rendered unconditionally. The king himself was carried captive to Babylon with the flower of the population: all the men of might, even seven thousand, and the craftsmen, and the smiths a thousand, all of them strong 2 Kings xxiv. 18- and apt for war (2 Kings xxiv. 16). Over the remnant that remained Mattaniah, the uncle of Jehoiachin, was appointed king, his name being changed to Zedekiah.

Zedekiah (597-586):

XXV. 22.

The prophet Jeremiah, who had for some time remained in comparative seclusion, now resumed his public ministry as the counsellor of complete subjection to the supremacy of Babylon. While prophets, like Habakkuk, whose book seems to belong to the critical period before the decisive battle of Carchemish (605), complained of the brutal violence and insolent pride of the Chaldaean invader, and uttered the appealing cry, O Lord, how long? Jeremiah steadfastly preached the duty of submission. In his eyes the Chaldaean invasion was the divinely ordained chastisement of Judah's sin; the ruthless enemies of his country were only fulfilling Jehovah's righteous will. Respecting the position of affairs in Jerusalem at this time, we find evidence not only in the writings of Jeremiah, but also in those of Ezekiel, who was probably one of the captives carried away after the recent siege (597). Both prophets draw an appalling picture of the state of Judah - the prevalence of idolatry of the most debased type; the iniquity of the rulers; the fanatical and misguided patriotism of the populace; the delusive promises of the false prophets, like Hananiah, who proclaimed that Jehovah's indignation was overpast, that Judah had already suffered enough, and that the deliverance of the captives from the yoke of Babylon was imminent (Jer. xxviii.). Meanwhile, Jeremiah and Ezekiel fixed their hope on the exiles settled in Babylon. These were objects of contempt to their degenerate countrymen in Judah;1 but the true prophets perceived that on

1 See Ezek. xi. 15 foll.

The book of

them depended the destinies of the Hebrew race. Jeremiah contains a letter to the exiles, who in his eyes constituted the Israel of the future (Jer. xxix.). He bids them patiently submit to their hard lot, and counsels them to seek the peace of the city whither they have been carried captive, to turn a deaf ear to the delusive promises of false prophecy, and to wait quietly for the fulfilment of Jehovah's purpose.

Revolt of Zedekiah.

Siege and fall of Jerusalem, 588-586.

In the ninth year of his reign, Zedekiah, who had long been plotting with a view to rebellion, finally broke faith with the king of Babylon, and revolted, relying on empty hopes of support held out by Hophra (or Apries), king of Egypt 588-569.1 The vengeance inflicted by Nebuchadnezzar was swift and exemplary. With a powerful army he once more invaded Judah and besieged Jerusalem. After an eighteen months' siege, when the city was already hard-pressed by famine, a breach was made in the walls (9 July, 586). Zedekiah with his men of war attempted to escape in the direction of the Jordan valley, but they were pursued, captured, and brought to the presence of the Babylonian monarch at Riblah. The sons of Zedekiah were slain before his eyes; after which he himself was blinded and carried in fetters to Babylon, where he died miserably in prison. A month later Nebuzar-adan, the captain of Nebuchadnezzar's body-guard, arrived at Jerusalem armed with full power to inflict vengeance on the rebellious city. The temple, the palace, and all the principal buildings were pillaged and burned; the walls were broken down; the chief officers, priests, and notables were sent in chains to Riblah and there put to death; the sacred vessels of the sanctuary were confiscated, and th greater part of the inhabitants were carried

1 On Nebuchadnezzar's invasion of Egypt, of which scanty notices remain in the inscriptions, see Driver, in Authority and Archaeology, p. 117.

Murder of Gedaliah : 2 Kings xxv. 23-26.

captive to Babylon. Only the poorest of the land were left to be vinedressers and husbandmen. Over this miserable remnant Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, was appointed governor, and established himself at Mizpeh. He was a friend of Jeremiah, and shared his conviction that the only hope of safety for Judah lay in complete submission to the Chaldaeans. Scarcely two months however elapsed before Gedaliah himself fell a victim to the jealousy of Ishmael, a member of the royal family, by whom he was treacherously slain. Ishmael was acting partly in his own interest, partly at the instigation of Baalis, king of Ammon, who secretly hoped to annex part of the Judaean territory to his dominions. The murder of Gedaliah was followed by the wholesale massacre of his adherents, and even of some Chaldaeans who formed part of the governor's retinue. Ishmael then made prisoners of the surviving inhabitants of Mizpeh, and attempted to deport them into Ammonite territory. In this object however he was defeated by Johanan, son of Kareah, who pursued the adventurer, compelled him to relinquish his captives, and forced him to seek refuge beyond the Jordan. The surviving leaders of the people were panic-stricken, and fearing the king of Babylon's vengeance, disregarded the protests of Jeremiah, and hastily migrated with most of their countrymen into Egypt. The greater number of the Jews settled at Tahpanhes, one of the frontier towns of the eastern Delta.1 Here a curtain falls upon the life of the heroic prophet who, in spite of bitter persecution and contumely, had never wavered in preaching the duty of submission to the king of Babylon, as the one hope of safety for his people. He now felt bound to continue his ministry among the fugitives who had sought an asylum in Egypt, and there, according to a Jewish tradition, "amid mournful surroundings of obstinate idolatry, his teaching

Flight of the Jews into Egypt.

1 Jer. xliii. 8.

spurned and misunderstood, his country waste and desolate,”1 he met with a martyr's death at the hands of his compatriots. All his predictions had been literally fulfilled. Jerusalem was already a heap of ruins; its inhabitants were castaways in a foreign land; Ammonites, Philistines, Edomites, and other aliens spread over the deserted land. The monarchy of Judah, which had been the centre of such brilliant hopes, was extinct. Israel's career as an independent state seemed to be finally closed. The Jews who eventually returned from exile formed a religious community or church rather than a nation; in a true sense the history of the Hebrews ends with the fall of Jerusalem, and that of Judaism begins.

It should be noticed however that the second book of Kings, which describes the catastrophe and points its moral, closes with a note of hope. Israel had as it were gone down to its grave but not without the prospect of resurrection to a new life. "The flame that had consumed Jerusalem was for Judah a purifying fire; from the seed-field of the exile sown in tears was to spring up a precious and immortal harvest."

1 Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures, p. 208.

2 Cornill, op. cit. p. 144.

2

CHAPTER X.

The Jews in Babylon.

THE EXILE AND THE RESTORATION.

Ar the time when the Hebrews of Judah were carried captive, Babylon had already become, through the exertions of Nebuchadnezzar, the most imposing and magnificent city of the East. Its famous ziggurat, the storied temple of Marduk or Bel, its spacious streets and enormous fortifications, " mountain-high," its palaces, mansions, and terraced gardens, had made it the wonder of the world.' The Hebrews, fresh from their little secluded capital and their vine-clad hills intersected by rushing brooks and mountain torrents, must have been well-nigh stupefied by the change in their surroundings. They found themselves a forlorn handful of strangers in the midst of a teeming population; a certain number of them were sold as slaves; some were lost to sight in the mazes of the huge city; others were scattered here and there over immense plains watered by endless canals, on the willow-clad banks of which they sat down and wept when they remembered Zion (Ps. cxxxvii. 1). What hope of a brighter future, what prospect of an appointed end, remained to this feeble remnant? As a nation they seemed to have perished. Our bones, they cried, are dried up and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off (Ezek. xxxvii. 11).

1 See passages in Isa. xiii. 19; Jer. 1. 38, li. 7, 13, 58, and the description by Nebuchadnezzar himself, quoted by Driver, in op. cit. p. 120.