8. Its comparative Mildness. — ^The captive Jews were probably prostrated at first by their great calamity, till the glorious vision of Ezekiel (i, 1) in the fifth year of the captivity revived and reunited them. The wishes of their conqueror were satisfied when he had di$pla^*ed hb power by transporting them into another land, and I gratified his pride by inscribing on the walls of the royal palace ids victorious progress and the number of , his captives. He could not have designed simply to j increase the population of Babylon, for his Assyrian predecessor had sent Babylonian colonists into Sama* ria. One political end certainly was attained — the more easy government of a people separated from local traditions and associations (see Gesenius on Isa. xxri, 16, and compare Gen. xlvii, 21). It was also a great advantage to the Assyro-Babylonian king to remove from the Egyptian border of his empire a people who were notoriously well affected toward Egypt. The captives were treated not as slaves, but as colonists. There was nothing to hinder a Jew from rising to the highest eminence in the state (Dan. ii, 48), or holding the most confidential office near the person of the kin x I (Neh. i, 11 ; Tobit i, 18, 22). The advice of Jeremiah (xxix, 5, etc.) was generally followed. The eidles in- I creased in numbers and in wealth. They observed I the Mosaic law (Esth. iii, 8 ; Tobit xiv, 9). They kept I up distinctions of rank among themselves (Ezek. xx, 1). And though the assertion in the Talmud be un- supported by proof that they assigned thus early to one of their countrymen the title of Head of the Cap- tivity (or captain of the people, 2 Esd. v, 16), it is cer- tain that they at least preserved their genealogical ' tables, and were at no loss to tell who was the rightfdl I heir to David's throne. They had neither place nor I time of national gathering; no temple, and they oflf^r- I ed no sacrifice. But the rite of circumcision, and their 1 laws respecting food, etc., were observed ; their priests were with them (Jer. xxix, 1) ; and possibly the prac- ' tice of erecting synagogues in every city (Acts xv, 21) was begun by the Jews in the Babylonian captivity. I The captivity is not without contemporaneous /uftfr-
CAFriVlTY
111
CAPTIVITY
ohm. In the apocryphal book of Tobit, which is gen- eimllj believed to be a mixture of poetical fiction with hiitnrical fiu:t8 recorded by a oontemporary, we have a picture of the inner life of a family of the tribe of Ntphtali, among the captives whom Shalmaneser bnmgfat to Nineveh. The apooyphal book of Baroch teems, in Hr. Layard*8 opinion, to have been written by one whose eyes, like those of Eiekiel, were familiar with the gigantic forms of Assyrian scnlptore. Sev- eral of tlie Psalms appear to express the sentiments of Jews who were either partaken or witnesses of the Assyrian captivity. Ewald assigns to this period Psa. xlii, xlffi, Ixxxiv, xvii, xvi, xlix, xxii, xxv, xxxviii, Ixxxviii, xl, Ixix, cix, li, Ixxi, xxv, xxxiv, Ixxxii, xir, cxx, cxxi, cxxiii, cxxx, cxxxi. Also in Psa. Ixxx we seem to have the words of an Israelite, dwell- ing perimps in Jndna (2 Chron. x v, 9 ; xxxi, 6), who bad seen the departure of his conntrymen to Assyria ; and m Psa. cxxxvii an ontpouring of the first intense feelings of a Jewish exile in Babylon. But it is firom tke three great prophets — Jeremiah, Esekiel, and Dan- iel—that we learn most of the condition of the children of the captivity. The distant warnings of Jeremiah, adrising and cheering them, followed them into As- sym. There, for a few years, they had no prophetic guide; till suddenly the vision of Esekiel at Chebar (in the immediate vicinity of Nineveh, according to Lsyard, or, according to others, near Carcbemish on the Euphrates) assured them that the glory which filled the Temple at Jerusalem was not hopelessly vithdrawn fh>m the outcast people of God. As Jere- miah warned them of coming woe, so Ezekiel taught tbem how to bear that which was come upon them. When Ezekiel died, after passing at least twenty-seven years (Ezek. xxix, 17) in captivity, Daniel survived even beyond the Return ; and though his high station and ascetic llfb probably secluded him fh>m finequent familiar intercourse with his people, he filled the place of chief interpreter of God's will to Israel, and gave the most conspicuous example of devotion and obe- dience to his laws.
4. Tke Rettoraiion from Babylon.— The first great event in the Return is the decree of Cyrus, B.C. 686 (which was possibly fhimed by Daniel ; see Milman, Bid, o/Jewt^ ii, 8), in consequence of which 42,860 Jews of Babylon returned under Sheshbazzar, with 7887 slaves, besides cattle. This ended in their building the altar, and laying the foundation of the second Tem- ple, fifty-three years after the destruction of the first. The progress of the work was, however, almost imme- diately stopped ; for Zembbabel, Jeshua, and the rest abruptly reftised all help fh>m the half-heathen inhab- itants of Samaria, and soon felt the effects of the en- mity thus induced. That the mind of Cyrus was changed by their intrigties we are not informed, but he was probably absent in distant parts through con- tinual war. There is some dififtculty in Ezra iv as to the names Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes, yet the general facts are clear. When Darius (Hystaspis), an able and generous monarch, ascended the throne, the Jews •oon obtained his favor. At this crisis Zembbabel was in chief authority (Sheshbazzar, if a different per- son, perhaps being dead), and under him the Temple was recommenced in the second and finished in the sixth year of Darius, B.C. 520-517. Although this must be reckoned an era in the history, it is not said to have been accompanied with any new immigration of Jews. We pass on to " the seventh year of king Artaxerxes'* (Longimanus), Ezra vii, 7, i. e. B.C. 459, when Ezra oomes np from Babylon to Jerusalem, with the king's commendatory letters, accompanied by a large body of his nation. The enamerarion in Ezra viii makes them under 1800 males, with their fiamilies ; perhaps amounting to 5000 persons, young and old : of whom 113 are recounted as having heathen wives (Ezra x, 1M3). In the twentieth year of the same king, or B.C. 446, Nehemiah, his cup-bearer, gains his pennis-