Hebrew Life and Times

by Harold B. Hunting

We have seen how the exiles in Babylonia kept the Sabbath and went to the synagogue in order that they might continue to be Jews and might not lose their Jewish religion, the worship of Jehovah. As time went on they found it necessary to be more and more strict. As their girls and boys grew up they fell in love with Babylonian young men and young women. But if these young Jews had married Babylonians, the children would have grown up as Babylonians in customs and religion. So all intermarriages were forbidden.

The fight against intermarriages in Judæa.—When these exiles returned from Babylonia to Jerusalem they were shocked to find that the Jews there had not been strict in this matter. They had taken wives and husbands from the Moabites, and Edomites, and other nations around Judæa.

It is hard for us to see that this was wrong, for these people probably became worshipers of Jehovah, like Ruth the Moabitess in the beautiful story in the Bible, who said to her Jewish mother-in-law, "Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." The exiles from Babylon, however, including so good and wise a man as Nehemiah, fought with all their might against all intermarriages. Without doubt the motive, which was to protect the Hebrews from idolatry, was good, but the matter is certainly open to criticism, especially in the light of our truer knowledge of God. We read that at one time, even under the leadership of Ezra, one of the returned exiles, a large number of the wives from other nations were cruelly divorced and sent away weeping to their own people. All this helped to give the Jews a wrong and unreasonable pride in their own race and a silly and unkind contempt for other races.

The hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans.—About the time of Nehemiah there was also started a bitter feud between the Jews and the Samaritans. There had always been a good deal of jealousy between the people of Judah in the South, and the Hebrews of the central and northern parts of Canaan. Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom, which had split off from the kingdom of David and Solomon. This old jealousy flamed up again after Nehemiah. The Samaritans had intermarried with their heathen neighbors, perhaps more than the Jews in Judæa. So the Jews claimed that the Samaritans had no right to call themselves true Hebrews.

The Samaritans, on the other hand, claimed that they were true children of Abraham, and they built a temple of their own on Mount Gerizim as a rival to the temple of Jerusalem. This jealousy and hate grew more and more bitter until, in the time of Jesus, the Jews looked upon Samaritans with even more contempt than any Gentiles.

The growing prejudice against the Jews among other peoples.—Those who call names generally hear themselves taunted and ridiculed in turn. The very fact that the Jews would not work on the Sabbath marked them as peculiar and helped to make them unpopular. Their laws about foods, clean and unclean, were also different from those of other nations. For example, they would not eat pork. Moreover, as time went on many of the Jews in Babylon and in other foreign lands grew prosperous. They were industrious and they had brains and a special gift for trade. Before long they had money to lend, and they often demanded unjust rates of interest. This too made them unpopular. So the more proudly and contemptuously they held aloof from Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, and all other foreigners the more frequently they heard themselves called "Jewish dogs" and other hard names.

The Coming of the Greeks

This racial pride on the part of the Jews was still more increased by the coming of another unusually proud people, the Greeks. In the year B.C. 333, Alexander the Great defeated the army of the king of Persia and soon extended his rule over all western Asia, including Judæa. Very soon Greeks were everywhere to be seen, in all the cities of Palestine. In order to protect the country from the desert robbers who, as we have seen, had been making their raids through all the centuries, a chain of Greek cities was built to the east of the Jordan and thousands of Greek settlers were brought there to live. The ruins of many beautiful Greek temples and theaters may still be seen in that country. Samaria was also rebuilt as a Greek city, the capital of the province. So there were Greeks on all sides of Jerusalem and throngs of Greek merchants and travelers were to be seen on the streets of every Jewish city and village.

The Greeks in some ways had as much to be proud of as a people as the Jews. Their sculptors had carved the most beautiful marbles in the world. Their poets had composed the most beautiful poems. Their philosophers were wiser than those of any other nation. Moreover, many of these Greeks who came into Palestine and other countries of Asia were filled with a truly missionary spirit. It is said that Alexander the Great was inspired by the thought that he was helping to spread the art and wisdom and culture of the Greeks throughout the world.

The struggle between Judaism and Hellenism.—This meant that the old religion of Jehovah was in danger of being forgotten not only in Babylonia and other lands but even in Judæa and Jerusalem. Many Jews quite fell in love with the new art and learning of the Greeks. They learned the Greek language, gave their children Greek names, such as "Jason," for example, instead of "Joshua." A gymnasium was built in Jerusalem where Jewish lads learned to exercise and play games after the Greek style. Many of them tried to hide the fact that they were Jews, and too often they ceased to worship Jehovah, the God of their fathers, and offered sacrifices to Zeus and other Greek divinities.