Situation of Tahpanhes. Tahpanhes, the biblical name of the Græco-Egyptian city, Daphne, is represented by the modern Tell Defenneh. It lay on the right bank of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile and close to the caravan route from Palestine. On the north was the marshy Lake Menzaleh. It was, however, close to the fertile lands of the Nile Delta and from the days of Psamtik I an important military and commercial town. Here were settled Greek and Phœnician colonists, and here the Jews who fled with Jeremiah after the murder of Gedaliah found refuge. Here and at Migdol the refugees were in closest touch with their kinsmen who had remained behind in Palestine and were in a position to return thither whenever conditions were favorable. They were also in the midst of a cosmopolitan life that offered them ample opportunity to engage in trade, which must have been the chief occupation of these semi-desert towns.

Memphis. A third home of Jewish colonists in Egypt was Noph, which was the biblical designation of the sacred city of Memphis. This great city lay ten miles south of Cairo, at the southern end of the Nile Delta. It was a large metropolitan city, with an exceedingly diverse population. Herodotus found in the vicinity of the Egyptian temple of Ptah a Tyrian colony with a temple dedicated to the "foreign Aphrodite." Here were probably settled the Jews who had decided to make permanent homes in Egypt, and who may have reared here a temple to Jehovah.

The Colony at Elephantine. The fourth centre of colonization was at Syene in the land of Pathros, the biblical equivalent of upper Egypt. Syene is apparently represented by the modern Egyptian city of Assuan, just below the first cataract of the Nile. In Ezekiel 29:10 Migdol and Syene mark respectively the northern and southern boundaries of Egypt. Recent excavations on the northern end of the island of Elephantine,[(111)] which lies in the Nile opposite Assuan, have revealed the presence of a large Jewish colony at this point, which flourished during the earlier part of the Persian period and was probably established soon after the fall of Jerusalem. The island is one of the garden spots of the Nile valley. The ruins of the ancient city cover a low-lying hill on the southern end, which is here fully three-quarters of a mile across from east to west. On the east across the river are the heights of Assuan. The view to the south is toward the rocky cataract of the Nile. On the west, across the river, extends the brown, rocky desert.

Results of the Excavations. The importance of the ancient town lay in its position at the head of uninterrupted navigation. From here the caravans set out for Nubia and the upper Nile and for the oases in the east. The town was built of Nile mud bricks, with little houses and narrow streets, and was evidently once the home of a large and dense population. On the western side have been discovered contracts written on papyri in Aramaic, which indicate that here was a large Jewish colony living on a practical equality with the Egyptians, Phœnicians, Babylonians, and Persians, who constituted the population of this ancient metropolis. Familiar Jewish names appear in these contracts, which record the sale of land and houses. An Aramaic letter bearing the date 408 B.C. has also been discovered directed to Bagohi, the Persian governor of Palestine. From these contracts and this letter it appears that during the earlier part of the Persian period there was within the city of Elephantine a Jewish temple of Jahu (Jehovah), surrounded by strong walls and protecting gates. At this Jewish sanctuary regular offerings were presented to Jehovah and the religious customs of the homeland were thus preserved in the very heart of the old heathen city.

Transformation of the Jews into Traders. It is significant that the Jewish colonists in Egypt were settled in four commercial centres. Trade was the chief occupation open to them. Hence the shepherds and farmers of Judah were soon transformed into traders and merchants. Widely scattered as they were, at each important city there were colonies of Jews. In time these were organized into great mercantile companies which, through their agents and branch houses, controlled more and more of the trade of the ancient East. The Jew of to-day is the product of those centuries of commercial training which began with the Babylonian period.

Home of the Exiles in Babylonia. In deporting the Jewish captives from Palestine to Babylonia, Nebuchadrezzar evidently followed the longer, more northern route, through Riblah and Hamath, across the Euphrates at Carchemish, and thence southward through Mesopotamia. Instead of scattering the Jewish exiles throughout the empire, he settled them in a colony on the Chebar River, which is evidently identical with the Khabaru Canal. According to recently discovered inscriptions, this canal ran eastward from Babylon to the ancient sanctuary of Nippur. This region was in the northern part of the great alluvial plain between the Tigris and the Euphrates and was intersected in every direction by canals, which were used both for irrigation and commerce. To escape the spring floods the villages were built on low mud mounds, in many cases ruins of earlier cities. The prophet Ezekiel, who was the pastor and spiritual adviser of the exiles in Babylon, lived at a village named after the mound on which it was built, Tell Abib. Two other similar village mounds were called Salt Hill and Forest Hill. Ezekiel describes their new home as "a land of traffic, a city of merchants, a fruitful soil, beside many waters."

Their Life in Babylonia. In certain psalms are found the echo of the homesickness and longing for their native hills which filled the hearts of the Jewish exiles. But the fruitful soil of Babylonia was a partial compensation for what they had lost. The active commercial life of Babylon, as that of Egypt, developed within them the latent Semitic genius for trade. At first they were evidently settled as a community by themselves, a little Judah in the heart of the great empire. Here they lived in accordance with their laws, under the rulership of their elders, building houses, planting gardens, and rearing up families, as Jeremiah advised in the letter which he wrote them (Jer. 29). The result was that the majority of the Jews in the east became so attached to their new homes that few were found later who would undertake the arduous journey of fifteen hundred miles to return to the stony hills of Judah. For a great majority of those who were exiled or who fled from Judah in connection with the first and second captivity there was no return, even though opportunities were repeatedly offered.

Condition of the Jews in Palestine. The third centre of the Jewish race was Judah itself. Even though Jerusalem was destroyed and its population scattered, the majority of the shepherds and peasants of Judah never left their homes. The captives who were deported by the Babylonians appear to have been taken almost entirely from the capital city. Those who remained in Palestine were probably placed under the rule of the governor of the so-called "Province beyond the River." The title evidently originated in Babylon, for it was the designation of the territory which lay west of the Euphrates and included Syria as well as Palestine. Without organization and the protection of a native ruler the fortunes of the Jewish peasants must have been indeed pitiable. The book of Lamentations contains references to the pitiless persecutions and the frequent forays to which they were subject. Whenever the local government was weakened, Judah was the object of attack from every quarter. On the north were the Samaritans, who could never completely forget their hereditary rivalry with the southern tribes. At this time the Samaritan territory apparently extended southward so as to include the cities of Gibeon and Mizpah. On the east the Ammonites had at last succeeded in pushing their boundaries westward to the Jordan, and in occupying the fruitful hills and valleys of southern Gilead. East of the Dead Sea the Moabite territory evidently extended northward to that recently occupied by the Ammonites. In southern Judah the Edomites, pushed northward by the advance of a strong Arab race, known as the Nabateans, had seized not only the South Country but the old capital, Hebron, and the territory to the east and west. On the southwest they occupied the important city of Mareshah and the adjacent Philistine lowlands.[(108)]

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN PALESTINE DURING THE PERSIAN AND GREEK PERIODS.
M-N CO.