Babylonian Captivity
The Babylonian Captivity, also known as the Babylonian Exile, was a pivotal period in Jewish history that lasted from the early 6th century BCE until approximately 538 BCE. During this time, many Jews from the kingdom of Judah were forcibly deported to Babylon after the city of Jerusalem was besieged and the Temple was destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. This exile marked a significant low point for the Jewish people, comparable to their earlier enslavement in Egypt. However, it also stimulated a profound religious renaissance among the exiles, leading to the compilation of significant texts, including the Hebrew Bible.
The captivity ended with the conquest of Babylon by the Persian Empire, which permitted many Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild the Temple, known as the Second Temple. Notably, the exile contributed to a decentralization of the Jewish population, giving rise to the Jewish diaspora, as not all exiles returned; some had established lives in Babylon over decades. The period influenced Jewish thought, as well as the development of key biblical narratives and prophetic writings, emphasizing the importance of scripture and ritual in preserving Jewish identity during challenging times. Today, the Babylonian Captivity is commemorated in Jewish traditions, particularly through the reading of the Book of Lamentations.
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Babylonian Captivity
The Babylonian captivity, or Babylonian exile, refers to a significant period in Jewish history during which many Jews were deported from their native kingdom of Judah to live as captives of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Israel, the northern Jewish kingdom, had already been conquered in an earlier century, much of its population fleeing to Jerusalem, in Judah. Over the course of the sixth century BCE, Jews were deported to Babylonia in several waves, while the Temple built by Solomon was destroyed in a siege. It was perhaps the lowest point in Jewish history since their enslavement in Egypt, and it was followed by a flourishing of religious fervor. The exile ended when Babylon itself was conquered by the Persian empire, and within a generation the returning Jews had laid the foundations for the Second Temple. The low point of captivity thus led directly to the creation of the Jewish culture that first assembled the books of the Hebrew Bible.
Brief History
The Neo-Babylonian Empire is a period of Babylonian history marked by Babylonian self-rule that ranged from 626 BCE, after Nabopolassar of the Chaldeans led a rebellion against the Assyrian empire, to 539 BCE, when Cyrus the Great conquered Babylonia for the Persians. After the death of King Josiah of Judah in 609 BCE, the Kingdom of Judah began to falter. Josiah had been a strong ruler who had instituted numerous religious reforms insisting on the exclusive worship of the God of Abraham and the observation of numerous religious laws (likely those recorded in Deuteronomy). In his absence, the newly invigorated Babylonians were able to demand tribute from Judah, and when King Jehoiakim refused to pay this tribute in the fourth year of the reign of Babylonian King Nebechadnezzar, Jerusalem was attacked. Jehoiakim was killed, his successor Jeconiah and his court were taken captive, and numerous Jews from Jerusalem and the immediate area were forcibly deported to Babylonia at several different periods until captivity ended in 538 BCE, when Cyrus allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem.
Not all the Jews were deported. Common practice in the ancient Near East after conquering a neighbor like this was to deport the elites—not only the ruling court but also the wealthy families and priests. Archaeological evidence makes it clear that both deportation and return affected mainly Jerusalemites. While the city was destroyed in the siege, the more remote areas of Judah continued to be inhabited and seemingly untroubled throughout the captivity period. When the exiles were allowed to return, not all did: some had now lived in Babylonia for decades, many of those who were middle-aged or younger had never lived anywhere else, and thus some historians date the Jewish diaspora to this period, as Jewish populations became decentralized and farther flung.
The Biblical book of Lamentations was written in Judah during the captivity period and consists of poems by both male and female narrators (and thus perhaps had multiple authors). Two of the narrators recount their own experiences of Jerusalem’s destruction. The prophetic book Ezekiel was composed during this time as well, and images of the destruction of Jerusalem inspired his apocalyptic writings.
Impact
The Babylonia captivity is directly depicted in the Bible, notably in the prophetic book of Jeremiah and the historical books of Kings and Chronicles. Biblical accounts present the captivity period as a punishment for the Jewish people’s backsliding into idolatry after the death of Josiah, in much the same way that their slavery in Egypt is framed in the Torah as punishment. Because of the loss of the Temple, written scriptures, especially the Torah, became even more important in this time, a trend that had arguably begun with Josiah, and Jews began to truly become, in the Muslim phrase, "people of the book." Sages, scholars, and other intellectual leaders emerged as important figures in Jewish culture, a trend that continued after their return to Israel.
The captivity period loomed large in the minds of the Jewish writers and priests who wrote and assembled the books of the Bible. Scholars date the "Priestly source" to the postexilic period of Judah, when the exiled Jews returned to their native kingdom with a renewed sense of purpose and commitment to their faith but also with a changed understanding of their place in the world. According to the documentary hypothesis, the Priestly source, or "P," is one of the four sources of the Torah, or Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), and represents the most recent material. The contributions of P highlight the presence of God with the Jews even during periods of turmoil (and constitute large parts of Exodus and Numbers, for instance), but they also characterize him as distant, unknowable, even cruel. It is P who is the most concerned with ritual, in part because these rituals set the Jews apart from their neighbors in Babylonia, and so most of Leviticus is P’s work.
Reflecting the Jews’ expanded horizons, P not only portrays God as the God of Abraham and of the Jews but also asserts his role as the creator of the universe itself and all things in it. In Genesis, P tends to use the driest language, in contrast with the poetic flourishes of other Biblical sources, and portrays a very formal relationship with God, one that employs multiple names in different stages: Elohim as a general term, El Shaddai during the time of Abraham and the patriarchs, and Yahweh when God reveals his name to Moses.
Today, in Jewish services Lamentations is recited annually to commemorate the destruction of both the First and Second Temples. Various Christian denominations use readings from Lamentations to commemorate other bleak or troubling events; for example, the Coptic Orthodox Church uses readings from Lamentations to honor the burial of Jesus.
Bibliography
Alter, Robert. Strong as Death Is Love: The Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Jonah, and Daniel, a Translation with Commentary. New York: Norton, 2015. Print.
Keck, Leander. The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary. Vol. 6. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2015. Print.
Knoppers, Gary N., Lester L. Grabbe, and Deirdre Fulton, eds. Exile and Restoration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd. New York: Bloomsbury, 2011. Print.
Knoppers, Gary N. Jews and Samaritans: The Origins and History of Their Early Relations. New York: Oxford UP, 2013. Print.
Longman, Tremper, III, and David E. Garland, eds. Daniel-Malachi. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008. Print.
Moore, Carey A. Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions. New Haven: Anchor Bible, 1977. Print.
Smith-Christopher, Daniel L. A Biblical Theology of Exile. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2002. Print.
Smith-Christopher, Daniel L. The Religion of the Landless: The Social Context of the Babylonian Exile. Eugene: Wipf, 2015. Print.