The Makers and Teachers of Judaism / From the Fall of Jerusalem to the Death of Herod the Great

by Charles Foster Kent

APPENDIX I. A PRACTICAL BIBLICAL REFERENCE LIBRARY

APPENDIX II. GENERAL QUESTIONS AND SUBJECTS FOR SPECIAL RESEARCH.

LIST OF MAPS AND CHARTS

JEWISH AND CONTEMPORARY CHRONOLOGY FROM 597 TO 165 B.C.

THE EMPIRES OF BABYLONIA, PERSIA, AND ALEXANDER

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN PALESTINE DURING THE PERSIAN AND GREEK PERIODS

THE JERUSALEM OF NEHEMIAH

CHRONOLOGY OF THE MACCABEAN AND ROMAN PERIODS

PALESTINE DURING THE MACCABEAN PERIOD

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THE EXILE AND THE REVIVAL OF THE JUDEAN COMMUNITY

Section XCI. THE JEWS IN PALESTINE AND EGYPT

[Sidenote: Lam. 2:1-5]
How the Lord hath beclouded in his anger the daughter of Zion!
He hath cast down from heaven to earth the beauty of Israel,
And he hath not kept in remembrance his footstool in the day of his anger.
The Lord hath swallowed up without mercy every habitation of Jacob,
He hath thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah,
He hath struck to the ground, he hath polluted her king and her princes.
He hath cut off in the fierceness of his anger all of Israel's strength,
He hath drawn back his right hand from before the enemy,
He hath burnt in Jacob like a flame, which devours on all sides.
He hath bent his bow as an enemy, he hath stood as an adversary,
He hath slain all the desirable men in the tent of Zion,
He hath poured out his fury as fire [on the daughter of Judah].
The Lord hath become like an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel,
He hath swallowed up all of his palaces, he hath destroyed his fortresses,
And he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah sighing and lamentation.

[Sidenote: Lam. 2:6,7]
He hath torn down as a vine his dwelling, he hath destroyed his assembling
place,
He hath caused to be forgotten in Zion, fast day and sabbath,
And hath spurned in his indignant anger, king and priest.
The Lord hath rejected his altar, he hath abhorred his
sanctuary,
He hath given up into the hands of the enemy the ark of the covenant,
They have made a din in Jehovah's house, as in the solemn feast day.

[Sidenote: Lam. 2:8-10]
Jehovah hath determined to destroy the wall of Zion,
He hath stretched out the line, he hath not held back his hand from
destroying,
He hath made rampart and wall lament, they mourn together,
Her gates have sunk into the ground, he hath destroyed her defences,
Her king and her princes are among the heathen, there is no law.
Her prophets also receive from Jehovah no vision.
Silent, upon the earth sit the elders of Zion;
They cast dust upon their heads; they are girded with sackcloth;
With heads bowed to earth are the daughters of Jerusalem.

[Sidenote: Lam. 5:1-7]
Remember, O Jehovah, what has befallen us,
Look and see our disgrace.
Our inheritance is turned over to aliens,
Our homes belong to foreigners.
We are orphans and fatherless,
Our mothers are like widows.
We drink our water for money,
Our wood comes to us by purchase.
The yoke upon our necks harasses us,
We are weary, but find no rest.
We have given the hand to the Egyptians,
And to the Assyrians, that we might be sated with food.
Our fathers sinned and are no more,
While we bear their guilt.

[Sidenote: Lam. 5:8-13]
Slaves have dominion over us,
With none to deliver from their hand.
We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
Because of the sword of the wilderness.
Our skin becomes hot like an oven,
Because of the glowing heat of famine.
They ravish the women in Zion,
The virgins in the cities of Judah.
Princes are hanged up by the hand,
The person of the elders is not honored.
The young men bear up the mill,
And the children stumble under the wood.

[Sidenote: Lam. 5:14-18]
The elders have ceased from the gate,
The young men from their music.
The joy of our heart has ceased,
Our dance is turned into mourning.
The crown has fallen from our head;
Woe to us! for we have sinned.

For this reason our heart is faint,
For these causes our eyes are dim;
For the mountain of Zion is desolate;
The jackals walk over it.

[Sidenote: Jer. 43:8-12] The word of Jehovah also came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, Take great stones in thy hand, and bury them in the loose foundation in the brick-covered place before Pharaoh's palace door in Tahpanhes in the sight of the men of Judah; and say to them, 'Thus saith, Jehovah hosts, the God of Israel, "Behold, I will send and bring Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne upon these stones that you have buried, and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them. And he shall come and shall smite the land of Egypt; such as are for death shall be given to death, and such as are for captivity shall be given to captivity, and such as are for the sword shall be given to the sword. And he will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt, and will burn them and carry them away. And he shall wrap himself in the land of Egypt, as a shepherd puts on his mantle, and shall go forth from there in peace. He shall also break the obelisks of Heliopolis and the temples of the gods of Egypt shall he burn with fire."'

[Sidenote: Jer. 44:1-10] The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews who dwelt in the land of Egypt, who dwelt at Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis, and in upper Egypt, saying, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the cities of Judah; and behold, they are this day a desolation, and no man dwelleth in them, because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger in that they went to offer sacrifices to other gods, that they knew not, neither they nor ye, nor your fathers. However, I constantly sent to them all my servants the prophets, saying, "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate." But they neither hearkened nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness, to offer no sacrifice to other gods. And so my wrath and mine anger was poured forth and was kindled against the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, and they were wasted and desolate, as is now the case.' Therefore now thus saith Jehovah, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, 'Why do you commit a great Crime against yourselves to cut off from you man and woman, infant and sucking child, out of the midst of Judah so that ye leave none remaining, in that ye provoke me to anger with the work of your hands, offering sacrifice to other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye have gone to sojourn, that ye may be cut off, and that ye may be an object of cursing and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? Have ye forgotten the crimes of your fathers, and the crimes of the kings of Judah, and the crimes of their princes, which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? They are not humbled even to this day, neither have they feared nor walked in my law nor in my statutes that I set before you and before your fathers.'

[Sidenote: Jer. 44:11-13, 22] 'Therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: "Behold, I set my face against you for evil to cut off the remnant of Judah in the land of Egypt, and they shall fall by the sword and by famine; they shall die, small and great, and they shall be an object of execration, of astonishment, of cursing, and of reproach. For I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, so that none of the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to reside there, shall escape or be left to return to the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return; for none shall return except as fugitives. And they who escape the sword shall return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah, few in number; and all the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there shall know whose word shall be confirmed, mine or theirs."'

I. The Significance of the Destruction of the Hebrew State. The destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. resulted in a mighty Transformation of the life and thought of Israel. It marked the final Overthrow of the old Hebrew kingdoms, and the gradual rise of that new and important factor in human history known as Judaism. For over three centuries the Jews who survived the great catastrophe were helpless under the rule of the great world powers which in succession conquered southwestern Asia. For the great majority of the Jewish race it represented the beginning of that long exile which has continued until the present. Scattered from the desert of Sahara to the distant land of China, and from the Black Sea to the Indian Ocean, the different groups of exiles quickly began to adapt themselves to their changed surroundings and to absorb the new knowledge and the powerful influences which gradually transformed their beliefs and ideals. While their vision was vastly broadened by this contact, the danger and horror of being completely engulfed in the great heathen world bound the faithful more closely together, and in time made Judaism the solid, unbreakable rock that has withstood the assaults and the disintegrating forces of the ages. At first the survivors of the great catastrophe were stunned by the blow that had shattered their nation. They lived only in their memories of the past and in their hopes for the future. At last, in the long period of misery and enforced meditation, they began not only to accept but also to apply the eternal principles proclaimed by their earlier prophets. Thus amidst these entirely new conditions they gained a broader and deeper faith and were still further trained for the divine task of teaching mankind.

II. The Book of Lamentations. After describing the destruction of the little kingdom established at Mizpah under Gedaliah, the Hebrew historical records suddenly become silent. This silence is due to the fact that there was little of external interest to record. The real history of this tragic half-century is the record of the anguish and doubts and hopes in the hearts of the scattered remnants of the race. The little book of Lamentations expresses dramatically and pathetically the thoughts of the people as they meditated upon the series of calamities which gathered about the great catastrophe of 586 B.C. Like the ancient Torah, or five books of the Law, it contains a quintet of poems. These are very similar in theme and form to many of the psalms of the Psalter. In the first four the characteristic five-beat measure, by which the deep emotions, especially that of sorrow, were expressed, is consistently employed. Each of these four is also an acrostic, that is, each succeeding line or group of lines begins with a succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This acrostic form was probably adopted in order to aid the memory, and suggests that from the first these poems were written to be used in public. Even so the Jews of Jerusalem to-day chant them on each of their sabbaths beside the foundation walls of the great platform on which once stood their ruined temple. Although the artificial character of these poems tends to check the free expression of thought and feeling, it is possible to trace in them a logical progress and to feel the influence of the strong emotions that inspired them.

III. Authorship and Date of the Book. In theme and literary form these poems are so strikingly similar to Jeremiah's later sermons that it was almost inevitable that tradition should attribute them to the great prophet of Judah's decline. This tradition, to which is due the position of the book of Lamentations in the Greek and English Bibles, cannot be traced earlier than the Greek period. The evidence within the poems themselves strongly indicates that they were not written by Jeremiah. It is almost inconceivable that he would subject his poetic genius to the rigid limitations of the acrostic structure. Moreover, he would never have spoken of the weak Zedekiah, whose vacillating policy he condemned, in the terms of high esteem which appear in Lamentations 4:20. These poems also reflect the popular interpretation of the great national calamity, rather than Jeremiah's searching analysis of fundamental causes. A careful study of Lamentations shows that chapters 2 and 4 were probably written by one who was powerfully influenced by Ezekiel's thought. They both follow in their acrostic structure an unusual order of the Hebrew alphabet, differing in this respect from chapters 1 and 3. They have so many close points of contact with each other that it is safe to say that they are both from the same author. They reveal an intimate familiarity with events immediately following the destruction of Jerusalem and were probably written between 580 and 561 B.C., when Jehoiachin was liberated. Chapters 1 and 3 follow the regular order of the Hebrew alphabet and apparently represent the work of a later author or authors. Chapter 1 is full of pathos and religious feeling and is closely parallel in thought to such psalms as 42 and 137. Chapter 3 is a poetic monologue describing the fate and voicing the contrition of the righteous within the Judean community. Chapter 5, on the contrary, is in the three-beat measure and lacks the acrostic structure of the preceding chapters. Its style and point of view are so different from those of the preceding chapters that it must be the work of another author, who probably lived in the Persian period.

IV. Its Real Character. The purpose of the book of Lamentations was evidently, (1) to give appropriate expression to the feelings of the Jews who survived the destruction of Jerusalem, 586 B.C.; (2) to drive home the great lessons taught by their past history, and thus to arouse true repentance; and (3) to kindle in turn hopes regarding their future. Through them Jeremiah and Ezekiel live and speak again, but from the point of view of the people. These tragic poems also throw contemporary light upon the horrors of the final siege and capture of Jerusalem and upon the fate of those who survived.

V. Numbers and Fortunes of the Jews Who Remained in Palestine. The Jews actually carried into captivity constituted only a small part of the total population of Judah (cf. Section XC:ii). The peasants and the inhabitants of the towns outside Jerusalem remained undisturbed, except as some of them were doubtless drafted into the army which under Zedekiah undertook to defend Jerusalem against the Chaldeans. From the later record of Nehemiah's work the names of many of these towns can be determined. In the north were Jericho, Geba, Mizpah, Anathoth, and Kirjath-jearim; in the centre, Netophah and Bethlehem; and in the south Tekoa, Keilah, and Bethzur. The lot of these, who are later known as the people of the land, was pitiable indeed. There are many references in Lamentations and Ezekiel to the persecutions to which they were subjected by their malignant foes, the Moabites and Ammonites on the east and the Philistines on the west. Even more cruel and aggressive were the Edomites, who had suffered many wrongs at the hands of the Hebrews. It was probably about this time that this half-nomadic people began to be driven northward by the advance of the Nabateans, an Arab people who came from the south. Dislodged from their homes, the Edomites took advantage of the weakness of the Jews and seized southern Judah, including the ancient capital Hebron. The doom which Ezekiel pronounces upon the Edomites in 25[12] is because of the revenge that they wreaked upon the Jews at this time. It is significant that Ezekiel's sermons in the period immediately following the fall of Jerusalem contain dire predictions of divine vengeance upon all these foes. After the overthrow of Gedaliah's kingdom, the Jews who remained in Palestine appear to have been left wholly without defences or defenders. Ezekiel, in 33:23-29, speaks of those who inhabit the waste places in the land of Israel, who live in the strongholds and the caves. Some of them appear to have turned robbers. Foreign settlers came in from every side and in time intermarried with the natives and led them into idolatry. Ezekiel sternly condemns their immorality and apostasy.

From the references in Jeremiah 41:5 and Ezra 3:3 it is clear that even during this reign of terror many of the people continued to offer sacrifices to Jehovah at the great altar cut in native rock which stood before the ruins of their temple in Jerusalem. Priests were also doubtless found in the land to conduct these services. The ancient feasts, however, with their joyous merrymaking and the resulting sense of divine favor, were no longer observed. Instead, the people celebrated in sackcloth and ashes the fasts commemorating the successive stages in the destruction of their city (Zech. 7:3-7). While their lot was pitiable and their character seemingly unpromising, these people of the land were important factors in the re-establishment of the Judean community.

VI. Fortunes of the Jews in Egypt. The narrative in Jeremiah states definitely that the large proportion of those who had rallied about Gedaliah after his death found a temporary asylum on the eastern borders of Egypt. Here they were beyond the reach of Chaldean armies and within the territory of the one nation which offered a friendly asylum to the Jewish refugees. Most of this later group of exiles settled at the towns of Tahpanhes and Migdol. The latter means tower and is probably to be identified with an eastern outpost, the chief station on the great highway which ran along the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean directly to Palestine and Syria.

The excavations of the Egypt Exploration Fund at Tahpanhes, which was the Daphnae of Herodotus, has thrown much light upon the home of this Jewish community. The town was situated in a sandy desert to the south of a marshy lake. It lay midway between the cultivated delta on the west and what is now the Suez Canal on the east. Past it ran the main highway to Palestine. Its founder, Psamtik I, the great-grandfather of Hophra, had built here a fort to guard the highway. Herodotus states that he also stationed guards here, and that until late in the Persian period it was defended by garrisons whose duty was to repel Asiatic invasions (II, 30). Here the Ionian and Carian mercenaries, who were at this time the chief defence of the Egyptian king, were given permanent homes. By virtue of its mixed population and its geographical position, Tahpanhes was a great meeting place of Eastern and Western civilization. Here native Egyptians, Greek mercenaries, Phoenician and Babylonian traders, and Jewish refugees met on common ground and lived side by side. It corresponded in these respects to the modern Port Said.

Probably in remembrance of the Jewish colony that once lived here, the ruins of the fort still bear an Arab name which means The Palace of the Jew's Daughter. The term palace is not altogether inappropriate, for apparently the fort was occasionally used as a royal residence. Many wine-jars, bearing the seals of Psamtik, Hophra, and Amasis, have been found in the ruins. In the northwestern part of these ruins has been uncovered a great open-air platform of brickwork, referred to in Jeremiah 43:8-10. It was the place of common meeting found in connection with every Egyptian palace or private home. When Amasis, in 564 B.C., came to the throne of Egypt he withdrew the privileges granted by his predecessors to foreigners. The Greek colonists were transferred to Naukratis, and Tahpanhes lost most of its former glory. About this time, if not before, the great majority of the Jewish refugees, who had settled in these frontier towns, probably returned to Palestine to find homes in its partially depopulated towns.

Ezekiel from distant Babylon appears to have regarded the Jews in Egypt with considerable hope (Ezek. 29:21). But Jeremiah, who knew them better, was keenly alive to their faults. In their despair and rage many of them evidently rejected the teachings of the prophets and became devotees of the Aramean goddess, the Queen of Heaven, mentioned in the recently discovered Aramean inscription of Zakar, king of Hazrak (cf. Section LXV:vii). Jeremiah's closing words to them, therefore, are denunciations and predictions that they should suffer even in the land of Egypt, at the hand of Nebuchadrezzar, the same fate that had overtaken their fellow-countrymen at Jerusalem. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel (Ezek. 30) predicted that Nebuchadrezzar would invade and conquer Egypt. In 568 B.C. his army actually did appear on the borders of Egypt; but how far he succeeded in conquering the land is unknown. The complete conquest of Egypt certainly did not come until the Persian period under the leadership of the cruel Cambyses.

VII. The Jewish Colony at Elephantine. Jeremiah and Ezekiel also refer to the Jewish colonists at Memphis and at Pathros, which is the biblical designation of upper Egypt. Many of the colonists who had settled there had doubtless fled before the conquests of Jerusalem. The presence of a great number of Jews in Egypt at a later period indicates that even at this early date more exiles were probably to be found in Egypt than in Babylon. Recent discoveries on the island of Elephantine in the upper Nile, opposite the modern Assuan, have thrown new light upon the life of these Jewish colonists. These records consist (1) of a series of beautifully preserved legal documents written in Aramaic on papyrus and definitely dated between the years 471 and 411 B.C. They include contracts between the Jews residing on the island of Elephantine regarding the transfer of property and other legal transactions. They contain many familiar Jewish names, such as Zadok, Isaiah, Hosea, Nathan, Ethan, Zechariah, Shallum, Uriah, and Shemaiah. They indicate that by the earlier part of the Persian period a large and wealthy colony of Jewish traders and bankers was established on this island. They appear to have lived in a community by themselves, but in the heart of the city, side by side with Egyptians, Persians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, and Greeks, whose property In some cases joined their own. The Jews had their own court which ranked equally with the Persian and Egyptian law courts. Even native Egyptians, who had cases against the Jews, appeared before it. The names of Arameans and Arabs also appear in its lists of witnesses. From these contemporary documents it is clear that the Jews of upper Egypt enjoyed great privileges and entered freely into the life of the land. Ordinarily they married members of their own race; but the marriage of a Jewess with a foreigner is also reported. He appears, however, to have been a proselyte to Judaism, Another Jewess married an Egyptian and took oath by the Egyptian goddess Sati, suggesting that she had nominally at least adopted the religion of her husband. One Hebrew also bears the suggestive name of Hosea, the son of Petikhnum (an Egyptian name meaning Gift of the god Khnum).

VIII. The Temple of Yahu at Elephantine. These Aramaic legal documents also contain many references to Yahu (the older form of Yahweh or Jehovah), the god worshipped by the Jews, and to Yahu's temple situated on King's Street, one of the main thoroughfares of the city. These references have been signally confirmed by a most remarkable letter recently discovered by the Germans at this site. It was written in November of the year 408 B.C., by the members of the Jewish colony at Elephantine to Bagohi (the Bagoas of Josephus), the Persian governor of Judah. It states, among other things, that "Already in the days of the kings of Egypt our fathers had built this temple in the fortress of Elephantine. And when Cambyses (529-522 B.C.) entered Egypt he found this temple built, and, though the temple of the gods of Egypt were all at that time overthrown, no one injured anything in this temple." It further states that recently (in the year 411 B.C.), in the absence of the Persian governor in Egypt, the foreigners in Elephantine had stirred up a certain minor official to instruct his son, who was commander of a neighboring fortress, to destroy the Jewish temple.

The Aramaic letter was intended to be sent, together with rich gifts, to influence the powerful Persian governor of Judah, Bagohi, to issue an order permitting the Jews to rebuild their temple. From this letter we learn that the temple of the God Yahu was built of hewn stone with pillars of stone in front, probably similar to those in the Egyptian temples, and had seven great gates built of hewn stone and provided with doors and bronze hinges. Its roof was wholly of cedar wood, probably brought from the distant Lebanon, and its walls appear to have been ceiled or adorned with stucco, as were those of Solomon's temple. It was also equipped with bowls of gold and silver and the other paraphernalia of sacrifice. Here were regularly offered cereal-offerings, burnt-offerings, and frankincense. The petitioners also promised that, if the Persian officials would grant their request, "we will also offer cereal-offerings and frankincense and burnt-offerings on the altar in your name, and we will pray to God in your name, we and our wives and all the Jews who are here, if you do thus until the temple is built. And you shall have a portion before the God Yahu, the God of Heaven, from every one who offers to him burnt-offerings and sacrifices."

Historical students have long been familiar with the fact that late in the Greek period the Jews of Egypt built a temple to Jehovah at Leontopolis, in the Delta (cf. Section CXV:iii); but these recent discoveries open an entirely new chapter in Jewish history. They indicate that probably within a generation after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, in 586 B.C., the Jewish colonists in Egypt built for themselves far up the Nile, and possibly at other points in this land of their exile, a temple or temples to Jehovah; that they remained loyal to God and the institutions of their race; and that in the midst of cosmopolitan Egypt they preserved intact their racial unity. In the light of these discoveries it is also clear that because of their character and numbers and nearness to Palestine the Jews of Egypt, even at this early period, were a far more important factor in the life and development of Judaism than they have hitherto been considered. These discoveries also afford definite grounds for the hope that from this unexpected quarter much more valuable material will come to illumine this otherwise dark period of post-exilic Jewish history.