CHAPTER II.
THE COMPARATIVE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT.
1. As a people, the Jews of the northern kingdom never were so warmly attached to the Temple worship as those of the southern,and hence all the Psalms which alluded to Jerusalem[103] and the Temple are supposed to have been written by the exiles of Judah, that is of the southern kingdom, who went into captivity B. C. 588 under Nebuchadnezzar, and were settled in Babylon or its vicinity. For the entire seventy years the people of Judah and those of Israel were separated by several hundred miles of country.
2. During the many years of captivity, Israel, that is the ten tribes, probably mingled with other nations in their midst and became very largely estranged from the father-land. There were fewer of the ties of religious faith with them than with Judah. Even the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, when they returned from the captivity and entered into their city Jerusalem and into the cities and lands surrounding,brought wives from the heathen about them,[104] the very priests and Levites being alsoguilty, Ezra 9:1, although the Mosaic law prohibited such marriages.
3. Such heathen intermarriages among the members of the tribes would, after 185 years, be less objected to than among the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and would naturally be followed by not only indifference to any return, but also by forgetfulness of the land and of the history of their origin, and it is not surprising that when the tribes of Judah and Benjamin accepted the permission granted by Cyrus, the king of Babylon, to return to Palestine, the ten tribes, as a whole, remained in Assyria and never returned, but probably became lost by being absorbed into the nations with whom they associated.
CONDITION DURING THE CAPTIVITY.
4. During the captivity the Jews in Assyria and Babylonia were allowed great privileges. They were considered more in the light of colonists than of slaves, and from the histories, both sacred and secular, we learn that, as stated in the books of Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel, they were occasionally employed in high positions in the state and at court. Nehemiah, though born at Babylon during the captivity, was a Jew of the tribe of Judah, but was cup-bearer to the Persian king, Artaxerxes Longimanus, at Susa. Ezra also enjoyed great consideration at the Persian court during the reigns of several of the kings of Persia. And from the bookof Esther it is evident that the Jews prospered greatly during the reign of Xerxes.
5. The prophets, during the captivity of Judah, were earnest in their endeavors to preserve the integrity and reverence of the people, and it was largely due to them that many of the observances of the Mosaic law, and a loving remembrance of the Temple and of Jerusalem, prevailed so far as it did in spite of the idolatries of the people by whom they were surrounded. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, with Obadiah, were the prophets of the captivities.
PROPHETS DURING THE CAPTIVITY.
6. Before the captivity Jeremiah[105] had foretold the captivity of Judah, for seventy years, in Babylon, Jer. 25:8–12, and also the fall of Babylon (verses 13–38). His faithfulness endangered his life, and when Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem he found Jeremiah in prison and released him, offering him a residence in Babylon. The prophet, however, chose to remain with the remnant of Judah who were not carried away, and when this remnant fled to Egypt, for fear of Nebuchadnezzar, they took Jeremiah with them. See the account in Jer. 43:6.
7. A recent remarkable discovery has been made, in Egypt, of the palace of Pharaoh-hophra, the Egyptian king who reigned at the time Jeremiah was carried to Egypt, about B. C. 585. The prophetprotested against the departure to Egypt of the remnant of which we have spoken, and forewarned them that Nebuchadnezzar would go to Egypt and would overcome Pharaoh-hophra and would pitch his tent in the court of this palace. Several clay cylinders have been picked up in the vicinity bearing the name of Nebuchadnezzar, and proving that he had been here, and the brick pavement, or court, before the palace, which seems to be alluded to in Jer. 43:9, has been uncovered. It was here that the prophet hid the stones at the place he foretold as that where Nebuchadnezzar should set his pavilion. The palace was at Tahpanhes (pronounced tah´-pan-heez), Jer. 43:8–13.