Biblical Geography and History

by Charles Foster Kent

The Great Rebellion of 703 B.C. The great crisis that called forth the majority of Isaiah's recorded sermons came thirty years later, when Judah was again tempted to enter into an alliance with the other states of Palestine in an endeavor to break free from the rule of Assyria. In common with the other little states of Palestine, it was a victim of its intermediate position between the great world-powers, Assyria and Egypt. Under a new Ethiopian dynasty, Egypt's ambitions were again beginning to stir and Assyria was the chief barrier to their realization. Therefore, Egypt by promises of help encouraged the states of Palestine to revolt against Assyria. In 711 B.C. the Philistine towns of Ashdod and Gath did actually rebel. It was only by going about in the garb of the captive, proclaiming in this objective way what would be the consequence if Judah rebelled against Assyria, that Isaiah was able to arrest the attention of the nation and save it from fatally compromising itself. When the great Assyrian king, Sargon, died in 705 B.C. the temptations to rebel were too strong to be resisted. Merodach-baladan, of the ancient Babylonian royal line, at once instigated a successful revolt in the lower Tigris-Euphrates valley and sent emissaries to Palestine to stir up the vassal states in a general uprising against Assyria. Tyre, Edom, Moab, Ammon the Philistine cities, and certain of the neighboring Bedouin tribes united in raising the standard of revolt against their common foe. Egypt again promised assistance, and, although Isaiah protested with all his powers, Judah was drawn into the coalition. Hezekiah was made the southern leader of the rebellion.

Home of the Prophet Micah. Sennacherib, the successor of Sargon, after putting down the rebellion in southern Babylonia, advanced with a large army to the reconquest of the eastern Mediterranean states. It was probably while the Assyrian king was advancing from the north that Isaiah's contemporary, Micah, uttered his warning against the venal and greedy nobles of Judah. The home of the prophet was Moresheth-gath. Eusebius and Jerome describe it as a small village a little east of the modern Beit-Jibrin, which commands the entrance to the Valley of Zephathah, through which ran the highway from Jerusalem to Gaza. Another important road ran from Hebron past the mound which represents without reasonable doubt the ancient Gath, and thence along the coast plains to the north. It was the centre of a prosperous agricultural life and at the same time shared the peculiar characteristics of these frontier towns. From his home among the foot-hills^[(108)] Micah was able to watch the movement of Assyrian armies and to keep in close touch with the world-politics of his day. Like Amos, he was inspired by the sense of approaching danger to turn his attention to conditions within the nation and to endeavor with all his prophetic power to prepare it for the coming crisis. The note of alarm sounds through all his early utterances. In imagination he pictures the effects of the coming invasions and in the sound of the names of the villages about his home he finds suggestions of the calamity about to overtake them. His eyes fall first on Gath, which lay to the northwest on the highway along which the Assyrian army would naturally approach. His vision sweeps southward, including Shaphir, the modern Suafir, five miles southeast of Ashdod on the Philistine Plain, Zaanan and Lachish to the southwest, and other small villages on the western borders of Judah. His eye rests last of all upon Mareshah, which has recently been identified beyond doubt with the large Tell es-Sandahannah, one mile south of Beit-Jibrin. The latter was the most important city near Micah's home, for it guarded the pass and stood near the junction of the great highways that radiate from this point.

Judah's Fate in 701 B.C. Judah experienced in 701 B.C. the calamities that Isaiah and Micah had predicted. The annals of Sennacherib state that the Assyrian king conquered forty-six of the cities of Judah, together with innumerable fortresses and small towns in their neighborhood; over two hundred thousand captives, and horses, mules, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep without number were carried away as spoils. In the picturesque language of the conqueror, "Hezekiah was shut up like a bird in a cage in the midst of Jerusalem" until he was forced to surrender and to pay a huge tribute of gold and silver.

Isaiah's Counsel in a Later Crisis. In this great crisis the wisdom of Isaiah's counsel was vindicated beyond question and his authority became so strong with king and people that an attempt was made to remove certain of the surviving heathen symbols from the popular worship. In the later crisis of 690 B.C., when Sennacherib advanced to the conquest of Egypt, the prophet by his advice was able to save Jerusalem. While engaged in the siege of Lachish, the imposing fortress on the Philistine Plain on the southern side of the Wady el-Hesy, Sennacherib sent messengers demanding the unconditional surrender of Judah's capital. From the point of view of the Assyrian king it was dangerous to leave in his rear a strong fortress like Jerusalem, which had already proved a centre of rebellion. His demand, however, was unreasonable, for there is no evidence that Jerusalem, at this later time, was guilty of sedition. In the light of these changed conditions, instead of predicting calamity as a penalty for rebellion, Isaiah advised Hezekiah to refuse to surrender his city to destruction. The calm, unflinching faith of the prophet overcame the fears of the king and thus preserved Jerusalem for another century. Without waiting to carry out his threats against Jerusalem, Sennacherib advanced against Egypt. From the variant traditions it appears that in the marshy land on the eastern side of the Nile delta his army was overtaken by a plague and he was forced ignominiously to retreat.

The Reactionary Reign of Manasseh. Assyria continued, during the reign of Hezekiah's successor, Manasseh, to maintain its control of Palestine. Assyrian and Babylonian customs and religious institutions pervaded the land as never before. Two legal contracts, drawn up in the usual Assyrian form and dating from the years 651 and 648 B.C. in the reign of Manasseh, have been discovered in the mound of Gezer. The one records the sale of a field and the other of an estate with the house and land. The owner of the land was a Hebrew (Nethaniah) but the joint owners of the estate and the twelve witnesses were nearly all Assyrians, indicating how strong was this foreign influence at the time. The weak Manasseh was a leader in a wide-spread reaction against the exalted religious and ethical teachings of the prophets. The old Canaanite cults were largely revived and the worship of Babylonian and Assyrian deities was introduced even into the temple at Jerusalem. Silenced by persecution, the faithful prophets and priests devoted themselves to putting the principles proclaimed by Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah into definite laws that would shape the daily life of the people. The results of their work are preserved in the book of Deuteronomy, which became the basis of the later reformation of Josiah.

Two Prophetic Reformers. The two leaders in the great reform movement were Jeremiah of Anathoth and Zephaniah, who seems to have had great influence over his kinsman, the young Josiah. Zephaniah was apparently a native of Jerusalem. Most of his prophecy is devoted to denouncing the different forms of apostasy and the crimes of oppression then prevalent in the capital. While Jeremiah was not a citizen of Jerusalem, he came from a neighboring village and was also in close touch with the political, social, and religious life of the capital.

Situation of Anathoth. The little town of Anathoth,^[(109)] his home, lay to the northeast of Jerusalem, just over the Mount of Olives, at the point where the hills began to descend to the barren wilderness to the east. It stood on a low, rounded hill. The limestone rocks crop out at many points, imparting a rugged appearance to the landscape. A thriving fig orchard on the western side of the modern town recalls the forceful figure by which Jeremiah contrasted the Jews left in Palestine with the exiles in Babylonia. The low stone and mud buildings of the present town are crowded close together and the dirty streets and people remind the traveller of the men of ancient Anathoth who persecuted their illustrious townsman. On the south the view is shut off by the rising hills, but toward the northeast lies Gibeon and Ramah and to the north Michmash, with its inspiring memories. The chief view from Anathoth, like that from Tekoa, is toward the Jordan valley and the Dead Sea. The gray, barren hills let themselves down in gradual terraces to the depths below. To the northeast are the tree-clad hills of Gilead, while across the Dead Sea rise the rounded, rocky cliffs of the Moabite plateau. Like the homes of most of the great Hebrew prophets, it is a place of broad outlook. The general impression of Anathoth is grim, stern, and sombre, although here the harsh, barren landscape of the south merges into the more fertile and pleasing hill country of the north. Even so in the character of Jeremiah were blended the sternest, most exalted sense of justice and a love for his nation and his countrymen so tender and strong that he was ready to give his life, if need be, to save them from the evils which he saw impending. Through all his sermons these two motives struggle, sometimes the one and sometimes the other breaking forth into expression.

Josiah's Reign. In Josiah the reformers found an energetic leader. It was during his reign that the Scythian hordes poured down from southeastern Europe. Some of these wild barbarians swept down the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, giving Zephaniah and Jeremiah the texts of their earlier sermons. Others, turning to the east, flung themselves against the Assyrian empire and ultimately, in union with the Babylonians, succeeded in conquering Nineveh itself. The impending fall of Assyria favored the work of the reformers, so that in 621 B.C. the prophetic law-book was brought from the temple and publicly adopted by Josiah in behalf of the people. The record of the institution of this new law indicates that Josiah's authority extended beyond the old bounds of Judah. After the withdrawal of the Assyrian governors it was natural that the surviving tribes of the north should again look to Jerusalem for political and religious leadership. This fact explains why Josiah's last fatal battle was fought against the Egyptian king, Necho, in the vicinity of the old Canaanite fortress of Megiddo.

The Brief Rule of Egypt. Necho, the son of Psamtik I, a Libyan who had succeeded in conquering Egypt, was inspired by the oft-recurring ambition to recover the Asiatic possessions once held by the empire. The approaching fall of Assyria gave him a favorable opportunity. With the aid of the Greek mercenaries in his service, he succeeded in conquering the Philistine cities. The defeat of Josiah at Megiddo in 608 B.C. gave him practical possession of Palestine. In the same way the different states of Syria fell before him, so that between 608 and 605 B.C. he was master of the eastern Mediterranean. This brief Egyptian rule, however, was overthrown by the new Chaldean kingdom, which arose in lower Babylonia and, after the fall of Nineveh, quickly fell heir to the southern and western part of the Assyrian empire. The decisive battle between the Egyptians and Chaldeans was fought at Carchemish, by the Euphrates, in 605 B.C. and resulted in the complete defeat of Necho's army. The Egyptians were speedily driven from Syria and Palestine and the Chaldean authority established in their stead.

Jehoiakim's Reign. By the death of Josiah the cause of the patriotic prophetic party in Judah suffered severely. The younger son of the dead king, who was first put on the throne, was soon deposed by Necho and the selfish Jehoiakim was established as a vassal of Egypt. His sympathies were with the party of reaction and he proved another Manasseh. When the Chaldeans appeared in Palestine their rule was readily accepted, but after a reign of ten years Jehoiakim listened to the seductive promises of Egypt and rebelled against his Chaldean master. It was during the reign of Jehoiakim that Jeremiah delivered the greater part of his sermons. By direct address and object-lesson he denounced the follies and crimes of the king and people and tried to save them from the calamity which he saw impending. When the spirit of rebellion was rife he used all his influence to keep his countrymen loyal to the Chaldeans, but in vain. While Judah was being overrun by the Chaldean armies, Jehoiakim died and was succeeded by his young son, Jehoiachin.