Israel; just as in later times it was not until the Persian empire had been destroyed by Alexander that the Greeks who had been carried away by the Persian kings could be released, and the rich Grecian booty restored.' Nabuchodrozzor, however, the all-powerful sovereign of the age, and the oppressor of Israel, was still in the full vigour of his maturity at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, and only eighteen or nineteen out of the forty-three years of his reign had as yet expired. Moreover, he continued to rule with the same energy up to the end of his long reign; for though we now possess but little detailed information concerning its latter years, the period in question, yet we may infer with confidence that the warlike son of Nabopolassar remained the terror of the nations, at any rate in Asia, until his death,' and, in particular, that he maintained in full force his severe treatment of Israel. It is true that his successors showed far less military ability; but when the Chaldean empire had prescribed law to a number of nations for more than half a century, the state of things thus established would continue to exist by its own strength even after the death of Nabuchodrozzor; a fact of which we have clear evidence with reference to the position of the people of Israel.

Nor could Egypt, the great rival power of the age, be expected to afford any real assistance or relief. It is true that from the eighth century, and even earlier," great numbers of

As the historians of Alexander were never weary of relating.

Only the account of his divine trial in Dan. iii. 31-iv. 34 [iv. 1-37] represents him as falling into madness, or rather absolute bestiality, for the space of seven years, but as recovering again when converted to the true God, and then resuming the sovereignty, and in a royal proclamation communicating this divine experience to all his subjects. We know from the cuneiform inscriptions that the great monarchs of Asia were in the habit of recording their private history for the benefit of their subjects and of posterity in public monuments of this kind, and so far there is nothing surprising in the form of this section of the book of Daniel. But this record clearly owes its present shape to the author of the book of Daniel; and, unfortunately, we know nothing further of the original form of the historical materials which were at his command, and which he evidently worked up with great freedom. According to Berosus, Nabuchodrozzor at any rate did not die on the battle field, but on the sick bed; but

only as his father had done before him. See Joseph. Contr. Ap. i. 20. cf. i. 19, Ant. x. 11, 1; Euseb. Præp. Ev. ix. 11, 40, and Chron. Arm. i. p. 62 sq., make no essential additions.

3 If indeed the narrative in Dan. iv. were strictly historical, we should have expected from the very fact of his conversion that he would have ceased to oppress so severely the people of that Most High God' whom Daniel had made known to him; but there is not the smallest indication of this to be discovered anywhere, and even the narrative in Daniel itself is silent about it.

For their names and the duration of their reigns see the Chronological Table at the end of this volume; it is unnecessary here to touch on the details of their history.

Vol. iv., at p. 219. Cf. especially all the conclusions which may in the first place be drawn from other indications, and are further confirmed by the book of Aristeas; also Hos. vii. 11 sq., Is. xi. 11. In this last passage it is not without reason that Lower and Upper

individuals were driven from Israel to Egypt by a great variety of causes. Some went as fugitives, some as prisoners, some as settlers, either separately or in large masses, so that in some towns there certainly arose a numerous and permanent population of Israelites. Now, since there are traditions, though we can no longer investigate them at first hand, that Nabuchodrozzor, so far from ever concluding peace with Egypt, conducted an expedition against it which penetrated far into Africa,2 it might have been expected that the Egyptian sovereigns would have assisted a people whose territory had been wrested from them by these same Chaldeans, and of whom so many representatives, some of them distinguished men, had in recent times sought refuge and hospitality among themselves. But Israel could not hope for any permanent and serious aid from Egypt, for the latter was inspired by too constant a jealousy of the Chaldean empire; and when it had lost all its military posts on the mainland of Asia, the aims of its ambition were concentrated upon the rich maritime cities of Phoenicia, which it strove to subdue; though Nabuchodrozzor himself had directed against them his whole power, without obtaining any sufficiently satisfactory result.3

Egypt, as the abode of great numbers of the dispersion, are mentioned immediately after Assyria and before any other countries.

1

They were specially numerous in Migdol and Taphne (Tahpanhes) to the north-east, not far from Pelusium, in Memphis, and in Upper Egypt, in the last case perhaps having been compelled by the Egyptian sovereigns to settle further to the south; Jer. xliii. 7, xliv. 1, 15, 26-28. We may conclude from Is. xlix. 12 that they preferred 'the land of the Pelusians (Sinim),' so as to be as near to the sacred land as possible; for it always seems to me most probable, if only from Ezekiel xxx. 15 sq., that the Sinim must have been the Pelusians. The words of Lam. iv. 17, cf. v. 4, 6, evidently refer to the futility of the hopes based on Egypt.

2 According to Strabo, Geogr. xv. 1, 6, and the later Abydenus in Euseb. Præp. Ev. ix. 41, Chron. Arm. i. p. 88, sqq., Megasthenes recorded that Nabuchodrozzor carried his arms as far as the Libyans and Iberians, and transported captives thence to the Pontus; moreover, we are told in the Chronogr. of Georgius Syncellus, ii. p. 453, ed. Bonn., that the Chaldeans only quitted Egypt through superstitious fear of an earthquake. An inroad of this sort into Africa could not

have been undertaken until long after the final conquest of all Phoenicia, a conclusion to which the words of the prophet in Jer. xliv. 30, xlvi. 25 sq., Ezek. xxix. 17-20, also point. But unfortunately we have no accurate information on this subject, whatever may be the intrinsic probability of such an event, in consequence of the general relations of Egypt and Asia. This also furnishes the best explanation of the manner in which the power of Pharaoh Hophra (the Apries of the Greeks) was first shaken and could at last be overthrown by Amasis.

3 The accounts, given without any accurate chronological data by Herodot. ii. 161, and Diodor. i. 68, of victorious operations on the part of Apries against the Phoenicians, by land and sea, appear to refer to those years of his reign in which, with the assistance perhaps of a party of Phoenician refugees, he may have pursued the Chaldeans as they retreated from Egypt into Asia, and at any rate overthrown the Chaldean faction in Tyre. Thereupon, according to Menander, cited in Jos. Contr. Ap. i. 21, the Tyrians, after great internal commotions and rapid changes, once more obtained a king of their ancient race from Babylon, eighteen years before the downfall of the Chaldean empire.

Still less did any other kingdom, large or small, trouble itself about the misery of Israel. Numerous remnants of the people must have been scattered through many other countries ever since the glory of the nation, once so great, began to decline. A prosperous people spreads by its prosperity, its importance, its success, its industry, and commerce. An unfortunate people by its very misfortunes is scattered to all the winds; ' and the ungodly race had always been threatened with this latter fate by the Prophets.' The Exile' in this wider sense begins as early as the tenth and ninth centuries, long before the destruction of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes; for great numbers were made prisoners of war and subsequently for the most part sold as slaves, and many who sank through internal commotions, took to more or less voluntary flight.3 The ancient people, however, long retained a rooted antipathy to emigration or banishment to foreign lands; and this latter cause must consequently have been far less active than the former in early times. But since the dissolution of the Israelite nationality was mainly the work of the Assyrians and Chaldeans, in the centuries during which it was in progress, most of the Israelites who had not been compelled to settle in the East, and who could not find a resting-place in Egypt, resorted to the remaining countries of the Mediterranean or others which were still free. In particular the Coasts of the Sea,' i.e. the numerous maritime districts and islands of the Mediterranean, are now (as in the eighth century) frequently mentioned as a residence of the Dispersion.5 The extensive trade of the neighbouring Phoenicians had long been directed to these countries, which now appear for the first time in the history of Israel, and many who were not sold as slaves followed the example of the Phoenicians, and went thither of their own free will. Others spread more or less to the north-west, and also to the south in the remote tracts of Arabia.

Cf. for the most recent threats Ezek. v. 2, 10, 12; and in much earlier times Zech. xiii. 7-9.

2 This is indicated clearly enough by Joel iv. 2-8 [iii. 2-8], Amos i. 6, 9, and may be traced in many other passages.

Amos and Hosea, for instance, were compelled to flee, at any rate, from Samaria to Judah, and the example of Jonah, i. 3 sq., shows that many sought refuge even in the far West.

According to Is. xi. 11.

This is why such frequent mention is made of the Coasts of the Sea,' or

But we are not informed of any

more briefly the Coasts,' by the great Unnamed, Is. xl. 15, xli. 1; cf. somewhat earlier Jer. xxxi. 10, xxvi. 21 sq.

This may be inferred from Obadiah ver. 20 sq., however dubious the meaning of the name of Sepharad may yet appear. Some interpreters would make it the Bosporus, some Sparta, and some Sardis, all of them simply following the resemblance of the sound.

In the first centuries after Christ there were numbers of Judeans residing in northern and southern Arabia, and in some cases in considerable communities;

nation having shown special sympathy for the fate of Israel, which had now sunk to its lowest, and seemed to be utterly destroyed.

The sufferings of the dispersion, therefore, though differing in the different countries in which, more or less against their will, the Judeans were compelled to live, were everywhere very severe. For some centuries past individual Israelites had been obliged, by a necessity which constantly increased in force, to accustom themselves both to the idea and the reality of compulsory residence among foreigners (the so-called Gálúth or Gólah); but now the whole nation, with no further exceptions, had to learn to submit patiently to this most bitter fate. Those who were obliged to settle in foreign countries under the orders of the Chaldeans, generally constituted in each case (so far as we can learn) a small community confined to the spot assigned to it. They were required to pay for their existence in heavy services and tributes, but in other respects they were allowed free intercourse with each other. The many thousands who were banished with King Jehoiachin to the districts of the East, eleven years before the destruction of Jerusalem, as the real 'flower of the people,' enjoyed at first a tolerable degree of freedom, as we see from the book of their fellow-exile Ezekiel, and from that of Jeremiah. Moreover, they clearly established a certain unity and a somewhat more compact community amongst all the scattered Judeans, but specially amongst themselves; and, from the very fact that the noblest and most distinguished of the nation were of their number, they enjoyed the highest reputation. But the disturbances which broke out among them even before the destruction of Jerusalem, though only of a suppressed and isolated character, together with the destruction itself and the increase of the exiles by so large an additional number, inevitably tended to limit their freedom still further and increase the sufferings of

this we know partly from the Syrian ecclesiastical historians, partly with still greater accuracy from the Koran, and the biographers of Muhammed; no doubt, however, these were not driven thither for the most part until after the final destruction of Jerusalem. But even before that time there were many scattered through the country, Acts ii. 11. During the expedition of Nabuchodrozzor against the Arabian tribes, which later Arabian writers of history still recorded, many Judeans may have been driven thither; the fragment of the Arabic work mentioned in vol. i. p. 253, which was to have

been further explained here, was unfortunately lost with many other MSS. in my removal from Tübingen, nor have I been able since then to make good the loss from the Milanese MS. The Judeans in Yemen believe that the original settlers fled thither from Nabuchodrozzor, see J. Wilson's Lands of the Bible, vol. i. p. 681 sqq.

They are represented in the story of Susanna, v. 5, as having their own judges, like those which they tried to obtain in later times under the Persian, Greck, and Roman supremacies.

them all. Even Ezekiel's voice is hushed, henceforth, for gradually lengthening periods. But the closest watch was kept over the heads of the people, around whom all the better elements of the nation now strove to collect again in a compact body. Those of high-priestly, noble, or royal origin were treated with the utmost indignity; and the worst insults were heaped on King Jehoiachin, who had been carried away as a prisoner when so young, and on whom all the nobler minds, wherever scattered, still depended as on the very breath of their own life. But those who were not fortunate enough to live under Chaldean supervision languished by crowds in the deepest want in the cities,3 or wandered in still greater necessity through the deserts. Amid the ruins of the dismantled Jerusalem a Chaldean garrison was doubtless placed, under the protection of fortifications," so as to make it impossible for any Judean to approach even within a great distance of the forbidden holy city. Hence, while this stern prohibition prevented any of them from even visiting the ruins of the ancient sanctuary, and there perhaps making an offering on an altar hurriedly raised, they were all compelled amid their heathen masters to habituate themselves to many things in the way of food and custom from which they had hitherto shrunk with the greatest horror as utterly unclean, but from which they were no longer able to find a satisfactory escape in any direction."

But though the suffering from this twofold source was severe enough, especially to all more tender minds, it was increased by the bitter contempt which fell on all who were too constant to approve and imitate every heathen practice at once. The scorn of the most various heathen nations was drawn upon the whole people from the very fact of their having been conquered and profoundly humiliated; but the closeness of the intercourse

This is clear from Isaiah xliii. 28, lii. 5; cf. Lam. i. 4. iv. 7 sq., v. 12.

2 No doubt the description in Lam. iv. 20, cf. ii. 9, refers to this king and not to Zedekiah. All that we can ascertain of the last two kings of Jerusalem shows that the object of such deep and general longing can only have been Jehoiachin. The image of capture in a pit is similar to that of a net, applied to the same prince in Ezek. xix. 8; though the same occurs elsewhere, Ezek. xii. 13, xvii. 20,

cially after the destruction of Jerusalem, is clear from Ezek. xxxiii. 27; Lam. iv. 19, v. 5, 9; Is. li. 19 sq.

We may in part take this for granted, and besides it is required to make such lamentations as Is. xlix. 16-19, li. 17 sq., lii. 9, lviii. 12, lxii. 6, completely intelligible; even the strong expression Israel has become a curse,' xliii. 28, is not too strong.

Great stress is laid on this point at the beginning of the exile, Ezek. iv. 12-15; far less is said on the matter in the later periods, for reasons which easily explain themselves.