About 597 B.C., tribute having been refused Nebuchadnezzar, he marched against Jerusalem and took the flower of her people into captivity. Those who were left foolishly planned a second revolt. Jeremiah filled the place once occupied by Isaiah, and he denounced the folly of the popular party with great force, vividly picturing the ruin a revolt would cause. His very life was in danger because of the boldness of his counsel, and at times he was held prisoner. Shortly again the armies of Babylonia stood before the walls of Jerusalem. The great king remembered the history of centuries wherein the resources of Assyria and Babylonia had been squandered in holding the western states. He resolved to settle the matter for all time, and the city of Jerusalem was utterly laid waste, while its inhabitants were for the most part deported to Babylonia. Jeremiah was left free to go wherever he chose, and he remained with the poor peasants who were left to till the soil. Shortly after the stricken band migrated to Egypt where they soon lost their identity.
After the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., the perpetuation of the Hebrew faith was left solely to those thousands of captives who had been sent to Babylon. Of all who had peopled the fair land of Israel and the hills of Judah, they alone remained to hold fast the inheritances of their fathers and to preserve the ancient faith. During the seventy years of their captivity it was the remembrance of their once proud nation and beloved Jerusalem, together with the hope of again returning to its hills, that sustained those stricken hearts and gave them courage. Living as much as possible to themselves, they held to their peculiar customs and in some ways were not materially changed by the enforced exile. However their religious conceptions underwent a marked change, and the experiences of the exile itself brought them finally into a fuller realization of the faith they had long followed blindly.
[1] Hist. of the Hebrew People: Vol. II, 180.
DESCRIPTION OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IN PART I.
Distant View of the Pyramids.
This road leading from Cairo to the Pyramids is often spoken of as the "high road." Were it not built up in this way, communication would be cut off during the period of the inundation.
Camels, "ships of the desert," are commonly used in Egypt. Arabs populate the land and are clamorous in their demands for coins from travelers.