The destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile were a great catastrophe in the history of the Jewish Nation. What really happened during that dark, fateful age, and how did new opportunities arise from the ashes?
The Babylonian Deportations and the Judahite Diaspora in Babylonia (Prof. David Vanderhooft)
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Del curso dictado por Tel Aviv University
The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem
115 calificaciones
De la lección
The restoration of Jerusalem in the early Persian Period
The last module of our course will deal with different aspects of the Persian period: the cult of Jerusalem, changes in Jerusalem's status, the Judahite diaspora, the fall of Babylon and much more. We hope you will enjoy this final module which closes the story of Jerusalem's fall and rise.
Conoce a los instructores
Professor Oded Lipschits, Ph.D.Director, Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology
Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures
We learned in the Babylonian Chronicle a list of actions of the Babylonian king
recorded in cuneiform, that Nebuchadnezzar ascended to the throne of Babylon in 605,
succeeding his father Nabopolassar.
Shortly after the next campaign year,
Nebuchadnezzar conducted a campaign to the west.
During this campaign he came down the Mediterranean coast and
arrived at the end of the campaign in the region of Philistia.
He immediately set about destroying the cities of Philistia,
prominently Ekron and also in Kislev of 604, Ashkelon.
We have some background on the campaign and the concern it was causing
to the local kings of the region in an Aramaic papyrus, that was written
by a person named Adon who was probably located in the city of Ekron in Philistia.
Who appealed to the pharaoh of Egypt for support to resist the Babylonian
campaign as it moved southward down the Mediterranean coast.
The letter is written with a plea to send troops.
This evidently came to no avail.
Ekron was destroyed, possibly in 603.
In the same year, or earlier,
part of that same campaign in Kislev of 604, Nebuchadnezzar approached Ashkelon.
Like the later Ekron, it had no recourse against the Babylonian army.
And the city was devastated.
It was razed to its foundations and
the excavations of the Leon Levy Excavation run by Professor Larry Stager
of Harvard University uncovered a massive destruction of the city.
It was burned and completely destroyed,
its fortifications utterly ruined and the city burned to the ground.
The evidence is thick and deep throughout the site of the 604 destruction
with pottery strewn along streets, in bazaars, and private homes.
We also know that the Babylonians took some of this Philistine population and
removed them in large numbers into Babylonia.
We won't see them for some time until documents of the late sixth century and
then into the fifth century when we see some people from Ashkelon in Babylonia.
In March of 597 the Babylonians returned to the region of Judah and
laid siege to Jerusalem.
We learn in second Kings chapter 24 the following: at that
time the troops of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon marched against Jerusalem and
the city came under siege, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon
advanced against the city while his troops were besieging it.
Thereupon, King Jehoiachin of Judah, along with his mother, and
his courtiers, commanders, and officers surrendered to the king of Babylon.
The king of Babylon took him captive in the eighth year of his reign.
He deported Jehoiachin to Babylon and the king's wives and officers and
the notables of the land were brought as exiles from Jerusalem to Babylon.
And the king of Babylon appointed Mattaniah, Jehoiachin's uncle,
king in his place, changing his name to Zedekiah.
This Biblical narrative is reaffirmed with surprising accuracy in the so-called
Babylonian Chronicle for the year 597, where we learn the following.
For the seventh year: In the month Kislev the king of Akkad,
that is Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar.
Mustered his army and marched to Hatti.
He encamped against the city of Judah and
on the second day of the month of Adar he captured the city and seized its king.
A king of his own choice he appointed in the city and
taking the vast tribute he brought it to Babylon.
What happened to these individuals who were sent from Judah to Babylon?
What happened to the Ashkelonites and
the other Philistines, who in the wake of the 604 and
603 destructions in Philistia were carried away as captives to Babylonia?
We learned some things and knew some things for
some many decades about the fate of a few of these individuals.
Let me say something about that.
In 2 Kings, Chapter 25, the last four verses of the Book of Kings, we find
out what happened to the elite members, including Jehoiachin in Babylonia.
The last four verses of kings read as follows.
In the 37th year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah,
on the 27th day of the 12th month, King Evilmerodach,
whose name in Babylonian is Amel Marduk of Babylon, in the year he became king,
took note of Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison.
He spoke kindly to him, and
gave him a throne above those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.
His prison garments were removed, and
Jehoiachin received regular rations by his favor for the rest of his life.
A regular allotment of food was given him at the insistence of the king,
an allotment for each day, all the days of his life.
So Jehoiachin was emancipated from what seems to have been a more
restrictive confinement to a more, perhaps,
lenient one under the successor of Nebuchadnezzar, Amel Marduk.
This took place later in the 560s.
But we also know from Babylonian sources themselves that
Jehoiachin and his compatriot from Ashkelon, Aga,
were in fact put into confinement in Babylon and given rations in
the immediate vicinity, probably of the capital and its palaces.
They were allowed certain amounts of rations and each according to his status.
What do we know from the Babylonian cuneiform tablets that come
from the city itself about the fate of these kings.
Well, we know from the so-called Weidner tablets,
which were published already in 1939 by Ernst Weidner and which are in Berlin now,
some information about captive kings from the West.
So for example, we hear in those texts that a certain group called
Yahudaia which will sound familiar to you if you know Hebrew or Aramaic.
The Judeans were present in the vicinity of Babylon.
We know, too, from the same text, that Jehoiachin and
his sons together with several other Judeans received rations from the crown.
We know that the Babylonians referred to the country from which they came as Mat or
land of Yahudu, Judah.
But we also know, for example,
that the Ashkelonites were located in the vicinity of Babylon and the palaces.
So for example, Aga and his two sons,
he was the king and his two sons were the crown princes, were located In Babylon.
They are said to come from Mat, or land, of Ishkeluna, Ashkelon.
And they were each given a ration of one sila, a Babylonian measure of grain.
But other Ashkelonites were there, too.
Mariners, leaders of the community, and also singers.
In the court.
So the Babylonians took elite members of the western courts and their retainers and
assistants, housing them in the vicinity of the city and providing them rations.
These texts, as I say, were known since 1939.
After that reference in the Wainer tablets, we have a few stray references
in contracts and other miscellaneous cuneiform Babylonian documents mentioning
from one time to another an occasional Judean or
other member of an elite or just a regular person from the west,
in occasional contracts and documents.
It's not until we reach almost 150 years later
in the end of the 5th century BCE that we begin to learn more
from cuneiform documents about the fate of these Westerners.
In the so-called Murashu Archive, a collection of documents from
a business family near the city of Nippur Southeast of Babylon.
We begin to learn, once again,
that these Judeans who had been sent to the land of Babylon are present and
active in administrative contexts, economic contexts, farming contexts.
But what happened between the time of 597 and 586 when Judah was finally destroyed,
and this time of the Murashu Archives in the late 5th century BCE?
This region, this period of time was known, for
the most part as a kind of dark age.
Stray references but no more, the only other information we have,
of course was from the Bible.
This is now beginning to change slowly, and
in a new collection of texts that were obtained in the antiquities market,
we find out that Judeans were settled in the vicinity of Nippur
immediately upon their arrival as deportees from Judah.
So too, were others from other countries.
They were put together in ethnic homogenous neighborhoods and
settlements, in the vicinity of the Babylonian hinterland.
Probably with the intention of resuscitating the economies
of these relatively outlying areas of Babylonia.
So we know twin towns, as the phenomenon has sometimes been called.
Whereby, people from the old homeland town in their native country
were settled in a new town in Babylonia and it was given the same name.
We know of a town of the Ashkelonites, a town of Gaza,
a town of Tyre, a town of Nayrob, a town of Gezer and perhaps,
now most interestingly, Judahville or Al-Yahudu, the city of Judah.
A settlement, evidently populated largely by Judeans in the vicinity of Nippur.
We have an increasing number of documents available to us from this so
called Al-Yahudu, or the city of Judah, and other local towns in the vicinity.
Only a few of them have so far been published, but they give us a tantalizing
view of how Judeans were living their lives in Babylonia after 586.
How were the Judeans then living their lives in Babylonia after 582?
These cuneiform texts from the vicinity of Al-Yahudu either in the city or
nearby begin to give us a glimpse into how they lived their lives.
The published examples of these texts show us for example marriage contacts.
West Semites, people from the vicinity of Judah and
elsewhere marrying in the local context.
We learn of their business transactions and we learn of for example,
an inheritance division, in which after the death of a father,
the property owned by him is divided up among his several sons.
What else do we know of these Judeans in Babylonia from these new cuneiform
tablets?
We learn for example that they were organized according to a certain kind of
Babylonian association or a Hatru.
And in the Hatru local officials, local Judeans functioned as officials on
behalf of the Babylonian crown to collect taxes, to remit produce, and so forth.
So we have Judeans functioning in roles that we've known from the Babylonian
economics context for some while.
For example, as a Shoshano, or
as a Daku, this is a term for a tax collector or something.
So these Judeans are collecting the tax of their local brethren,
and remitting them as payment for obligations to the crown.
Who, how do we know they're Judeans?
The texts are written in Babylonian.
Well, the texts describe the people by name, and
we learn that they have typically west Semitic names.
So, for example, you have a name like Av-Dayahu
which in Hebrew would be Ovadia or Obadiah.
The first element is Eved or servant, and the second element,
Yahu is of course the name for the God of Israel.
That element often in these texts is preceded by the sign
Babylonian scribes use to mark a character as a god.
So the scribes in cuneiform knew that the west Semitic
population from Judah had names that included the divine name Yud Heh Vav.
So, they fulfilled these various roles and we know that they're Judeans because of
their names and their lists of affiliation.
One father with a name like Ovadia will be the son of another man
whose name was Baruchiah, in other words, Berechiah, or the like.
So, these Judeans are retaining their ethnic if you wish self
consciousness by giving their children names that are likewise Judean and
show affiliation to the tradition in allegiance to the god of Judah.
Not all however follow the same patterns.
Some gave their children local Mesopotamian names.
As immigrant communities are apt to do through time.
So, sometimes we'll find a father who is a Judean and
a son who has an Akkadian name or even sometimes vice versa,
a father with an Akkadian name who has a son with a Judean name.
So, as far as we know then from these texts,
the Judeans would show allegiance to their origins,
to their, perhaps, religious practices if we can judge from their names.
And yet, we also find out from the text that the Judeans were able to
insinuate themselves,
or to use anthropological terms, they were able to acculturate in Babylonia.
Their marriage contracts, for example,
were written out according to the Babylonian style and procedures.
The amounts paid in terms of dowries and the penalties for
a breach of contract were characteristic of the Babylonian context.
In the inheritance division, again, it was Akkadian or
Mesopotamian scribes who are notarizing the document and
making legal the inheritance to subsequent generations.
And as I say, some people were adopting Babylonian names.
So it's not a matter simply of the Judeans remaining in their little enclave and
having nothing to do with the wider Akkadian or Mesopotamian world.
At some level they're beginning to accommodate themselves to this world.
This led to tensions, probably, between those who saw this as
utterly unacceptable, and those who saw it as completely normal.
The usual kinds of tensions we might see in immigrant communities in other contexts
throughout time
and in historical periods.
Let me offer one example of one of the Babylonian texts that was written on
behalf of Judeans who were dividing up the property of their father in inheritance.
This is the translation offered by Kathleen Abraham
in her initial publication of the text, partially restored by her.
These are the slaves, a share in the paternal
estate which Neriyah or Neriyah and Yahu-azza,
the sons of Ahiya-qam and Haggay Yahu Izzri and Yahu su,
three other sons of Ahiya qam have divided among them.
The slave Nanaya is the inheritance share of Neriyah and Yahu-azza.
Sahid-Yahu, the slave, and eight barrels of the inheritance
go to the other three sons, Haggay, Yahu-izzri and Yahu-su.
While they split.
Here I'm just reading the partially broken text.
They split up the rest of the household utensils, or goods, among them.
The text continues a little later.
The obligation which is outstanding against
their father Ahiya-qam they will pay off jointly.
The text then is witnessed by a whole series of notaries.
The first several are local Mesopotamian individuals with Akkadian names.
And then some Judeans who have classically Yahwistic names at the end.
The text was written we learned, in the 18th year of King Darius.
In the city of Al-Yahudu, the city of Judah.
And each one of the five participants in this inheritance division,
gets a copy of the contract.
So we can see several interesting things from this text.
They were acculturated very well.
They have achieved a certain measure of wealth and
property which can be divided among the sons.
They have slaves and in fact one of the slaves, Shahi-Yahu, has a name that's Yahwistic
which means that some Judeans have slaves who were themselves Judeans in local,
in Babylon.
So by the end of the sixth century then we can see that there's a huge process
of bringing these Judeans into the sphere of Babylonian life and culture.
This of course though, wasn't entirely satisfactory to everybody and so
if we think only from the biblical point of view,
we can imagine some people will have massive disagreements with
persons who are acculturated this way in the Babylonian environment.
So, if when things, for example, of the so-called second Isaiah, who produced,
at the very least chapters 40 to 55 of the Book of Isaiah, we find
study Polemics against Babylonian religious practices.
Babylonian mantic or divinatory practices.
Babylonian intellectual conceits.
And this is something that the second Isaiah finds, of course,
objectionable and to be resisted.
So, for example, in chapter 44 of the Book of Isaiah, we have a very lengthy screed
against the building of idols in the practice of Babylonian religion,
in which the religious practitioners in Babylonia are made to seem ridiculous.
For example, in 44 verse 9,
we read, the makers of idols all work to no purpose, and the things they
treasure can do no good; as they themselves can testify they neither look,
that is the idols, nor think, and so they, the makers, will be shamed.
They mock them for making idols out of wood, or
metal, which are of course, mute and useless.
The second Isaiah instead argues of course, that it's the God of Israel,
who's the living God, who decides the fate of nations.
But one can imagine that this would have been a very difficult argument for
some Judaeans to appreciate,
in the context of Babylonia,
where they were subjugated by the Babylonian authorities and where they
lived under the claims of Babylonian kings who worked as they understood it
in the service of their own God Marduk subjugate foreign populations.
In addition to this mocking language about idols in second Isaiah,
we also find that the second Isaiah goes farther.
He even says that their entire intellectual apparatus is a hoax or
built on stupidity.
So in chapter 47 he mocks Lady Babylon,
personified, and says Sit in silence, in verse five.
Retire into darkness, O fair maiden Chaldea, the name for
Babylon, never more will they call you Mistress of Kingdoms.
And in verse 12, it says stand up with your spells and your many enchantments
on which you labored since your youth; perhaps you'll be able to profit.
Perhaps you'll find strength, mocking rhetorical assertions, of course.
And in verse 13, you're helpless
despite all your art, let them stand up and help you now the scanners of heaven,
the stargazers, who announce month by month whatever will come upon you.
So you can see that the second Isaiah had a very powerful animus against Babylon and
its pretensions and cultic practices.
This long Polemic in the second Isaiah against Babylon was
probably given near the time when the end of the Babylonian Kingdom
could be foreseen by the prophet in anticipation of the rise
of Cyrus the great of Persia who would of course in 539 put
an end to the Native Babylonian rule in their capital.
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