RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Israel, History of
under his second successor, Josiah (q.v.), who, with all earnestness, reintroduced the Mosaic faith and cultus. Josiah's untimely death, caused by his confronting the Egyptian Necho at Megiddo, was a most serious blow to the welfare of Judah. His son Jehoahaz (q.v.) was removed from the throne by Necho after the latter's return from the East three months later, and Jehoiakim, his elder brother, was put in his place. Jehoiakim (q.v.) became tributary to the Babylonians, but revolted after three years, an offense which was expiated after his death by his son, Jehoiachin (q.v.), whom, after a reign of three months, Nebuchadrezzar took prisoner and carried to Babylon with the noblest of the land. The Babylonians placed upon the throne a third son of Josiah, who assumed the name Zedekiah (q.v.); he, in the ninth year of his reign, conspired in alliance witlT^ the Pharaoh Hophra to throw off the Babylonian yoke, in this going counter to the advice of Jeremiah and Ezekiel and thereby challenging the might of the Euphrates kingdom. The Babylonians invested Jerusalem after defeating a force of Egyptians sent to break the siege, captured the city in 586 B.C., destroyed the temple and the city's defenses, visrted with punishment the leaders of the people, and carried away into captivity all whose social rank exposed them to possibilities of leadership. Gedaliah (q.v.) was made governor and took up his residence in Mizpah, where the remnant of the people gathered about him, and where he soon became the victim of assassination. Many of the remaining people fled into Egypt, taking with them against his will the prophet Jeremiah. Jerusalem lay in "ruins, large parts of the territory of Judea passed into the possession of the Edomites, and the future and promise of Israel for the next fifty years was in the exiles in Babylon.
The exiles were settled in Babylonia along the Chebar in the neighborhood of Nippur (see Baby- Q _, lonia, IV., § 9), where they possessed Exile their own houses and lands and a certain degree of autonomy. The only basis for a history of the exilic period and the life of that time is in the books of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Deutero-Isaiah, which last originated in the last third of the exile. Part of the people relapsed into idolatry. But for the rest, in their enforced abstinence from participation in the religious ordinances of the sanctuary, the spiritual significance of such observances as the Sabbath rest, and the ordinances regarding food and circumcision became deepened as being signs of their distinction as the people of God. The very nearness of heathenism repelled many of the Jews, as there was borne in upon them the fact that their own experiences were the expression of a long-deferred judgment for this sin. There was also impressed upon the nation the idea of its mission in the world as a mediator between God and the nations.
About fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem the Babylonian empire came into the hands of Cyrus. Babylon was taken in 539, and in that year the Jews received from the victor permission to return. Of this permission 42,360 males, with their families, availed themselves under the leadership of Sheshbazzar-Zerubbabel (the identity of Shesh-
bazzar and Zerubbabel is still debated) and the high priest Joshua, and reached Jerusalem probably 10 Th *n ' ^bey settled in Jerusalem and Persian m *^e outlymg cities, set up the altar Period. °f burnt offerings, and made preparations to rebuild the temple. Owing, however, to the opposition of the Samaritans, who placed all difficulties in the way, and to the necessity of securing means of subsistence, the reconstruction of the temple was deferred till the beginning of the reign of Darius, in the years 520-516 B.C., and was accomplished then under the stimulus of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. The report of the return in 538 has been seriously questioned, and the thesis advanced that Zerubbabel was never in exile, and that the temple was rebuilt by the Jews who had remained in Palestine; but these hypotheses are based on arbitrary constructions which fall on examination. For the period 516-458 no reports have been transmitted, except that the narrative of the Book of Esther (q.v.) refers to the time of Xerxes. In 458 B.C. under Artaxerxes I. the condition of the colony at Jerusalem was miserable and the maintenance of its religious distinction endangered. Then the scribe Ezra (q.v.) led back to Judea a new company of exiles consisting of 1,500 males with their families. He was empowered by royal firman to put into practise the requirements of the Mosaic law, but entire success in this direction was attained only when, in 445^144 B.C., Nehemiah (q.v.) came to his support, clothed with the authority of the governorship. Nehemiah reestablished the defenses of Jerusalem by having the walls of the city repaired, notwithstanding the opposition of the Samaritans, and then assisted Ezra in the purification of the community by causing the dismission of the heathen wives and requiring the observance of the entire Mosaic law. After a residence of twelve years Nehemiah returned to the Persian court, but in a later visit to Jerusalem found it necessary to employ stern measures for the preservation of the Mosaic institutions, expelling from the community a grandson of the high priest who had married a daughter of the Samaritan noble Sanballat (q.v.). According to Josephus (Ant. XL, viii. 2 sqq.), this priest, with the help of his father-in-law, established the sanctuary of the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim and set in order its priesthood; but Josephus confused these events with others which occurred in the time of Alexander the Great. Undoubtedly at that time the Samaritans received from the Jews the Pentateuch, which constitutes their Scriptures. Of the last ten years of the Persian period no trustworthy reports have come down. There are statements that Artaxerxes III. Ochus ordered a deportation of Jews to Hyrcania, on the south shore of the Caspian, because they were involved in a rebellion of Phenicians and Cypriotes against the Persians. On this occasion the Persian General Bagoses pushed into the temple, and Josephus reports (Ant. XL, vii. 1) that he substituted Jesus (Joshua) as high priest for his brother John. The political importance of the high priest originated in that period.
With the destruction of the Persian empire by Alexander the Great a new period began for Judea.
Israel, History of