpose of this essay I have prescribed certain limits for myself, beyond which there is no need to go. It is my purpose to recount the story of the people of Judah from the end of the Captivity to the disappearance of the Seventy Weeks Nation, touching on the periods immediately before and after to that extent which may be necessary to form a connected whole.

 

Such a story opens up a large part of the Old Testament Scriptures. It makes the Prophets concerned real and living and their messages vital and practical. The books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Haggai and Zechariah become charged with reality and take on a new significance.

 

Owing to a certain laxity in writing about “The Captivity,” the average reader is too often left in a confused state of mind. Far from being only one Captivity there were many. Some affected Israel, or the Ten-Tribed Northern Kingdom, while others affected the Southern Kingdom, or the House of Judah. It will be well, therefore, to begin by pointing out that sections of the Israel people were deported from their homes by different heathen monarchs to different countries and at widely different periods.

 

The first of these deportations was in the time of

 

¹ Merchant of Venice, i, 3.

 

 

Tiglath-Pileser, who reigned over Assyria 745-727 B.C. “In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria.”¹ “And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria and the spirit of Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and brought them into Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan, until this day.” ² These captives were of Ten-Tribed Israel as distinct from the House of Judah and they were taken to the country we now know as Mesopotamia. The British Museum authorities identify Pul with Tiglath-Pileser. ³

 

The next deportation was in the time of Shalmaneser V, who was king of Assyria 727-722 B.C. “Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it ... And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.” ⁴ Samaria was the country of Israel. Again the captives were deported to Mesopotamia, and again the captives were of the House of Israel as distinct from the House of Judah.

 

Sargon II, 722-705 B.C., does not appear in Old Testament history. Isaiah makes one passing reference to him ⁵ but his dealings with Israel find no mention in the sacred writings. But Sargon himself has left the following inscription: “(In the beginning of my reign) the city of Samaria I besieged, I captured ... 27,280 of its inhabitants I carried away; fifty chariots in the midst of them I collected

 

      ¹ 2 Kings xv, 29.                            ² 1 Chronicles v, 26.

                                ³ Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities.

                             ⁴ 2 Kings xviii, 9-11.                          ⁵ Isaiah xx, 1.

 

 

(and the rest of their goods I seized); I set my governor over them and laid upon them tribute and taxes like those of the Assyrians.”¹

 

Later, the Southern kingdom fell a victim to the ravages of heathen rulers. “Sennacherib king of Assyria (705-681 B.C.) did come up against all the fenced cities of ,Judah, and took them.”² While the Scriptures are silent on the subject of deportations at this time, Sennacherib himself has left the following record: “And Hezekiah king of Judah, who had not bowed down at my feet forty-six of his strong cities, his castles, and the smaller towns in their neighbourhood beyond number with warlike en gines. ... I attacked and captured 200,150 people small and great, male and female, horses, mares, asses, camels, oxen and sheep beyond number, from the midst of them I carried off and distributed them as a spoil. He himself, like a bird in a cage, inside Jerusalem his royal city I shut him up.” ³

 

When neo-Babylon overthrew the ascendancy of Assyria and became itself the supreme power, Nebuchadnezzar, 604-561 B.C., imposed his heavy yoke upon the king and the kingdom of Judah. The vassalage began in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar.⁴ In the days of Jehoiakim “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant.” ⁵

 

Among the captives taken at this time was Daniel.⁴ From an incidental reference in Esther ii, 5 ff. we learn that some of the captives were exiled to Persia. Mordecai, a Benjamite, was descended from one of these.

 

After the death of Jahoiakim in 597 B.c., his son Jehoiakin reigned ingloriously for three months.

 

       ¹ Assyria: Its Princes, Priests and People, p. 178, A.H. Sayce, D.Litt.

               ² 2 Kings, xviii, 13 .                               ³ Records of the Past, Vol. I, p. 38

                ⁴ Jeremiah xxv, 1                                ⁵ 2 Kings xxiv, 1

 

 

During this brief reign 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 all the smiths: none remained, save the poorest of the land. And he carried away Jehoiakin to Babylon.” ¹ Among the captives of this period was Ezekiel. ²

 

The tragic figure of Jehoiakin is burdened with many names. In 2 Kings xxiv he is called Jehoikin. Jeremiah calls him Jeconiah ³ and Coniah.⁴ In the genealogical table in Matthew i, he is called Jeconias. After his brief inglorious reign he was deported to Babylon, ⁵ where he languished in captivity for thirty-seven years, until the rise of Evil-merodach, 561-559 B.C., who “lifted up the head of Jahoiakin, king of Judah,” ⁶ and treated him as a royal guest. ⁷

 

The great calamity of Judah fell in 586 B.C., when the kingdom and the throne fell, and the king and the people were carried away into captivity. “Therefore He brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans (Nebuchadnezzar), who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes: all these he brought to Babylon. And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to

 

                                  ¹ 2 Kings xxiv, 14, 15.                     ² Ezekiel i, 1, 2.

                                  ³ Jeremiah xxiv, 1,                                   ⁴ Jeremiah xxii, 28-30.

                                  ⁵ 2 Kings xxiv, 15.                            ⁶ Ibid. xlii, 31.

                                  ⁷ Ibid. xxv, 27-30.

 

 

him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia.” ¹

 

“And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon.” ²

 

Zedekiah was the last native king to sit upon the throne of David in Jerusalem. His ultimate fate is shrouded in mystery. In 591 B.C. Ezekiel had prophesied concerning him: “My snare will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare: and I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it though he shall die there.” ³

 

From the above records we learn that [all of] Israel [and a good portion of Judah]  was deported to Assyria while [the remaining remnant of] Judah was deported to Babylon. [paragraph edited by C.A.E.]

 

In addition to these documented deportations there is evidence that other sections of the Israel people were scattered among the heathen, though we have no precise details of the conditions under which they arrived there. The Book of Esther shows that a large Jewish [sic Judaean] population existed in the country of Elam, where they were subject to bitter persecution. Elam was situated east of Babylon. Its capital, Shushan, was some 200 miles due east of Babylon.

 

It is important to remember that the Captivity, of which so much is written, was the Babylonian Captivity, and the return of the Exiles, which was such a notable epoch in the history of the Jews [sic Judaeans], was the return to Jerusalem and Judea of those captives who had been exiled in Babylon. “After seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.” ⁴  It is the subsequent

 

¹ 2 Chronicles xxxvi, 17-20.               ² 2 Kings xxv, 7.

³ Ezekiel xii, 13.                                  ⁴ Jeremiah xxix, 10.

 

 

fortunes of these people with which we are concerned in this study.

 

We have no connected story of the life of the exiles in Babylon. The most we can do, if we would visualise them in captivity, is to piece together isolated facts and follow the implications of occasional references to them. It is interesting to note that during Daniel’s long residence in the capital two ex-kings of Judah were living there. As we have seen above, Jehoiakin was living there for upwards of thirty-seven years. He was imprisoned there for thirty-seven years and continued there for some time after. Moffatt translates 2 Kings xxv, 27-30: “On the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the imprisonment of Jehoiakin king of Judah, Evil-merodak king of Babylon, then in the first year of his reign, took Jehoiakin king of Judah out of prison; he was civil to Jehoiakin and treated him better than his fellow-monarchs in captivity at Babylon; he changed his prison dress, and Jehoiakin dined with the king every day of his life. An allowance was made for him daily by the king, to maintain him, as long as he lived.” Whether “as long as he lived” refers to Evil-merodak or to Jehoiakin seems doubtful. Evil-merodak occupied the throne for two years, 561-559 B.C., when he was murdered by his brother-in-law, Neriglissar. At the time of his release from prison Jehoiakin was fifty-five. He was not an old man, but thirty-seven years’ incarceration would not be likely to contribute to longevity. How long Jehoiakin lived or under what circumstances he died we have no means of knowing.

 

The other king in exile during Daniel’s time was Zedekiah, who arrived eleven years after Jehoiakin. As shown above, his end is shrouded in mystery.

 

We hear an echo of the moaning of the captives in Babylon in Psalm 137:

 

 

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

 

“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

 

The closing verses of that Psalm reveal the depth and bitterness of their resentment and their desire to see vengeance meted out to their captors.

Thus was the once mighty Israel nation broken and its people scattered.