Kitabı oku: «The History of Antiquity, Vol. 3 (of 6)», sayfa 19

Five years had elapsed since the battle of Karchemish when Nebuchadnezzar crossed the borders of Judah (600 B.C.).⁶¹³ Jehoiakim submitted and thus escaped destruction. After the subjugation of Ammon, Moab, and Judah, Nebuchadnezzar could turn his arms against the southern coast of Syria. This advance of Nebuchadnezzar and the necessity of preventing Babylonia from establishing herself on the borders of Egypt, could not but bring Egypt again into arms. Necho had had time to recover from the defeat of Karchemish. The hope of aid from Egypt induced Jehoiakim to renounce his obedience three years after he had submitted to Nebuchadnezzar, and to turn his arms against Babylonia. At Nebuchadnezzar's command the troops of the neighbouring states who had remained loyal, the Northern Syrians, the Ammonites, and Moabites, first invaded the land of Judah. When the Egyptians had been driven back into their borders, and the king of Babylon had "taken everything that belonged to the king of Egypt from the river Euphrates to the brook of Egypt," Nebuchadnezzar turned his arms back against Jerusalem to punish the rebels.⁶¹⁴ Jehoiakim had recently died, and the people had raised to the throne his son Jechoniah, a youth of eighteen years old. Jerusalem was invested by the Babylonian army: Nebuchadnezzar came in person to conduct the siege.⁶¹⁵ "By my life," – such are the words Jeremiah puts in the mouth of Jehovah, – "if Jechoniah were a signet on my right hand, I would pluck him off, and give him into the hands of those who seek after his life, into the hands of the Chaldæans. I cast thee away and thy mother into another land, and they shall not bring thee back unto the land whither thy heart yearns to return."⁶¹⁶ Jechoniah had only sat three months on the throne when he saw himself compelled by the advance of the siege to open the gates of Jerusalem to the enemy. With his mother Nehustha, who appears to have been regent for him, with the officers of his household and the eunuchs, he went into the camp of the Chaldæans to give himself up to the king of Babylon (597 B.C.).⁶¹⁷

Nebuchadnezzar wished to be secure of the obedience of the Jews; he did not intend that the hope of Egypt should again bring them under arms. He caused not only the young king and his mother, the courtiers, the treasures, and the best furniture of the temple to be carried to Babylon, but also the influential people in the city, the captains of the army, and all the men of war in Jerusalem to the number of 7000. In order to disarm the city more completely, the workers in iron, the smiths and lock-smiths, were carried away. In all, 10,023 souls were transplanted by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylonia, only people of no importance are said to have been left in Jerusalem. In Jechoniah's place Nebuchadnezzar set up his uncle Zedekiah, the fourth son of Josiah, as viceroy, and pledged him to obedience and fidelity by joining hands and taking an oath.⁶¹⁸ The Jews carried away were settled, after the example of the Assyrian princes, in Babylonia, in part on the Chaboras.

These rules for securing the obedience of the small territory did not break the tough spirit of the Jews, their stubborn resistance, or their eager desire for freedom and independence. Zedekiah and those around him felt the disgrace of the yoke which was laid upon them, and shared with the mass of the people the desire to shake it off on the first opportunity. Many prophets favoured this tendency and promised victory and success to a new rebellion in arms. Not long after Zedekiah had been placed on the throne, the prophet Hananiah of Gibeon announced before all the people in the temple: "In two years Jehovah will bring back to this place all the furniture of the temple which Nebuchadnezzar has carried to Babylon; and I will bring back, saith Jehovah, Jechoniah the king of Judah and all the captives, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon."⁶¹⁹ Jeremiah came forward in opposition and said: "Wooden yokes thou wilt break, and lay on iron yokes. Behold, I will remove thee from the earth, saith Jehovah; in this year thou shalt die, for thou hast counselled rebellion." And Hananiah died, as tradition adds, in the same year, in the seventh month.⁶²⁰

Jeremiah was never weary of opposing to the uttermost any view of this kind. To him the Chaldæans were the instrument of Jehovah for the punishment of the nations: to endure their rule was, in his view, the will of Jehovah; any one who resisted the Chaldæans only brought on himself a heavier yoke, and called down destruction more completely on his head. If Isaiah had at least cherished the belief in the continuance of Jerusalem and the temple, Jeremiah, as we have seen, did not share in this hope. And therefore he preached without ceasing submission to the yoke, and patient obedience; he was unwearied in taking from the people every prospect of rescue; he sent letters to the Jews transplanted to Babylonia, and urged them not to enter into conspiracies; he went so far as to commend the lot of these captives, and requested them to build houses in Babylon, and pray to Jehovah for the welfare of that country.⁶²¹ But though the national feelings and impulses of his nation were unknown to a prophet whose eyes were directed upwards, though for him the feeling of nationality was lost in religious conceptions, – the efforts of the people to win back its independent existence, the stubborn tenacity with which the Jews were ready to fight for their fatherland, and break the yoke of the foreigner, even when they rested on deceptive calculations, were not less justified than the intelligent calculation of the impossibility of such an attempt; and even from the lofty religious position of Jeremiah, who regarded nothing but the inward salvation, the purity, and elevation of the heart, could claim appreciation, since even the common children of earth must have their rights. Who could blame those who, even in the most hopeless, desperate condition, estimated more highly the duty of dying for their country, than the advice to submit quietly to the conqueror? That persons who held these views should consider this step on the part of Jeremiah as a corrupt movement, should demand that the prophet take the side of his own nation against the foreigner, and brand his predictions as treason to the state, is easily intelligible.

In such a sharp opposition of views, and in the strained position of affairs in which Judah found herself between Babylon and Egypt, it was impossible but that heavy accusations should be brought against Jeremiah, and a hot persecution set on foot against him. He complains bitterly how he was daily mocked and derided;⁶²² he is in despair and laments his destiny; he tells us how he had determined to speak no more in the name of Jehovah, but the inward voice compelled him; the fire was kindled in his heart: "I could not stay."⁶²³ "Cursed be the day," he exclaims, "on which I was born! cursed be the man who brought glad tidings to my father, and said unto him, 'A son is born unto thee!' Why, Jehovah, didst thou not slay me in the womb, that I should see labour and sorrow, and consume my days with shame?"⁶²⁴ These moods alternate with a fierce desire for vengeance on his opponents. He is guiltless. Jehovah has driven him forth to speak, and put his word in his mouth; he has often besought Jehovah to turn away from Judah the day of destruction: Jehovah, for whom he suffers, must avenge him on his enemies. He is so embittered and angry that he even calls down bloody destruction upon his enemies. "Look on me, Jehovah," he says, "and avenge me of my persecutors, and know that for thy sake I have suffered rebuke.⁶²⁵ I have not desired the woful day, thou knowest: that which came out from my lips was before thee.⁶²⁶ If thy words came to me, I took them eagerly, and they are the joy and rejoicing of my heart; I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced. I sat alone, for thou hast filled me with indignation. I was like a lamb led to the slaughter, and knew not that they had devised devices against me.⁶²⁷ Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable?⁶²⁸ Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are they happy that deal very treacherously?⁶²⁹ Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of destruction.⁶³⁰ Consider how I stand before thee, to turn away thy wrath from them. Therefore give up their children to the famine, and deliver them to the sword. Let their men be the sacrifice of death, and their women bereaved and widows. Thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me; forgive them not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight."⁶³¹ Jeremiah then received the answer of Jehovah, who said to him: "Gird thy loins; speak to them all that I bid thee; be not afraid of them. I will make thee a fenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land; against the king, the priests, the elders, and the people. They shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee; I will save thee from the hand of the wicked, and deliver thee from the grasp of the furious."⁶³²

So Jeremiah prophesied again: "No doubt, their prophets say to them: Ye shall not see the sword nor shall ye have famine, but the Lord will give you happy days in this land. But Jehovah saith: I have not commanded them nor spoken to them; they prophesy a false vision, and the deceit of their heart, and divination. By the sword and famine shall they perish. The people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem.⁶³³ They will say: We acknowledge, O Jehovah, our iniquity, and the sin of our fathers, but do not abhor us, for thy name's sake; do not disgrace the throne of thy glory; break not thy covenant with us. But Jehovah saith to me: Pray not for this people; though Moses and Samuel stood before me, my mind could not be towards them.⁶³⁴ Sorrow not with them. I have taken from them my salvation, my grace, and mercy. The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and graven with the point of a diamond upon the table of their hearts, and upon the horns of their altars."⁶³⁵

In such a contest of opposite views, in such an alternation of moods, four years had passed for the Jews after Zedekiah was placed by Nebuchadnezzar upon the throne, when the kings of Sidon and Tyre sent to Jerusalem to call on the Jews to revolt against Nebuchadnezzar, by whose attack they were threatened. Messengers also came from the Ammonites and the Moabites, who had been in subjection longer than the Jews, and from the Edomites (593 B.C.). If their forces were united there seemed to be a prospect of success in resistance and rebellion, and the reduction of the Phenician cities might be prevented. But Jeremiah spoke to the envoys in the name of Jehovah: "I have made the earth, the man and the beast, and I gave them to whom it seemed meet to me; and now I give all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I have given him the beasts of the field also to serve him. And the nation and the kingdom which will not serve Nebuchadnezzar, – that nation I will punish with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. If ye put your necks in the yoke of Babylon, ye shall live."⁶³⁶ This time the view of the prophet prevailed; Zedekiah repaired in person to Babylon obviously to assure Nebuchadnezzar of his fidelity.⁶³⁷ The Phenicians were left to their fate, and subjugated by Nebuchadnezzar.⁶³⁸ Only Sidon seems to have made a vigorous resistance.⁶³⁹ The island city of Tyre retained her independence.

In the year 589 B.C., Hophrah, the grandson of Necho, ascended the throne of Egypt. Zedekiah soon directed his eyes to the new ruler of the valley of the Nile. He showed himself ready to venture on the struggle with Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah dissuaded them: "Egypt is a very fair heifer," he exclaims, "but destruction cometh from the North. O thou daughter, dwelling in Egypt, furnish thyself to go into captivity; for Noph (Memphis) shall be waste, and burnt, and desolate without an inhabitant. The hired men in the midst of her are like fatted bullocks, for they also are turned back and are fled away together; they did not stand because the day of their calamity was come upon them, the time of their visitation. The daughter of Egypt shall be confounded. Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Behold, I will punish Ammon of No (Thebes), and Pharaoh and Egypt, with their gods and their kings, even Pharaoh and all them that trust in him. And I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants."⁶⁴⁰

But the prince and people of Judah were not to be restrained. Building on the help of Egypt, Zedekiah, in the year 588 B.C., took up arms against Babylonia.⁶⁴¹ But before Hophrah had finished his preparations Nebuchadnezzar was in Judah with a powerful army.⁶⁴² The strong places were invested: one city after another surrendered, only Lachish and Aseka resisted for any length of time.⁶⁴³ "At the meeting of the ways," says the prophet Ezekiel, "the king of Babylon halts to make divination; he shakes his arrows, consults with the teraphim, looks in the liver of the victim. In his right hand is the divination for Jerusalem, to throw up a wall against Jerusalem, to build towers, to appoint battering-rams against the gates, to lift up the voice with shouting. The head-band will be taken, and the crown removed from the prince of Israel."⁶⁴⁴

The siege of Jerusalem commenced. If in former times, when the Assyrians were encamped before Jerusalem, Isaiah had urged the nation and king to a courageous endurance though arms had been taken up against his advice, the absoluteness of his deep conviction, the certainty which he had received from above, did not permit Jeremiah to take up the attitude of his great predecessor; on the contrary, he did not cease even now to condemn the resistance in the strongest terms. In his eyes it was a rebellion against the counsels of God, against the divine order of the world. When Zedekiah sent to him, to bid him inquire of Jehovah about the issue of the siege, Jeremiah answered: "I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon, and I will bring the Chaldæans into the city. I will fight against you with an outstretched arm, and will deliver the city into the hands of the king of Babylon, that he may burn it, and I will visit your inhabitants with famine, sword, and pestilence, and those that are left I will give into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, that he may smite them with the edge of the sword. I set before you the way of life and the way of death; he that abideth in the city shall fall by the sword; but he that goeth out and falleth to the Chaldæans he shall live."⁶⁴⁵ Though these announcements were adapted to undermine the courage and strength of the resistance, and heavy as was the weight given to them by the position which Jeremiah held among the prophets, they did not discourage the king and the population of the metropolis. The debtors and all slaves of Hebrew birth were set at liberty in order to strengthen the numbers for the defence.

Success seemed to come to the aid of their endurance and courage. The Egyptian army advanced and compelled the Chaldæans to raise the siege of Jerusalem (587 B.C.).⁶⁴⁶ There was time to recover breath. Had not Jehovah again delivered Jerusalem as in the day when Sennacherib oppressed the city? Jeremiah's dreary proclamations seemed contradicted. But he persisted in his position and announced: "Pharaoh's army which is come forth to help you shall return into Egypt, and the Chaldæans shall come again before the city, and shall take it. And though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldæans and there remained but wounded men in their tents, they would rise up and burn Jerusalem with fire."⁶⁴⁷ It was natural that Jeremiah, in consequence of these speeches and predictions, should appear a traitor in the eyes of the nation, who were struggling for freedom and existence. When, availing himself of the raising of the siege, he wished to go to his plot of ground at Anathoth, he was seized in the gate as a deserter to the Chaldæans and thrown into prison. Yet the king allowed him to be kept in less severe custody, and soon set him at liberty.⁶⁴⁸

The prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled. The Egyptians were defeated. Invested once more, Jerusalem was pressed more severely than ever.⁶⁴⁹ The lines of the Chaldæans ran even to the walls of the city,⁶⁵⁰ but the defenders were unwearied. The houses and even the buildings of the palaces were in part pulled down in order to strengthen the shattered walls, or build new portions.⁶⁵¹ That Jeremiah under such circumstances continued to preach the abandonment of the siege, and subjection to the Chaldæans, roused at length the captains. They demanded his death from the king: "He weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain, and the hands of the people: he seeketh not the welfare of the Jews, but the hurt."⁶⁵² As Zedekiah allowed them to do with Jeremiah according to their pleasure, they seized him, brought him for custody to the hill of Zion, and there caused him to be thrown into the well of the prison. But there was only mud in the well, and when an Ethiopian eunuch of the king interceded with him for the prophet, Zedekiah gave command that Jeremiah should be taken out of the well, and confined in the court of the prison.⁶⁵³

Meantime "the famine prevailed in the city;" the distress rose to the highest pitch. "The priests and the elders," so we are told in the Lamentations, "sought food in vain: the sword destroys without, the famine within. The people sought food with sighs, and whatsoever a man had of price he gave for food. The children and the sucklings swooned; they cried to their mothers, where is corn and wine, when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosoms. Better was it for those who were slain with the sword than for those who were slain with hunger; the hands of pitiful women have sodden their children for food."⁶⁵⁴ At length the Chaldæans, whose attack was directed to the most accessible part, the north side of the city, succeeded in taking the suburb surrounded by the outer wall.⁶⁵⁵ Having gained possession of this, they directed their efforts against the middle gate, which guarded the entrance into the city beside the fortress of Millo (p. 128). Led by Nergal Sarezer, and Sarsechim, the captain of the eunuchs, the Babylonians took the middle gate in the night by storm, and firmly established themselves there. Zedekiah despaired of being able to maintain the city any longer, with the motley crowd of soldiers weakened by hunger, and the inhabitants who doubtless suffered still more in numbers and strength. He attempted to break through with his army. He succeeded in passing the lines and gaining the open country, but the Chaldæans in pursuit came up with the troop which had so boldly broken out in the plain of Jericho. The troop was dispersed; a part, including Zedekiah, was captured, the rest escaped. The inhabitants, even after the king and army had left the city, stubbornly defended themselves in the various parts – in the citadel and the temple – so that some weeks elapsed before the city was completely in the hands of the Babylonians (July, 586 B.C.). The siege had lasted one year five months and seven days.⁶⁵⁶

The first rebellion of the Jews had been punished by Nebuchadnezzar by the dethronement and abduction of the king, by carrying away the influential people and the army of Jerusalem, and by disarming the city. These arrangements had not been sufficient to secure the obedience of the little country. For the future Egypt was no longer to find confederates in Southern Syria, and support in Jerusalem. The stubborn resistance of the Jews was to be broken; an end must be put for ever to their intrigues with Egypt. Zedekiah, who was placed on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar himself, and swore obedience to him, was not to escape the punishment of this breach of faith. Nebuchadnezzar was not with the besieging army; he was at Riblah, on the Orontes, the grassy plain where Necho had pitched his camp after the battle of Megiddo. Thither Zedekiah was brought. In his presence were first executed the captive leaders of the Jews, and among them his own sons. Then his eyes were put out; he was laden with chains, and carried away to Babylon. There he died in prison.⁶⁵⁷ The punishment of Jerusalem was carried out by Nebusaradan, the chief of the body-guard of Nebuchadnezzar. The high priest, Seraiah, together with the second priest, Zephaniah, the overseers of the temple, a number of public officers, and sixty of the most distinguished men in the city, were also taken to Riblah, and put to death, seventy-two in number.⁶⁵⁸ The brazen pillars at the entrance to the temple, and the brazen sea (II. 182, 184), all the vessels and furniture of the temple which still remained, and everything that was to be found of value in the palace, was carried off to Babylon.⁶⁵⁹ The Chaldæan army levelled the walls; city, palace, and temple were burned to the ground. The inhabitants who survived were carried away, "except the poor people who had nothing;" even from the country the richer men were carried away with their wives and children, and only the common people left behind.⁶⁶⁰ Over the remnant of the population a Jew, Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam (p. 317), who must previously have given proof of his Chaldæan sentiments, was placed as viceroy. He took up his abode in Mizpeh, where a Babylonian garrison remained.⁶⁶¹

"O daughter of Zion, let thy tears flow like rivers day and night" – so the Jews lamented – "give thyself no rest. The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world would not have believed that the besieging army could have entered into the gates of Jerusalem. Jehovah hath cast off his altar, and abhorred his sanctuary. The stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. The Lord hath thrown down from heaven to earth the beauty of Jerusalem, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger. He hath poured out his fury like fire upon the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion.⁶⁶² The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and keep silence; they cast dust upon their heads; they are girded with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the earth. They that go by strike the hands together, and shake the head over the daughter of Jerusalem. Is this the city which was called the garland of beauty, the joy of the whole earth? Thy enemies shoot out their lips at thee; hiss and say: We have swallowed her up: this is the day that we looked for; we have done it. The gates are desolate; the ways to Zion mourn; no one cometh to the festival. Behold and see, all ye that pass by, if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow.⁶⁶³ Our possession is fallen to strangers, our houses to aliens; we are orphans without a father; our mothers are like widows. Servants rule over us; they weaken our wives and virgins: they hang up the captains: they honour not the faces of the elders; we have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold to us. The young men grind the mill-stones, and the children fall under the wood.⁶⁶⁴ The punishment of my people is greater than the punishment of Sodom.⁶⁶⁵ All mine enemies rejoice at my trouble, and laugh at my overthrow, but thou, Jehovah, will bring the day when they will be as I am; do to them as thou hast done to me.⁶⁶⁶ Our fathers have sinned and are not; we have borne their iniquities. Take us again to thee, Jehovah; is it right that thou shouldest utterly throw us away and be so wroth with us?"⁶⁶⁷

Jeremiah was still a prisoner in the court of the citadel when the Chaldæans forced their way into it. With the rest of the inhabitants of Jerusalem he had been taken to Ramah, in order to be carried away into Babylonia from thence, when Nebusaradan, at the command of Nebuchadnezzar, to whom in the interim Jeremiah's conduct must have been known, caused his fetters to be taken off, and gave him the choice whether he would remain or go to Babylonia. It was in his power to go where he would: if he went to Babylonia he would not be neglected there. Jeremiah answered that he wished to remain in the land. Nebusaradan then gave him maintenance and a present, and put him in the hands of the viceroy, Gedaliah, to convey him to his house at Anathoth.

Gedaliah exercised his new authority in a spirit of conciliation; he attempted to establish order and peace. If Nebusaradan, before his departure from the conquered city, had given the unoccupied fields and vineyards before the gates to the people "who had nothing," Gedaliah summoned his countrymen who had fled to the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites, back to Mizpeh, "and they gathered summer fruits and wine in great abundance." He also entered into negotiations with the chieftains and their soldiers, who with Zedekiah had broken through the lines and escaped the defeat at Jericho, in order to put an end to their plundering in the land; he offered to give up to them the places of which they had taken possession; if they would dwell there and serve the king of Babylon it would be well with them.⁶⁶⁸ The greater number accepted these proposals, and put themselves under the rule of Gedaliah, whose wise arrangements had their effect, and seemed to promise further success. Jeremiah himself remained at Mizpeh with Gedaliah, to whose action his advice, counsel, and influence could give considerable support.⁶⁶⁹ Two months had not passed since the capture of Jerusalem, and already a number of men out of Samaria, Shechem, and Shilo, ventured to go to the ruins of Jerusalem with frankincense and meat-offerings, in order to sacrifice at the holy place, the seat of the temple.

In the hearts of the great majority fierce resentment must have been raging against the destroyers of Jerusalem and the temple, against the conquerors of Judah. If Nebuchadnezzar could not be reached, his viceroy was in the land. A distinguished man of the Jewish stock had submitted to be the servant of the deadly enemy. This traitor and servant could be found. Ishmael, a man of the royal blood, and of the family of David,⁶⁷⁰ one of the fugitives, came with ten men to Mizpeh. He put on the appearance of submission. Gedaliah invited him to the banquet, at which with his associates he cut down Gedaliah, the Chaldæans, and the Jews who were present. The king's daughter and others who had been placed in Gedaliah's care, the Jews who were assembled at Mizpeh, followed Ishmael. He acted in union with Baalis, the king of Ammon, with whom he had intended to take refuge. But the other chieftains, who had made their peace with Gedaliah, pursued after him, overtook him at the pool of Gibeon, and took away the prisoners from him; Ishmael himself escaped to the king of Ammon.

The chiefs of the Jews, who were assembled at Mizpeh, were afraid that Nebuchadnezzar would still avenge on them the murder of Gedaliah. They resolved to fly to Egypt. Jeremiah was to entreat Jehovah, and declare his will to them. After ten days the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, and he spake: "Be not afraid of the king of Babylon, for I am with you, saith Jehovah, unto whom ye sent me to present your supplication. I am with you to help you, and deliver you from the hand of the king of Babylon. If ye will not obey the voice of Jehovah, your God, saying: We will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; the sword which ye feared shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine whereof ye were afraid shall follow close upon you, and there shall ye die. Jehovah hath spoken to you, ye remnant of Judah. Go ye not into Egypt; know certainly that I have admonished you this day." The warning voice was in vain. With the captains at their head, the fugitives who had assembled at Mizpeh, and the king's daughters, men and women, and all whom Nebusaradan had left behind with Gedaliah, set out to Egypt. Jeremiah and Baruch also followed, apparently under compulsion.

The fate which the Assyrians had prepared for the state of the ten tribes 136 years previously had now fallen on the kingdom of Judah. The temple was destroyed with the metropolis, and with the temple the last hope of the nation was gone; the remainder of the community, founded under Joshua's guidance 700 years previously, was annihilated; the sanctuaries were in the hands of the conqueror. Like the Israelites, the nation of Judah was now shattered and torn asunder. By the canals in Egypt, and by the waters of Babylon, on the Chaboras in Mesopotamia, and on the mouths of the Nile, lingered the fugitives and exiles.⁶⁷¹ Nothing remained to them but the remembrance of David's glory, and sorrow for the fall of Israel. But the longer duration which was allowed to the kingdom of Judah had borne good fruits. It had given the Jews time to strengthen and deepen their religious and national feeling. It was not merely that the throne of Judah remained in the possession of the descendants of David, or that the kingdom of Judah possessed a highly revered centre in the temple, and thus had maintained a strong organisation of the priesthood; in the sufferings and struggles of the last seventy years these priests, in connection with the prophets, and filled with their views, had learned to regard the faith in Jehovah in a more inward manner, and plant it more deeply in the hearts of the people. They had given a legal basis to the worship of Jehovah, and exalted it to be the recognised religion of the state. If by this means the state gained nothing in regard to external power and security, an inestimable treasure was gained in regard to the confirmation and development of religious feeling. There was hardly any fear that the captive and fugitive Jews would lose themselves in the foreign nations among whom they dwelt, like the Israelites, who had been transplanted to Assyria and Media, or that they would give up their national faith. Behind the punishment induced by the sins of the people, the prophets had proclaimed the restoration of the purified Israel. The punishment had burst upon them, they did not doubt that the restoration would come. If Asshur had fallen, the hour of Babylon might strike; Jeremiah had already fixed the time for it. Thus the destruction of their state and their shrines did not make the Jews despair of the help of their God, or cause them to fall from their faith. Those who remained behind, no less than those who were driven out, cherished the hope of Jehovah's help as deeply as they felt the pain of the fall of Jerusalem.