The authority of a priest and the national pride stifled all family feeling: “All the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must we do. But the people are many and it is a time of much rain, and we are not able to stand without, neither is this a work of one day or two: for we are many that have transgressed in this thing.”
An assembly, presided over by Ezra, held a severe investigation. The Bible gives us the names of one hundred and thirteen individuals who had married strange women, and who had to send them away with their children. Those belonging to the priesthood offered a ram in expiation of their sin. The number of children is unknown, also whether each mother was able to take away the bread and water such as Abraham had given to Hagar in sending her into the desert. In the following year great events took place, the counterblow of which must have been felt in Judea, although the Bible does not mention it.
THE WALLS UPRAISED AGAIN
[445-415 B.C.]
Egypt raised itself against Persia and took as king the Libyan Inarus. The armies of the land and sea, destined to crush this rebellion, assembled in Syria and Phœnicia. Inarus having been put to death with fifty Greek prisoners in spite of the conventions sworn, the satrap of Syria, Megabyses, indignant at this treachery, in his turn revolted. It is not known whether the Jews took the part of the king or of the satrap. It is supposed that on this occasion the walls of Jerusalem were again destroyed, but the Book of Ezra does not say so; it ends abruptly after the account of the expulsion of the strange women, and we only find Ezra again, thirteen years later, in the Book of Nehemiah, which also bears the title of The Second Book of Ezra. Nehemiah, whose recollections helped to compose this work, was a zealous Jew, cupbearer to king Artaxerxes. He obtained his master’s permission to go to Jerusalem and raise the walls, and started as a pasha of Judea with an escort of cavalry, and royal letters to the keeper of the forests who was to supply the timber for construction. In spite of his official position, and the prestige which the favour of the king was to give him, he had to fight against adversaries who were sufficiently powerful to raise serious difficulties for him. He names three of them: Sanballat, the Horonite; Tobiah, a royal servant in the land of the Ammonites; and Geshem, the Arab.
The pride of the Jews began to bear its fruit; the Samaritans whose disinterested help they had refused, the strange families whose daughters they had repudiated, were not anxious to see Jerusalem a stronghold once more: those who were for peace feared the dreams of independence pertaining to the Messiah, and useless rebellions followed by blood-shed: the country people feared the concentration of political and religious authority in the capital.
At first they mocked at the fortifications begun, then threatened the workmen; Nehemiah made them work with their swords at their sides; at night there were sentinels. They tried to intimidate him, and told him that he was accused of wishing to be proclaimed King of the Jews, they wanted to draw him to meetings, but by prudence he refused to go. He was even suspicious of his friends; prophets told him his life was in danger, and advised him to hide in the temple; he thought a trap was being laid for him, and that they were trying to make him violate the law which forbids the laity to enter the temple; and he answered, “Should such a man as I flee?” Thanks to his energy and activity, the work was finished at the end of fifty-two days.
After having raised the walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah resolved to quiet the discord which was beginning to show itself among the classes. The poor complained of the rich. Many people had to borrow money to pay the taxes; they had hired out their fields and vineyards, and then sold their sons and daughters so as to have bread.
Nehemiah, instead of preaching resignation and patience to the poor, made the rich ashamed of their hardness. He reminded them that at Babylon, according to his means he had redeemed those Jews who had become slaves to strangers: “And will ye even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us? Then held they their peace, and found nothing to answer. And I said: It is not good that ye do: ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies? I likewise, and my brethren and my servants might exact of them money and corn. I pray you let us leave off this usury. Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive yards, and their houses. Then said they We will do as thou sayest.” Nehemiah made them take the oath before the priests and shook his garment, saying: “So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise, even thus he be shaken out, and emptied. And all the congregation said Amen.”
With its walls and gates Jerusalem was a town and not a city; there were no inhabitants. The Jews preferred living in the country, where they cultivated their fields, to shutting themselves up in this town without any resources, which in the time of the monarchy owed its riches only to the presence of the court. Nehemiah and the chiefs of the people agreed that one-eighth of the population of Judea should establish itself at Jerusalem, and they cast lots for the families who had to transfer, nolens volens, their dwellings thither. They established a sort of police; sentinels were placed at the gates, which were shut at night, and only opened in the morning after sunrise. But the new Jewish state could only be constituted by the promulgation of the law. Standing on a platform facing the people, solemnly assembled for the autumn feast, Ezra read the Law called by the name of Moses.