The History of Antiquity Volume Iii Part 21

Thus the defeat of Necho and the retreat of the Egyptian army aroused no feelings of delight in Jerusalem at the blow which had there fallen upon the lord of the Nile. There was a fear of the approach of the Babylonians. We saw with what vigour the prophet Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah of Anathoth, had opposed the careless frivolity of Jehoiakim, the king whom Necho had placed over the Jews (p. 317). After the disastrous day at Megiddo, the fall of Josiah, and carrying away of Jehoahaz to Egypt, the eye of the prophet had been directed to the dangerous position of the kingdom. Necho's army was then in Syria; one city after another succ.u.mbed to his arms. To the melancholy mind of Isaiah the fall of the kingdom seemed unavoidable. This conviction he expressed; he foretold to Jehoiakim the most disgraceful fall. In energy and power of thought Jeremiah cannot be compared with Isaiah, but in the boldness and incisiveness of his opposition to the king and nation he surpa.s.ses him. Isaiah had firmly held to the preservation and maintenance of the city of Jerusalem and the temple, even in the judgment of Jehovah on Israel and Judah. The conception that Jehovah's temple, and his habitation in the holy of holies of the temple, was a pledge for the security of the city, that Jehovah could not abandon and destroy his temple and shrine, was a fixed idea among most of the prophets and among the people; it was confirmed by the fortunate preservation from the army of Sennacherib, and the hordes of the Sacae; and the Jews had confidence in the impregnable nature and lasting security of their temple and city. In this confidence Jeremiah detected a grave evil. The people trusted to the impregnable nature of the shrine and city; the Jews believed that in spite of their errors and sins they would be secure of Jerusalem owing to the temple. Therefore he set himself energetically to combat this belief. He is filled with the conception of the approaching judgment, which will be brought on by the defection of past times, "when Israel like a swift young dromedary went after every stranger;"[590] and by her unrighteous conversation in the present time. His conception, which in depth of religious feeling is raised above the views of the earlier prophets, is that all external customs and symbols must fall to the ground, not sacrifices only and fasts, but the temple and the ark of the covenant. Not till a radical destruction has taken place will the restoration of the people follow, by means of a small remnant of the righteous, and a shoot from the stock of David. In Jeremiah's view the people cannot be saved without the stroke of annihilation, "for the Ethiop cannot change his skin, nor the leopard his spots."[591] But after this judgment Jehovah will "make a new covenant" with his people, "which is not like that which he made with their fathers, when he led them out of Egypt." "I will put my law in your inward parts," saith Jehovah, "and write it in your hearts."[592] "In those days they will no more speak of the ark of Jehovah; it will not come into the mind of any: none will miss it; nor will another be made." Then will Jehovah set up shepherds after his own heart of the branch of David,[593] who will pasture Israel with wisdom and prudence; and all nations will gather together to the name of Jehovah, and will not walk after the hardness of their evil heart.

Filled with these conceptions, Jeremiah cried aloud to the people a.s.sembled in the court of the temple: "Amend your hearts, and listen to the voice of Jehovah, your G.o.d. If ye will not walk in his law, which he has set before you, and hearken to the words of the prophets, Jehovah will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.[594] Trust not in lying words: this is the temple of Jehovah. Ye steal, murder, and commit adultery; ye offer incense to Baal, and knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven,[595] and come into this house, which is called by the name of Jehovah, and say: We are delivered to do all these abominations. Go ye now unto my dwelling-place which was in s.h.i.+loh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. So will I do to this house in which ye trust, as I did to s.h.i.+loh, and will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out your brethren, the seed of Ephraim."[596] At these words the priests seized Jeremiah, and the people rose in anger to put him to death, because he had announced the fall of the temple. Then certain of the elders came forward, and reminded the people that in Hezekiah's time the prophet Micah had announced: "Zion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become a heap of stones,"[597] and neither the king nor the people had put him to death. Jeremiah himself said to the enraged mult.i.tude: "Behold, I am in your hands; do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you; but know ye for certain that ye will bring innocent blood upon this city; for of a truth Jehovah hath sent me unto you to speak all these words in your ears." The people retired from him.

After this occurrence in the temple, Jeremiah no longer ventured to come forth in public; he contented himself for the present with dictating his warnings and announcements to his scribe Baruch. After the battle of Karchemish it was clear to him at once that the king of Babel would be the instrument of Jehovah to accomplish the approaching judgment: the mission which Isaiah had a.s.signed to the a.s.syrians 100 years previously--to destroy all nations--Jeremiah now saw given to the Chaldaeans. But as Isaiah then prophesied the fall of a.s.syria, when she had accomplished the judgments of Jehovah, so, according to the views of Jeremiah, the Chaldaeans are to be destroyed when they have done their work. After a rule of 70 years, _i.e._ after a period of ten Sabbath-years (II. 219), this fortune will overtake the Babylonians--such is the view of Jeremiah. "For 23 years," so Jeremiah commanded his scribe Baruch to write,[598] "the word of Jehovah hath come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, but ye have not hearkened; ye have hearkened to other prophets, not to the servants of Jehovah. Therefore I will bring Nebuchadnezzar my servant against this land and its inhabitants, saith Jehovah, and against all the nations round about, and I will destroy out of them the voice of mirth, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the mill, and the light of the lamp. The whole land shall be a desolation, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Take the wine-cup of this fury at my hand, so spake Jehovah to me, and cause all the nations to drink it, that they may drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.

Cause Jerusalem to drink it, and the cities of Judah, the Pharaoh of Egypt, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, the kings of Tyre and Sidon, and the kings of the islands beyond the sea, the Edomites, and the Moabites, and the kings of Arabia who dwell in the deserts, and the kings of Media. Jehovah shall roar from on high, he shall roar upon his habitation (Jerusalem); he shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth.

Jehovah will reckon with the nations; he will plead with all flesh, and give them that are wicked to the sword. Evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and the slain of Jehovah will be in that day from one end of the earth to the other; they shall not be lamented, nor buried, they shall be dung upon the ground."[599]

At Karchemish Necho had lost all the fruits of his struggles in Syria.

He did not venture to engage in a second battle for the possession of Syria, but retired to the borders of Egypt. In Jerusalem a day of fasting was kept at the approach of the Babylonian army. More than three years and eight months had pa.s.sed since Necho made Jehoiakim king of Judah.[600] These and other announcements Jeremiah commanded Baruch to read before the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude in the upper court of the temple on the day of fasting. "It may be they will present their supplication before Jehovah," he said, "for great is the anger that Jehovah hath p.r.o.nounced upon this people." Baruch carried out the command of Jeremiah. The letter made a deep impression. Baruch had to read it again before the captains of Jehoiakim, at their request. These told the king, who was at that time in his winter house, of the prophecies of Jeremiah.

Jehoiakim caused three or four leaves to be read, then seized the roll, cut it with a knife, threw the pieces into the pan of coals which stood before him, and gave orders that Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch should be brought before him, but both had hidden themselves, and the captains were not inclined to discover them by any strict search.[601]

The Babylonian army did not appear before Jerusalem. Nabopola.s.sar lay sick at Babylon; the account of his death summoned Nebuchadnezzar back to the metropolis. He hastened with a few companions through the deserts to Babylon, in order to take the crown of the new kingdom. The army, with the prisoners and the booty, were to follow (605 B.C.). Meanwhile the priests at Babylon had made provision, and set up a regent from among themselves who governed the kingdom till the return of Nebuchadnezzar.[602]

As soon as the first succession to the throne of the new kingdom was happily completed, and Nebuchadnezzar saw his position established, he applied his forces to extending and securing his empire. If the new dynasty was to take root, it was inc.u.mbent on it to renew the splendour and power of the ancient kingdom of Babylon. The successes which Nabopola.s.sar had achieved against the a.s.syrians, the splendid victory which Nebuchadnezzar had gained against the Egyptians, must have confirmed the confidence of the new ruler in his own power, and the strength of his army. Yet the first consideration was not merely splendour and glory. Egypt could not indeed maintain her place in Syria, but she was still in possession of Gaza; if the Syrian States were not annexed, they would always incline to Egypt, and would soon join her again. To abandon Syria was equivalent to handing over the country to the Egyptians. A further consideration was, that the Median power in league with which Nabopola.s.sar and Nebuchadnezzar had risen was far superior to the Babylonians. At present, it was true, they were in the closest and best relations with the Median and Lydian courts--but could they count on the continuance of these relations? Was it not advisable to create for the new kingdom of Babylon an empire which should form an adequate counterpoise to the power of the Medes? The north and east belonged to the Medes, the natural direction for the extension of Babylon therefore lay to the south, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, and to the west. The victorious campaigns of the a.s.syrian rulers pointed in this direction; here, on the sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean, lay the cities of the Phenicians, who collected within their walls the trade of the world, whose industry and wealth could bring to the new kingdom the greatest sources of help.

Nebuchadnezzar's first object was to extend his power over the Arabians on the lower Euphrates, in North Arabia, and in the Syrian desert. The tribes of the Temanites, Dedanites, and Kedarites were subjugated. The princes of the Arabians of Dedan, Tema, Kedar, and Hazor, became va.s.sals of Babylon.[603] Then Arpad, Hamath, and Damascus, which had resisted a.s.syria so long and stubbornly, succ.u.mbed. Jerusalem trembled at the fall of the neighbouring nations. "The Chaldaeans are roused," says the prophet Habakkuk; "that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the earth, and shall possess the dwelling-places which are not theirs. Their horses are swifter than leopards, and more fierce than evening wolves; proudly their horses spring from far: they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn to them; they shall deride every stronghold, for they shall heap up earth against it, and take it, and carry off prisoners like sand. Then will they go on like a storm-wind, and their might is their G.o.d.[604] My knees quaked that I might look with rest upon the day of trouble, upon the people which oppresses us.[605] Shall they slay the nations continually without punishment? can he not rest who enlargeth his desire as h.e.l.l, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people? Will not the people suddenly rise up and demand usury from thee? will not the nations plunder thee, whom thou hast plundered?"[606] Of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah says: "Like a lion he will come up against the well-stocked pasture.[607] Flee, flee with all your might, ye inhabitants of Hazor, for Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, hath taken counsel against you, and hath conceived a purpose against you. Get you up to the nation which hath neither gates nor bars, and dwelleth alone; go up to Kedar and spoil the men of the East. Your tents and your flocks will they take; your curtains and your camels they will carry away; the mult.i.tude of your flocks shall be a spoil to them. I will scatter to all the winds of the earth those who cut the corners of their hair (the Arabians), saith Jehovah, and will bring destruction on them from every side, and Hazor shall be a dwelling for the jackal, a desolation for ever.[608] Cry, ye daughters of Rabbath (Rabbath Ammon, II. 155), gird yourselves with sack-cloth, for Milcom shall go away into misery, his priests and princes together.[609] Woe to thee, Moab; the people of Camos (Chemosh, I. 372) perisheth. He shall fly like an eagle, and spread his wings over Moab; the strong places are taken.[610]

Hamath is confounded, and Arpad. Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee.[611] Thou wert confident, O Edom, because thou dwellest on the high rocks and the tops of the mountains. Though thou buildest thy nest like the eagle thou shalt be thrown down."[612]

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 establis.h.i.+ng 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 Chaldaeans. 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 Chaldaeans 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 a.s.syrian 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 ma.s.s 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 Chaldaeans 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 Chaldaeans 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 a.s.sembly 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sure 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 G.o.ds 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 a.s.syrians 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 att.i.tude 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 G.o.d, 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 Chaldaeans 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 Chaldaeans 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 Chaldaeans 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 Chaldaeans shall come again before the city, and shall take it. And though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldaeans 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 Chaldaeans 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 Chaldaeans 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 circ.u.mstances continued to preach the abandonment of the siege, and subjection to the Chaldaeans, 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 Chaldaeans, 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 Sa.r.s.echim, 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 pa.s.sing the lines and gaining the open country, but the Chaldaeans 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 gra.s.sy 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 Chaldaean 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 Chaldaean 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 pa.s.s 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 Chaldaeans 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 pa.s.sed since the capture of Jerusalem, and already a number of men out of Samaria, Shechem, and s.h.i.+lo, 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 a.s.sociates he cut down Gedaliah, the Chaldaeans, and the Jews who were present. The king's daughter and others who had been placed in Gedaliah's care, the Jews who were a.s.sembled 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 a.s.sembled 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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sembled 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 a.s.syrians 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 ca.n.a.ls 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 a.s.syria 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 a.s.shur 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 G.o.d, 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.

Jerusalem fell nineteen years after the battle of Karchemish. Step by step Nebuchadnezzar had overcome Syria. First Arpad, Hamath and Damascus had succ.u.mbed, then the Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites. After Judah had recognised his supremacy in the year 600 B.C., the rebellion on which Jehoiakim ventured three years afterwards had brought upon that country a severe punishment, and a condition of greater dependence. Four years afterwards, 593 B.C., the cities of the Phenicians were reduced except Tyre. The second rebellion of Judah was followed by the annihilation of the country. The prophets of the Jews looked forward to the war of Nebuchadnezzar against Egypt--to the punishment for the campaign which Hophrah had undertaken against Syria, and which had compelled Nebuchadnezzar to raise the siege of Jerusalem. Ezekiel, who was among the Jews carried away with Jechoniah in 597 B.C., and with part of them had received a habitation on the Chaboras beyond the Euphrates, proclaimed the destruction and fall of Egypt. "Egypt," he says, "has been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. When they took hold of thee by the hand then thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder; and when they leaned upon thee, thou didst break and madest their loins to totter. Thou wast as a dragon in the seas, and camest forth in thy rivers. The sword of the king of Babylon shall come upon thee. By the swords of the mighty will I cause thy mult.i.tudes to fall: and I will water with thy blood the land wherein thou swimmest, even to the mountain; I will destroy all the beasts thereof from beside the great waters; neither shall the foot of man, nor the hoof of beasts, trouble them any more. Go down to them that are sunk in the pit, and be thou laid with the uncirc.u.mcised."[672] The same fortune was announced to the Pharaoh Hophrah and his land by Jeremiah among the emigrants at Tachpanhes[673] on the Pelusiac arm of the Nile: "Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophrah, king of Egypt, into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life, as I gave Zedekiah, king of Judah, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, his enemy, that sought his life. Behold, I will send and fetch Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant. At the entrance of Pharaoh's house, in Tachpanhes, he will spread out his royal pavilion, and he will come and smite the land of Egypt, and deliver to death such as are for death, and to captivity such as are for captivity, and to the sword such as are for the sword. And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the G.o.ds of Egypt, and he shall burn them and carry them away captive, and he shall break the pillars of Bethshemesh (the obelisks of Heliopolis), and the houses of the G.o.ds of Egypt shall he burn with fire."[674]

Nebuchadnezzar did not fulfil these expectations. He was not a conqueror who sought to press on beyond all bounds, and extend his power further and further. On the contrary, he sought to keep his empire within the natural boundaries, and not go beyond the desert which separated him from Egypt. The subjugation of Syria was not complete so long as Tyre did not obey his authority. He directed his arms not against Hophrah but against Tyre. It was difficult to reach the island city without a fleet.

Nevertheless Ezekiel looked forward to the speedy success of the Babylonians, and the immediate fall of the great trading city. Tyre will fall because she rejoiced over the fall of Jerusalem, because she cried: "I shall be full, since thou art desolate."[675] He describes in a lively manner how Nebuchadnezzar will set up his battering-rams against the walls of Tyre; how he will throw down their towers with his engines of war; will cast up a trench against them, and raise the s.h.i.+eld upon them.[676] He sees the island already changed into a naked rock for spreading out nets.[677] These prophecies also were not fulfilled in their whole extent. The siege, after the capture of the old city, was no more than a blockade from the mainland, a cutting off of all intercourse of the city towards the coast, such as had once before been carried on in the time of Shalmanesar IV. and a.s.surbanipal of a.s.syria (pp. 83, 166), and now as then it was only feebly sustained from the sea by the s.h.i.+ps which the subject neighbour-harbours had to furnish.

Nebuchadnezzar's troops are said to have remained thirteen years before Tyre. The blockade was brought to an end, as it seems, in the year 573 B.C., by an arrangement in which the Tyrians recognised the supremacy of the king of Babylon. "A heavy service," says the prophet Ezekiel, "has Nebuchadnezzar compelled his army to perform against Tyre. Every head is bald, and every shoulder peeled, and there is no wages in his army for Tyre." The Tyrians, as it seems, allowed Nebuchadnezzar to elect their king. Ethbaal, king of Tyre, resigned the throne, and Nebuchadnezzar set up Baal in his place.[678]

After repeated struggles Nebuchadnezzar had driven the Egyptians out of Syria, had repulsed their attempts to support the rebellions of the Syrians. In addition to the tribes of the Arabs between Liba.n.u.s and Antiliba.n.u.s he had brought the states and cities of the Syrians to obedience; he had united under his supremacy the Semitic tribes from the Tigris to the Syrian coast, from the Persian to the Arabian Gulf. Never had the ancient kingdom of Babylon won such power, and taken up such a position. Yet this wide extent of dominion scarcely bore comparison with the empire of the Medes, in concert with which Babylonia had overthrown the a.s.syrians. But the territory of Babylon between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, as compared with the long stretch of the Median Empire, which reached from the Halys to the middle, and to the southern edge of the table-land of Iran, was better rounded off, and the population of Babylonia was more h.o.m.ogeneous. It belonged to one tribe only. These advantages, combined with the profuse fertility and the highly-developed industrial activity of the native land, with the trade and maritime resources of the Phenician cities, could compensate to Babylonia in intensive power the advantage which Media had in extent.

For the present the courts of Babylon, Media, and Lydia, were peacefully connected by the ties of relations.h.i.+p.

FOOTNOTES:

[588] Above, p. 250. Joseph. "c. Apion.," 1, 19. "Antiq." 10, 11, 2.

[589] Ezek. i. 1, 3; iii. 15, 23; x. 15; xx. 22; xliii. 3.

[590] Jerem. ii. 23.

[591] Jerem. xiii. 23.

[592] Jerem. xxiii. 5.