The Rhetoric of New Conquest

THE RHETORIC OF NEW CONQUEST

AND ITS USE IN THE EXILIC AND POST-EXILIC BOOKS

JENNIFER NICOLE BASS

B.A., University of Lethbridge, 2005

Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Theology, Acadia Divinity College, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Theology)

Acadia Divinity College, Acadia University Fall Graduation 2016

This thesis by Jennifer Nicole Bass was defended successfully in an oral examination on 6

December 2016.

The examining committee for the thesis was:

Dr. Stephen McMullin, Academic Dean & Chair

Dr. Daniel Driver, External Examiner

Dr. Matthew Walsh, Internal Examiner

Dr. Glenn Wooden, Supervisor & MA(Th) Director

This thesis is accepted in its present form by Acadia Divinity College, the Faculty of

Theology of Acadia University, as satisfying the thesis requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts (Theology).

I, Jennifer Nicole Bass, hereby grant permission to the University Librarian at Acadia

University to provide copies of my thesis, upon request, on a non-profit basis.

Jennifer Nicole Bass Author

Dr. Glenn Wooden Supervisor

6 December 2016 Date

iii

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………….….… v

1. INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………… 1

2. BACKGROUND ….……………………………………………………………….… 9

2.A. War in the Pre-Exilic Period 9

2.B. The New Exodus 28

3. ANTICIPATING A NEW CONQUEST …………………………………….……… 52

3.A. Violence and War in the Post-Exilic Period 53

3.B. The Elements of the Ban in the Restoration 63

3.C. Justifications of the New Conquest 89

4. UNFULFILLED CONQUEST, THE SECOND TEMPLE, AND APOCALYPTIC ORIGINS ………………………………………………………………….……… 115

5. CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………….…… 134

BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………………….… 138

iv ABSTRACT

Violence in the Hebrew Bible is a subject that is uncomfortable, and so scholars often

ignore or gloss over it, favouring instead metaphorical or even pacifistic interpretations of

uncomfortable texts, rather than interpreting them in their cultural setting. This is espe-

cially true for the violent language used in the later books. However, the language is pre-

sent and needs to be addressed.

One of the most important metaphors used in exilic and post-exilic literature was the

New Exodus. New Exodus language was used to describe the Exile and return from Per-

sia, which opens the question as to whether or not, like the original Exodus, the figurative

Exodus ended in a New Conquest. Coupled to this, there are similarities between the ele-

,which was implemented during the Conquest by the Israelites ,(חרם) ments of the ban

and the events of the Restoration, and between the justification of the ban in the Conquest

and the attitude of the returnees to those in the land.

Over the course of this study themes will be discussed that relate to both the original

Exodus and Conquest and the Exile and Restoration, in order to clarify the figurative

links that were made between the two time periods. Themes that are covered include the

use of violent language, the New Exodus, Yahweh as the Divine Warrior, the ban, and the

second temple. They are looked at, primarily, to understand how the golah community was interpreting the events and changes that were happening around them. The focus will

be on violent language and imagery, which will be followed from its roots in early con-

quest stories through to its role in the development of apocalyptic literature. The main

goal is to demonstrate whether or not the community purposefully used New Conquest

language, and for what reason.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The Exodus was so important to the Israelites that it became their foundational identity story. They reused it as both imagery and explanation in their later writings. The role that the Exodus had in the ancient Israelites’ national identity can hardly be overesti- mated. As a shared-origin story, the beliefs held in common of their shared history and ancestral ties that bound them together as a group, it provided the starting point and background for everything that happened to the nation. However, it was not the only story that shaped the people of Israel’s self-understanding. In fact, by itself it would mean very little, had it not led directly into the next phase of Israel's history: the conquest and settlement of Canaan, their Promised Land. This pattern, from oppression outside the land to independence within it, is repeated in a modified form in literature from the Exile and Restoration.

1. Reasons for this Study

Analogous history. The parallels between the two parts of Israel’s stories are the starting point for this study, which will explore the relationship between the Conquest and Restoration periods. Often, due to its prominence in the Pentateuch (taking up, or providing the framework for, the books of Exodus through Deuteronomy), and especially because of its frequent use as a metaphor throughout the Hebrew Bible, the Exodus is often investigated independently of the Conquest. This is especially true when applied to studies of exilic and post-exilic literature, because the Israelites’ return from captivity was often compared to a New Exodus in those writings, but scholars rarely, if ever, compare it to a New Conquest1.

1 Analogous history. The parallels between the two parts of Israel’s stories are the starting point for this study, which will explore the relationship between the Conquest and Restoration periods. Often, due to its

1 It may be a mistake to end studies of the Exile with comparisons to the Exodus alone.2 Ultimately, the Exile, just like its prototype, the Exodus story, concluded with the occupation and settlement of the land. The Israelites took their early foundational myths and applied them to a new situation: the exile from, and return to, the land. As Lester Grabbe explains, “[l]iterature (whether on the real or literary level) drew on the available tradition, with reuse of phraseology and also literary allusions to other literary works, during the process of development.”3 If the original Exodus ended in war and conquest, it follows that the reuse of that story might well do the same. Therefore, it is worth examining what followed the New Exodus to detect if the Israelites viewed it, too, through a symbolic lens, one that referenced the original conquest. Parallels to the Conquest. Those repeated historical themes provide the starting point for this study. From there, it is the language, symbolism, and even the parallels to -that make the New Conquest worth exploring. While New Exodus lan (חרם) the Ban guage and broad resemblance of events in exilic books have often been recognized, scholars usually stop their examinations before the end of the story: the conquest (or, in prominence in the Pentateuch (taking up, or providing the framework for, the books of Exodus through Deuteronomy), and especially because of its frequent use as a metaphor throughout the Hebrew Bible, the Exodus is often investigated independently of the Conquest. This is especially true when applied to studies of exilic and post-exilic literature, because the Israelites’ return from captivity was often compared to a New Exodus in those writings, but scholars rarely, if ever, compare it to a New ConquestAnalogous history. The parallels between the two parts of Israel’s stories are the starting point for this study, which will explore the relationship between the Conquest and Restoration periods. Often, due to its prominence in the Pentateuch (taking up, or providing the framework for, the books of Exodus through Deuteronomy), and especially because of its frequent use as a metaphor throughout the Hebrew Bible, the Exodus is often investigated independently of the Conquest. This is especially true when applied to studies of exilic and post- exilic literature, because the Israelites’ return from captivity was often compared to a New Exodus in those writings, but scholars rarely, if ever, compare it to a New ConquestOne of the difficulties in this study was the lack of literature that even indirectly dealt with the subject matter. E. John Hamlin’s “The Joshua Tradi- tion Reinterpreted” (South East Asia Journal of Theology 23 [1982]: 103–108) was the only literature I found that actually uses the phrase “New Conquest”, and it was a scant five pages, whereas the Exodus’s role in later writings is a common subject for scholars. See bibliography. 2 For instance, Ps 78 is an example of the Exodus being retold as a lead-up to the reestablishment of Jerusalem (Samuel E. Loewenstamm, The Evolution of the Exodus Tradition, trans. Baruch J. Schwartz [Je- rusalem: The Magnes Press, 1992], 42). 3 Lester L. Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, vol 1 (London: T & T Clark International, 2004), 239.

the case of the Persian-period Judah, the resettlement) of the land. However, both stories end in a similar manner and both use similar metaphors. It is the goal of this study to determine if those similarities are merely superficial or if the writers consciously evoked them. Customary lack of treatment of violence. There is an intriguing tendency among scholars to gloss over the violence in the exilic and post-exilic writings. Many modern Christian scholars would like to think exilic stories are about Yahweh’s salvific acts moving away from war and violence (for example, the early Passover story) towards more peaceful deeds; however, violence remained an inherent part of the stories and the language that was employed to tell them. The problem, as Corrine Carvalho puts it, is that “Christian theologians seem to want a pacifist messiah, a non-bloody kingdom, an effort- less victory.”4 This creates a problem of correlation between what some of the writings say and how scholars interpret them (or at least, what they emphasize). Take, for example, Erich Zenger’s assessment of Ps 137:8-9: When, at the present time, that sanctions of international law are demanded and imposed against aggressors and political terrorist, such action has as little to do with ‘revenge’ as does the appeal in verses 8-9 to a power that will put Babylon in its place.... only in order that this superfluous power for violence will be ended once and for all. It is extraordinarily important to realize that this psalm does not pray that Is- rael and Babylon should simply exchange roles…. [T]he issue is a demonstration of justice in the very face of a power that pretends that the violent force it exercises to oppress the nations is, in fact, right.5 It seems astonishing to interpret these verses as about justice and not revenge, when they calls for smashing babies on rocks.6 Likewise, after spending a paragraph explaining the

4 Corrine Carvalho, “The Beauty of the Bloody God: The Divine Warrior in the Prophetic Literature,” in The Aesthetics of Violence in the Prophets, ed. Julia M. O’Brien and Chris Franke (New York: T&T Clark, 2010), 135. 5 Erich Zenger, A God of Vengeance? Understanding the Psalms of Divine Wrath (trans. Linda M. Maloney; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 50. 6 Zenger gets around this by saying that it is not the writer himself who wants to do the baby-smashing (ibid.). Still, the text seems to delight in the idea. Later, however, he does call them “pleas for punishment ... marked by unbridled emotion” (ibid., 70). Carvalho, on the other hand, says that in revenge passages like Isaiah 63 the “blood of the victim gains special attention”, and that the books of Isaiah and Nahum “speak to human fantasies of violent retribution, and, even though my fantasies may focus on the patriarchal elite, I can still use these texts as expressions of this same moral outrage ... [W]e see God in

3 rape imagery in Isa 47, Hamlin can declare that it is “unusual in the fact that it does not contain the bitter invective found in other oracles against Babylon”,7 when, in fact, there are not many more horrific acts that could be used to impose violence, trauma, and shame on the victim. While violence is not a comfortable thing to discuss, it is important to understand the imagery that was employed in order to understand the texts – who wrote them and why – and not brush them aside when they fit awkwardly into our world-view.

2. Background

When it came to the post-exilic Israelites’ perspective, there was much for them to process. Changes to their expectations and understanding of the world were happening on a vast scale. Part of facing what had happened to them included coming to terms with the destruction brought about by the Babylonians. For instance, a coping technique for the events that had happened to them is found in Jeremiah. According to Kathleen O’Connor: [His] violent poetry creates a vocabulary of experience, builds a common language among survivors to name what happened, gives shape to disaster, and helps Judeans face it in small portions.8 The destruction became part of the story of the Israelite people, as did the calls for revenge it occasioned (as above). Their religion and their political situation completely changed. The destruction of the temple and deportation to Babylon necessitated changes to their understanding of Yahweh and the way the cult worked. With the traditional system of the temple gone, new ways had to be found in order to continue worshipping Yahweh and to structure society.9 The foundations of the Israelite religion had been these texts, even if it is a god that simultaneously attracts and appals us.” (Carvalho, “The Beauty of the Bloody God,” 143). 7 E. John Hamlin, “Isaiah 47, the End of Empire.” Proceedings: Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Bib- lical Societies 16 (1996): 129. 8 Kathleen M. O’Connor, “Reclaiming Jeremiah’s Violence,” in The Aesthetics of Violence in the Prophets, ed. Julia M. O’Brien and Chris Franke (New York: T&T Clark, 2010), 49. 9 It was, according to Middlemas, a “significant era in which the entire social, political, and religious spheres of Judah were adapted and reformulated.” (J.A. Middlemas, The Troubles of Templeless Judah [New York: Oxford UP, 2005], 5). The temple also had an economic role, which would have disappeared

shaken: either Yahweh had abandoned them10 or he had been defeated.11 Neither situation fit their understanding of Yahweh, so as a result, the religion would change significantly, setting the roots for Judaism to develop.12 Despite all these changes, certain features of Israel's stories remained important throughout the period of the Restoration. As Ian Wilson explains: “[s]ocial memory func- tioned systemically (as it always does), with various narratives contributing to feedback loops that informed Yehudite sociocultural and political identity.”13 Exodus language and patterns were integral to the peoples’ understanding of the new events. This will be investigated in the following section. Then, with the background established, we will move to the Restoration period. Violent imagery, the Ban, and the justifications used for the conquest are prominent themes in the writings being studied, so they will all be treated in their own sections.

3. Scope

This study will be a literary examination using traditional historical-critical methods and comparative analysis, focusing on literary themes and imagery. Rather than examining the practise of warfare in the ancient Near East, we will concentrate on conquest allusions and how they applied in four areas: New Exodus language, violence in the post-

(Lisbeth S. Fried, “The Land Lay Desolate: Conquest and Restoration in the Ancient Near East,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blenkinsopp [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003], 22). 10 Nathan MacDonald, “The Spirit of YHWH: An Overlooked Conceptualization of Divine Presence in the Persian Period,” in Divine Presence and Absence in Exilic and Post-Exilic Judaism, ed. Nathan Mac- Donald and Izaak J. De Hulster, vol. 2 of Studies of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on Early Jewish Monotheism (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 95. 11 Strine and Crouch say that this in turn opens up “the possibility that YHWH had lost his status as divine king and creator.” (C.A. Strine and C.L. Crouch, “YHWH’s Battle against Chaos in Ezekiel: The Transformation of Judahite Mythology for a New Situation,” JBL 132 [2013]: 886). 12 Robert P. Carroll, “The Myth of the Empty Land,” Semeia 59 (1992): 87. 13 Ian Douglas Wilson, “Joseph, Jehoiachin, and Cyrus: On Book Endings, Exoduses and Exiles, and Yehudite/Judean Social Remembering,” ZAW 126 (2014): 524.

5 exilic books, war and the Ban, and how the returnees interacted with the people who were in the land. The focus will be on patterning, language, and the overall story. The phrase ‘New Conquest’ is being used as a collective term for the battle-related and violent language used, which is especially useful as it parallels the ‘New Exodus’. The most important factor for this study will be how the Israelites themselves understood their reoccupation of the land, concentrating on Israel’s textual self-identity as reflected by its written history.14 The purpose is to study how they understood what was happening to them and the language they used to express this understanding. It is not about what really happened, since we cannot objectively recover the history behind the writing; it is about their interpretation and portrayal of what happened. It is Israel’s self- definition that will be explored: how the returning people saw themselves in relation to the land, the people who were occupying it, their earthly conquerors, and their god. This applies particularly to early stories that cover the period of the emergence of Israel, stories on which much of their later language was based. Telling these origin stories developed a shared identity for all the Israelites by involving everyone in the experience of the Exodus and the Conquest; this process happened again throughout the Exile and Restoration. By retelling stories of their origin, they explained to themselves how their present situation fit their worldview and larger religious story. While history, archaeology, and other ancient Near Eastern records will be studied as necessary for comparative purposes, the focus will be on Israel’s writings, because that is where we will detect their interpretation of what happened to them: their historiography.

14 Jonker explains that “[t]he notion of ‘textual identities’ emphasizes the fluid, dynamic, and discur- sive nature of processes of identity formation” and “emphasizes the close interrelationship between the social environment within which a group exists, the textual resources that are available in the given culture, and the role that renewed textual construction plays in the process of identity formation.” He is speaking in particular about the changes the Chronicler made to Israel’s history, where it is most evident, but the idea applies to the way any culture writes its own history; both in choosing what it deems important and how it remembers it (Louis C. Jonker, “Who Constitutes Society? Yehud’s Self-Understanding in the Late Persian Era as Reflected in the Books of Chronicles,” JBL 127 [2008]: 704).

The period in question started when Israel first experienced defeat and exile (in the sixth century BCE), although the main area of study will be the Restoration (after 538 BCE). The exilic and post-exilic books, therefore, will be the main focus, although we will also look briefly at later sectarian and apocalyptic material, because they also show the presence of certain themes that are under consideration and will support the argument that the incidents of conquest language in the exilic and post-exilic books were inten- tional. The necessary background information on the Ban, its use in the original Conquest, and related pre-exilic violent imagery will be covered in the first section of chapter 2. This is important because the description of Yahweh as the Divine Warrior, for instance, was later picked up in books like Deutero-Isaiah to describe his actions bringing Israel back to their land. Allusions to exodus themes and language have long been recognized (this will be discussed in ch. 2. sect. B.) and play a part setting the stage for potential conquest allusions. There are also broad parallels to large-scale events and to main themes that need to be explored. Chapter 3 will cover both conquest allusions and violent imagery of the exilic and post-exilic periods as well as the broad historical parallels between the two time periods, focusing especially on the Ban, namely its pattern and its justifications. In the chapter after the this, the study will move into a slightly later period, examining the ongoing themes under considerations and the way conquest ideology affected later Jewish writing. Finally, chapter 5 will conclude with the study’s findings and suggest areas where the implications of the research could lead. The questions that need to be answered are: in what ways and to what extent was the original conquest employed, adapted, and influenced by the descriptions and views that the returnees had of their re-establishment in the land. This is a means to delve into the exilic and post-exilic writings in order to understand the people of the community’s self-

7 definition as they worked to come to terms with their new situation and figure out how to address the future,15 all while building on their past.

15 J.A. Middlemas, “Going Beyond the Myth of the Empty Land: A Reassessment of the Early Persian Period,” in Exile and Restoration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, ed. Gary N. Knoppers and Lester L. Grabbe with Derdre N. Fulton (London: T & T Clark, 2009), 189.

CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND

Wars were major formative events in the stories of the Israelite people in the Hebrew Bible. The Israelites, who saw one of their first events as a nation as the celebration of victory at the Reed Sea, spent much of their existence either at war or dealing with the outcome of war. Many aspects of their identity stem directly from their origin myths. These will be covered in this chapter because, it will be argued, they provide the context for the violent imagery and language that is present in the exilic and post-exilic books that are the subject of this study.

A. Violence and War in the Pre-Exilic Period

We often think of war as an all-encompassing conflict, confined to distinct periods of time, when most of the world mobilized behind a common cause. War in the ancient Near East, however, was commonplace: one part of the pattern of life. It was utilized both by and against the Israelites, affecting them throughout biblical history. Some of these episodes, like the siege of Jerusalem, were indeed clear-cut periods, but at other times, it was simply a frequent occurrence and a familiar part of the culture, so that people lived with war as a constant possibility. It was part of the wider world they inhabited. Militarization was an everyday reality, as seen in the casualness of 2 Sam 11:1’s statement “At the turn of the year, the season when kings go out [to battle]” (JPS), 16 than in the modern Western world.17 Past conflicts were a part of the national memory and identity of the Israelites.

16 Unless otherwise stated, all scripture is quoted from the Tanakh (JPS). 17 For instance, we use the Second World War as our go-to example in the Western world. It is often seen as a discreet period of time, as though war only happens when it is to that scale and permeates every aspect of the culture of the period, when in fact it was unlike anything ever seen before. It is that dichotomy between ‘war’ and ‘not-war’ that I wish to avoid. A more subtle understanding of war and its impact is needed. To carry on with the example of the Second World War, it was not simply an event that took place from 1939-1945, but included years of build up before conflict broke out and resulted in a decades-long Cold War that made the possibility of war ever-present for years afterwards: the years from 1945-1989 could hardly be termed ‘peaceful.’ Regardless of when the actual fighting happened, war had an impact on

9 The story of the Exodus and Conquest shaped this identity, which boasted in David’s achievements and Yahweh’s warrior status. It is necessary to understand the process of, and attitudes towards, war and violence as the context for this study. However, it is not part of the intent of this chapter to go into the morality of war in the Hebrew Bible, whether to condemn or justify. It is instead to explain the context and culture surrounding war: how and why it was used, and the language that was influenced by it. The focus in this section is the Conquest because it was the most significant war in the Hebrew Bible in terms of the story Israel told about its establishment as a nation. It is also the main source for New Conquest imagery in the post-exilic writings. Specifically, the Ban, including the justification for this type of holy war, will be looked at because it played a large role in the Conquest. It is vital to examine Yahweh’s role in war in order to understand how the Israelites, and later the Jews, wrote about their god and his role in conflict. However, the Conquest was not the only defining war in Israel’s history, and so the role Yahweh was identified as playing in the war against Israel (through the Neo-As- syrians and Neo-Babylonians) will also be examined.

1. Biblical War

1.1 Ideology

Religion permeated every aspect of society in the ancient world, so the reasons for and methods of waging war, of course, carried the weight of the religious beliefs of the people who fought18. For Israel, this meant that they believed that their god, Yahweh,

almost every part of the twentieth century, and it is this type of ongoing conflict, and its associated impact on its surrounding history and culture, that we are dealing with in this study. 18 The first order of business for in Israelites on crossing into the land, for instance, was to prepare all the military aged males for war by ensuring they were circumcised (Josh 5:1-8). Circumcision, as a sign of the covenant with Yahweh, was only a religious, not military, necessity.

fought on their side, protecting and granting them victory as their patron.19 Yahweh ordered, or at the very least condoned and supported, their battles.20 Gerhard von Rad claimed that 1 Sam 17:45-47 summarizes “almost the entire ideology of holy war”:21 45David replied to the Philistine, you come against me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come against you in the name of the LORD of Hosts, the God of the ranks of 46 Israel, whom you have defied. This very day the LORD will deliver you into my hands. I will kill you and cut off your head; and I will give the carcasses of the Philis- tine camp to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. All the earth shall know 47 that there is a God in Israel. And this whole assembly shall know that the LORD can give victory without sword or spear. For the battle is the LORD’s, and He will deliver you into our hands.

Yahweh was the ultimate power behind Israel’s wars, one goal of which was to demonstrate his omnipotence. They shared this understanding of war and the role of a patron deity with the rest of the ancient Near East. They also used a common way of writing about war, as in 2 Kings 24-25, which actually adopted a standard conquest formula to relate the account of Judah’s defeat. Lisbeth S. Fried goes into detail in her analysis of those two chapters, noting similarities that include all but one (acts of celebration, which would have been impossibly out-of-place) of the seventeen components identified in K. Lawson Younger Jr.’s examination of Assyrian conquest accounts.22 It is remarkable that the biblical writers chose to frame their defeat in the same way their enemies boasted of victory. It shows that Israel was influenced by surrounding cultures and that Israel’s ideology of war could even be said to give Yahweh the credit for the victories demonstrate

19 Gerhard von Rad, Holy War in Ancient Israel, 3rd ed. trans. Marva J. Dawn (Grand Rapids: Eerd- mans, 1991; repr. [1958]), 72-73. See, for instance, Judg 4:23-24, which parallels Yahweh subduing King Jabin (v. 23) with the Israelites doing the same (v. 24). 20 For example, Deut 2:34; 1 Sam 15:2-3. 21 von Rad, Holy War, 91. 22 She concludes that “[t]he historiography employed by the writer is the historiography of the royal Assyrian scribe.” (Lisbeth S. Fried, “The Land Lay Desolate: Conquest and Restoration in the Ancient Near East,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blenkinsopp [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003], 29). Fried’s article includes a full table comparing each component to the stories of all three kings in 2 Kgs 24-25. Note that not each component happened with each king, though all but ‘acts of celebration’ happened at least once, and the majority of the comparisons happened to the last king, Zedekiah (ibid., 24-29; K. Lawson Younger Jr., Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in An- cient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing, JSOT Supplement 98 [Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990], 72- 79).

11 Yahweh’s control of events as the ultimate power behind the conquerors (for more on this idea, see below, p. 117).

1.2. Conquest Purpose. Almost from the very beginning of the Torah, war was inescapably linked to the promises of land and people,23 the very promises that led Israel into war with Egypt and Canaan. The purpose of the conquest was to gain land for Israel, land God had promised; thus, it would fulfil the underlying expectations of the Exodus.24 This commitment was rooted deeply in the history of the Israelites’ common ancestors, the Patriarchs.25 The land is inextricably tied to the Israelites’ identity as the people whom God had elected when he chose their ancestors.26 Election is a theme that underlies the story that started with Moses’s call to lead the people out of Egypt.27 It was the reason Yahweh saved them from Egypt and led them throughout the period of the Exodus. The land was an important prerequisite for the nation of Israel to grow and establish itself and to enable an economy to be built. The Story. The books of Joshua and Judges record what Israel believed were stories of the Conquest and their early attempts to establish itself as a state. The book of Joshua is fairly straight forward, relating how the people moved into the land, (for the most part28) fulfilled God’s commands to remove the original inhabitants, and established themselves as a united group. Judges, on the other hand, reveals a much more complex

23 John Mansford Prior, “‘Power’ and ‘the Other’ in Joshua: The Brutal Birthing of a Group Identity,” Mission Studies 23 (2006): 28. This was true even in Gen 14, long before Israel was supposed to have become a people-group. 24 Josh 1:2-3, among others. 25 Gen 12:7 26 Prior, “Power,” 39. 27 Exod 3:17 28 While the book of Joshua seems to present a consistent picture of a total victory (especially compared to Judges), there are nevertheless hints of an incomplete removal of the original people, as in Josh 9’s treaty with the Gibeonites and their failure to conquer other groups, for example the Jebusites (Josh 15:63).

situation:29 there were still Canaanites in the land,30 the people were divided,31 and worship was even given to Baal and other deities by the Israelites themselves.32 Nevertheless, even if “conquest” is too encompassing and final a term (if it is understood to mean total victory through the complete removal of the original inhabitants), the books still tell the story of the people of Israel moving into the land and becoming dominant through military might.

חרם ,The Ban .1.3

1.3.1. Definition The original Exodus was followed by the Conquest and the implementation of the by Israel in order to secure the land. It was not necessarily a part of holy war in (חרם) Ban the ancient Near East: Assyria’s wars had religious overtones, but they never practised it.33 However, in the Pentateuch the Ban is sanctioned as an integral part of the conquest of Canaan,34 as well as in related episodes in the books of Joshua35 and Samuel. 36 ban,’ means “to devote to destruction”,37 and it had a special‘ ,חרם In its verb form significance in the Hebrew Bible because of its association with conquest and consecration, a connotation that only Moabite and possibly Ugaritic, out of the other Semitic

29 Prior, “Power,” 31. 30 Judg 3:1-5 31 Judg 19-21 32 Judg 3:7; 17:2-3 33 Philip D. Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem: A Window on Israel’s Religious Experience (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1991), 179. 34 Num 12:2; Deut 20:16-17 35 Josh 6:20-21 36 1 Sam 15:3 .חרם .HALOT, s.v 37

13 languages, may have shared.38 According to Philip Stern’s study of the word, when the term is applied to biblical holy war, it “weds large scale massacre of an enemy with the biblical concept of holiness”.39 It calls for complete destruction of the people, animals, and goods given over to them by God,40 as mandated in Deut 7:1-6:

1 When the LORD your God brings you to the land that you are about to enter and pos- sess, and He dislodges many nations before you – the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations much larger than you – 2 and the LORD your God delivers them to you and you defeat them, you must doom them to destruction: grant them no terms and give them no quarter. 3 You shall not in- termarry with them: do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. 4For they will turn your children away from Me to worship other gods, and the LORD’s anger will blaze forth against you and He will promptly wipe you out. 5Instead, this is what you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred posts, and consign their images to the fire. 6For you are a people consecrated to the LORD your God: of all the peoples on earth the LORD your God chose you to be His treasured people. This type of destruction is demonstrated against the city and people of Jericho.41 The Ban as a process used in warfare, however, is more involved than the verb’s definition alone suggests. This process is covered below.

1.3.2. Use in the Hebrew Bible The book of Judges is not filled with easy-to-read stories. However, leaving aside the ethical implications of the policy of the Ban,42 the importance it had for the fledgling nation was likely the practical reason behind it. By ensuring that they were the only people

”meaning “dedicated it ,”החרמתה“ Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 16. HALOT lists the Moabite use as 38 .(חרם .HALOT, s.v) 39 Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, ix. However, it was not used exclusively for holy war, and the tactic could It could even have a .(חרם .be used alone (ibid., 179) with the meaning of ‘to destroy’ (see also HALOT, s.v positive connotation, as seen in personal names in various Semitic languages, with the more general meaning of ‘sacred’ (Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 219). 40 For example, Deut. 7:1-5; 13:15-16; 20. However, there are also instances within the context of war where not every single item was devoted to destruction, such as Num. 31:9. 41 Josh 6:20-21 42 This is not to say that the ethics of the Ban are unimportant, but modern feelings about it do not factor into understanding its influence on early Israelite self-understanding. Furthermore, ethical implications may not have been an issue for the Israelites: besides being an accepted a part of the culture, the Ban was implemented under Yahweh’s command and for their own protection, and, therefore, they were not under any guilt for practicing it (Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 84).

alive in the land, the Israelites were protecting themselves from future problems with apostasy.43 Part of the rationale for the Ban was to keep the people of God pure, so that native religious practices could not have the opportunity to influence the Israelites who took over the land.44 It ensured their own survival as a people-group and the purity of those aspects of their culture, like their religion,45 that made them the unique people of God. The Ban ensured the Israelites’ separation from the other people of the land and made them the exclusive people of God. The Ban was inextricably linked to the Israelites’ sense of their election by God, because it is what granted them the right, the necessity even, to destroy the other people and claim their land. The elected, faithful people of Yah- weh were differentiated from the sinful Canaanites, who fell under his righteous judgment, resulting in their slaughter.46 Lauren Monroe makes the link between the Ban, judgment, and the land clear, since in:

43 Lauren A.S. Monroe, “Israelite, Moabite and Sabaean War- Ḥērem Traditions and the Forging of Na- tional Identity: Reconsidering the Sabaean Text RES 3945 in Light of Biblical and Moabite Evidence,” VT 57 (2007): 322; Ziony Zevit, “The Search for Violence in Israelite Culture and in the Bible,” in Religion and Violence: The Biblical Heritage, ed. David A Bernat and Jonathan Klawans (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoe- nix Press, 2007), 20. As Zevit points out, “[t]he total destruction of Sihon, Og, and their followers was due to tactical not strategic considerations.” (ibid.) 44 According to von Rad, this is particularly seen in the ‘D’ source (Holy War, 117). Despite this seem- ing necessity to cleanse the land for Israel’s exclusive use, it is important to also mention a very different philosophy that co-existed at the same time: while Israel was instructed to rid the land of entire people- groups (Deut 20:17), at the same time they were also told to care for orphans, widows, and foreigners (Deut. 20:18-19; 24:17-22). The importance of this dictum is highlighted by its link to a fundamental part of Israel’s identity, their formative experience as slaves in Egypt (Joel S. Kaminsky, “Did Election Imply the Mistreatment of Non-Israelites?,” HTR 96 [2003]: 410). The Israelites saw the land as justice for themselves after slavery and this extended to those who were in similar positions. 45 Deut. 20:17-18. Zevit interprets the demand to destroy all Canaanite cultic objects as a strategy to keep Israel’s own practices clean (“The Search for Violence,” 26). Stern says something similar based on the character of a measure against idol-worship” (The חרם-this passage: that the demand gives “the war Biblical Ḥerem, 1). 46 Zevit claims “Moral iniquity, according to Leviticus, explained the physical departure of the Canaan- ites. Deuteronomy provided a practical clarification of how the land would disgorge the iniquitous Canaanites and purge itself. It mandated genocide.” (Zevit, “The Search for Violence,” 27); Susan Niditch also made this observation of the way Deuteronomy interprets the Ban (“War in the Hebrew Bible and Con- temporary Parallels,” Word & World 15 [1995]: 34).

15 [T]he Deuteronomistic conception, proper enactment of the ḥērem against Israel’s enemies is a precondition for the Israelites’ occupation of the land. Failure in this regard may be interpreted as a breach of covenant.47 A comparison of the adaptions of the word for ‘ban’ in other Semitic texts, namely the Moabite Stone and the Sabaean RES 3945 text, is enlightening regarding the covenantal context of the Ban. In both of these texts, written in Moabite and proto-Arabic respectively, the genocidal overtones of the Ban come from the exclusive relationship of the people to the land, through the deity who had granted the land and mandated segregation.48 Furthermore, according to Monroe, the Ban was tied to Israel’s “political assertion of the inviolable relationship between a conquering nation on its newly acquired land and the god from whom that land was granted.”49 The Ban was not used exclusively against outside groups. It could also be applied to Israelites who made themselves like outsiders by failing to live up to their side of the covenant,50 something that would, in turn threaten the purity of the whole cult. 51 The story of Achan, in Josh 7, illustrates what would happen to an Israelite who disobeyed God. Achan purposely stole items that were intended for destruction as part of the Ban on Jeri- cho; that is to say, he stole from God himself. In doing so, Achan directly caused the defeat of Israel at Ai by inciting Yahweh to abandon Israel for its failure to uphold the Ban. It may seem like a simple theft, but Achan’s disobedience took away an essential character of Israel – complete devotion to God – thereby removing their exclusive status with him. As a result, Yahweh did not need to continue upholding his side of their covenantal relationship as their national god and warrior, so they were defeated. It was not

47 Monroe, “Israelite, Moabite and Sabaean War,” 322. This quote is in the context of a discussion on the sin of Achan, and the danger his breaking of the covenant presented to the survival of the people as a whole. 48 Ibid., 323. 49 Ibid., 321. 50 Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 20. 51 Stephen Dempster, “The Prophetic Invocation of the Ban as Covenant Curse: A Historical Analysis of a Prophetic Theme” (M.Th. thesis, Westminster Theological Seminary, 78), 72; Exod 22:19; Deut 13.

theft; it was apostasy.52 Consequently, not only Achan, but his entire family became subject to the Ban, so that just like the Canaanites, they were judged and destroyed. His ethnicity did not determine his fate, his actions did.53 Despite modern readers’ discomfort with these stories of bloody destruction, the violence inherent in these wars was accepted as part of how the Israelites understood their background, as the wars had major roles in their stories. Therefore, they also had an impact on their literature and vocabulary through the imagery and language employed, so it is important to understand them.

1.3.3. The Elements of the Ban There are several components to the Ban that are common in most stories. The Sa- baean inscription RES 3945 provides an excellent explanation of these elements. Though not precisely dated, it is likely from roughly the time of Israel’s Iron II period, and besides the Moabite Stone is the only extra-biblical use of the word in a war-context.54 It boasts about the deeds of the king, KRB’L, when he implemented the Ban on neighbouring kingdoms. Over and over the text repeats the events, almost as a formula: destruction and plunder, including devoting at least some of the items and people to fire as an offering for the deity who helped win victory; deportation of the original population (if any were left); resettlement of the king’s subjects in the conquered land; and finally, building a temple to the victorious deity.55 These four components provide an excellent framework for examining and understanding stories of the Ban’s application in the Hebrew Bible.

52 According to Hawk “[l]exical and thematic allusions to Deuteronomy 13:1-18 link Achan with the apostates who entice Israel to the worship of other gods.” (L. Daniel Hawk, “Fixing Boundaries: The Con- struction of Identity in Joshua,” Ashland Theological Journal 32 [2000]: 25). 53 Kaminsky, “Did Election,” 402. 54 Monroe, “Israelite, Moabite and Sabaean War,” 320. 55 Sabaean Inscriptions, trans. A.F.L.Beeston (Oxford, 1937); Monroe, “Israelite, Moabite and Sabaean War,” 335.

17 Destruction. Even as far back as the Old Babylonian period, an inscription of Idi-Sin of Simurrum records the destruction of a city that was dedicated to the victor’s deities.56 The Hebrew Bible calls for the complete annihilation of enemy people in the instructions that God’s people received prior to entering the land,57 including those Israelites who followed forbidden religious practices.58 This was not always followed precisely, as Josh 8:2 allows for plunder to be taken, as well, which is closer to the practises described in RES 3945. Destruction is the most obviously warlike part of the Ban process; its implementation has also been covered above. It was also closely linked to the idea of sacrifice to the victorious deity, which is covered in the following section. Deportation. Not every person was necessarily killed, because the goal was to protect Israelite culture rather than to commit genocide. It should be noted that within the land itself only destruction was to be acceptable, as above; however, other options existed for dealing with conquest outside of the land itself.59 In the story in Num 31:18 (which -even though it is amongst stories related to the Ban and con ,חרם does not use the word quest) virgin women were kept alive so they could marry the Israelites. Susan Nidtich speculates that they were the only ones spared because they could be easily assimilated into the Israelite culture.60 While this is not a deportation, it does remove them from their original culture and neutralises any threat they may pose to the new conquerors. There are

56 Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 39. 57 Deut 20:17-18 58 Exod 22:19; Deut 13. Idolaters were, by definition, those who were not loyal to Yahweh, even if they were part of the Israelites. According to Stern, ensuring that they too were under the Ban would “help maintain or restore the moral as well as physical order of the universe.” (Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 41). For an example, see the discussion on story of Achan see above, p. 17. 59 Joel S. Kaminsky speculates that groups into the elect (the Israelites), the anti-elect (who were to be killed), and then everyone else: the non-elect, to whom attitudes varied (“Did Election Imply,” 398-99.), including the option of deportation and even assimilation. All the groups were non-Israelite, but only some, the anti-elect (those in the land, which was based on proximity, and therefore danger, to the Israelites) were subject to destruction. 60 Notably, without fear of them taking revenge later, which may have been why all the males were killed (Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 85-86).

also alternative verbs employed that suggest a link between the Ban and deportation. In :Stern explains that ,חרם his study of In three out of four passages from Exodus dealing with the disposal of the peoples of One may justly conclude that the concepts of ....גרשׁ the land, the important verb is are not seen as contradictory in Deuteronomy, but complementary. The חרם and גרשׁ is a way to realize the general goal of expelling the enemy nations.”61 חרם

to drive away’,62 and then in the verse‘ ,נשׁל ,Deuteronomy 7:1 uses another related term -The re .חרם immediately after its use, the Israelites are ordered to clear the land through sult of all these actions was that the land was then left available for the newly victorious people. Resettlement. To the Israelites, settlement was the reason for the Conquest; they wanted to gain the Promised Land and use it for themselves. Josh 12-21 primarily describes the conquered territory and how it was distributed to the Israelites for their own development. Josh 21:41-42 concludes this section:

41 The LORD gave to Israel the whole country which He had sworn to their fathers that He would assign to them; they took possession of it and settled in it. 42 The LORD gave them rest on all sides, just as He had promised to their fathers on oath. Not one man of all their enemies withstood them; the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hands. The parallel structure of these two verses highlights the connection between the settle- ments and conquest. Interestingly, the Moabite Stone, which is normally discussed for its claims of anni- to build.’ That is to say, the text‘ ,בנה hilating the Israelites, the most common verb is actually focuses more on creation than on destruction and deportation.63

61 Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 47. .נשׁל .HALOT, s.v 62 63 William F. Albright, “The Moabite Stone,” in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testa- ment, ed. James B. Pritchard, 3rd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 320-21. Furthermore, several ancient Near Eastern myths that start off about war end in creation, for example in Enuma Elish (Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 51).

19 Temple Building. In ancient Near Eastern stories victory followed by temple building is a prominent topos.64 Both Marduk and Baal received temples because they were able to subdue the forces of chaos.65 The last phase of the Ban is perhaps not as obvious in the biblical conquest accounts as Baal’s demand in Ugaritic accounts; nevertheless, the He- brew Bible’s stories of victory are often followed by related acts. Joshua, for instance, builds an altar on Mount Ebal and leads the people of Israel in worship immediately after the conquest of Ai.66 The mountain on which the people of Israel worshipped after Yah- weh’s victory at the Sea of Reeds also follows this model, as that was the proper place for sanctuaries in ancient Near Eastern myths, in particular after they had won a victory. 67 The connection between victory, mountains, and temples will be discussed further in connection with the Divine Warrior (see below, p. 24). Later, when David’s forces finally occupied the parts of Israel that had not been taken during the period described in Joshua and Judges, one of his first order of business was to build a temple (though, more precisely, it was his first desire, since he was not actually allowed to build it).68 This desire on the part of the Israelites is consistent with ancient Near Eastern sensibilities on the role

64 Not only temple building, but also palace building. In reference to Enuma Elish, Victor Hurowitz states that this type of language “[t]ypifies both royal inscriptions and this hymn as well” (I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian and Northwest Semitic Writings, JSOT Supplement 115 [Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1992], 95). 65 Paul D. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1995), 100. 66 Monroe, “Israelite, Moabite and Sabaean War,” 338; Josh 8:30-35. This also highlights the importance of claiming the land, because when landmarks and inscriptions were erected to record victories they became part of the landscape; the memorials were a constant reminder of the Conquest and of the importance of the land (Prior, “Power” 32). 67 As in Baal’s defeat of Yamm. Miller explains that a sanctuary on a mountain was “a sign of his victory and rule.” (Patrick D. Miller, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel [Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1973], 33). 68 2 Sam 7

and importance of the temple.69 The temple came to be regarded as the culmination of Is- rael’s salvation, with its beginning rooted in the Exodus.70 Destruction, deportation, resettlement, and temple-building, the elements involved in the imposition of the Ban, therefore, played a part in the formative stories of Israel. In Chapter 3, section B, we will examine their recurrence in the Restoration, looking for parallels between the two time periods.

1.4. Justification Some of the events involved in implementing the Ban can be brutal. Even if, as Stern says, acting on Yahweh’s orders was enough to prevent the Israelites from feeling guilty about the violence they used to occupy the land,71 they nevertheless tried to justify their war. These justifications fall into three main categories: sacrifice, judgment, and election,72 though in the end, they all come back to land and Israel’s right to it.

1.4.1. Sacrifice As with many events that involve worshipping or thanking a deity, sacrifice played a part in holy war. In this case, the sacrifice was of the people and plunder on the losing side. Von Rad describes this part of the Ban as “the consecration of the booty to Yahweh”, noting both its cultic overtones and prescribed quality.73 Niditch also observes that Ban-

69 The theology behind Israel’s perception of Yahweh’s need for a temple (or, more accurately, lack of need [2 Sam 7]) is outside the scope of this study. Here we are focusing the pattern of victory followed by temple building, and the components of the Ban, including building a temple. While it may have had different ideas of the relationship of Yahweh to the temple that other nations, they nevertheless shared many of the surrounding cultures views on its importance. It is this common cultural understanding of the temple’s place in society and religion that is under consideration. 70 Samuel E. Loewenstamm, The Evolution of the Exodus Tradition (trans. Baruch J. Schwartz; Jerusa- lem: The Magnes Press, 1992), 41. For a discussion on the temple in this context in the Restoration, see below, p. 76. 71 Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 84. 72 Though not stated as explicitly in Niditch’s study as they are here the three main themes of sacrifice, election, and judgment, were suggested by her book (Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible). 73 von Rad, Holy War, 49.

21 related passages make use of vocabulary tied to “setting aside objects for the use of God and God’s priests”, although she emphasizes that even with the use of language such as that found in Num 18:14, Israel was still firmly against human sacrifice.74

1.4.2. Judgment In fact, even with all the language of consecration and sacrifice, as was Yahweh’s right as victorious deity, the destruction is never a type of sacrifice-for-victory exchange, as though Yahweh could be bribed into helping Israel. Destruction was an earned punishment,75 intended to keep the land and people pure. This applies to both the people who occupied the land before the Israelites, and the Israelites themselves if they shared in the idolatry of the original inhabitants.76 In addition to the act of judgment itself, there was also the shame associated with being the victim of a divinely-ordained catastrophe, thus amplifying the retribution.77

1.4.3. Election The reasons behind holy war and the Ban are closely linked to Israel’s sense of election because they considered themselves the only true inhabitants of the land. They were a special people based on their history. They believed that they had been chosen through the Patriarchs, saved through the Exodus, and exclusively received Yahweh’s law.78 Elec- tion is closely linked to the idea of covenant.79 This sense certainly enabled the Israelites to sacrifice and judge the original people-groups. Vilifying the enemy, making them evil

74 Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 30. 75 Ibid., 45. 76 Ibid., 49; Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 104; cf. Deut 13; Deut 18:10-11; Deut 20:16-18. 77 Cyril S. Rodd, Glimpses of a Strange Land (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001), 26. 78 Gratitude for what had been done for the Israelites’ during the Exodus was often used as motivation to follow the law (Loewenstamm, Exodus Tradition, 56-57). 79 Deut 7

outsiders whom Yahweh had judged, made destroying them easier.80 Stern even goes so far as to call it the “mythicization of the enemy as the monster of chaos”.81 As with the stages of the Ban, the justifications used to excuse it will be examined for parallels in the Restoration period. Sacrifice, judgement, and election as they apply in the post-exilic books will be covered in chapter 3, section C.

2. The Divine Warrior

War was common in the ancient Near East. Israel itself implemented the Ban, as we have just seen, and since religion was tied to every aspect of life, it was inevitable that they would explain their god in terms of war. Many of the ‘battles’ in which Israel was involved were, in fact, ones in which Yahweh alone participated on their behalf. Yahweh the Divine Warrior is an important image throughout the Hebrew Bible, and so is valuable background for understanding the way its connected vocabulary was used long after the Conquest itself.

2.1. War, Deity, and Status Deities in the ancient Near East were often portrayed fighting for one of the same reasons that almost everyone does: status. Winning proved their worth and increased their influence as more and more people came to see their power.82 Exodus 15:2-3 is a famous example of Yahweh receiving praise for his fighting prowess, and Psalm 98 brags about the whole earth seeing his strength. Israel witnessed, worshipped, and benefitted from this power, in that way sharing in his victories. Their fate as a nation was tied to his ability to fight. When Yahweh won, Israel won:

80 Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 20; Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 223. 81 Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 224. For more on the links between enemies, chaos, victory, and creation see below, p. 62. 82 Miller, The Divine Warrior, 64.

23 23On that day God subdued King Jabin of Hazor before the Israelites. 24 The hand of the Israelites bore harder and harder on King Jabin of Canaan, until they destroyed King Jabin of Canaan.83 Here the defeat of Jabin is attributed to both Yahweh and Israel in parallel structure, showing their link in the victory. Conversely, when a country or people-group lost a war in the ancient Near East, it was interpreted as their god also losing his power.84 This principle, of a nation’s fate in battle being intertwined with their god’s warrior abilities, is explored further below (see p. 26).

2.2. The Storm Warrior One of the most common metaphors for Yahweh as a warrior is as a storm. It is used to describe his battles, as in Exodus 9:23-24 and Psalms 18:7-15, and his presence, as in the theodicy of Job 38-42:6. Metaphors of clouds, rain, and sea squalls are common, and influenced by Ugaritic descriptions of Baal and El, in particular by stories of Baal’s battles.85 Storm and water-related motifs often incorporate elements of chaos and creation, as in the Song of Sea,86 victory over which enabled the establishment of order and upheld Yahweh’s position as deity and king.87 The imagery was used in later writing as well, as in Jer 10:10-13: 10But the Lord is truly God: He is a living God,

83 Judg 4:23-24 84 Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 93. 85 Miller, The Divine Warrior, 60. In particular, he says Yahweh “as storm god, warrior, and king bears striking resemblance to that of Baal; in the same roles in Canaanite mythology.” (ibid., 37). 86 As in the Western Semitic mythological motif of ‘chaoskampf’ (Ian Douglas Wilson, “The Song of the Sea and Isaiah: Exodus 15 in Post-monarchic Prophetic Discourse,” in Thinking of Water in the Early Second Temple Period, ed. Ehud Ben Zvi and Christoph Levin [Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014], 141). 87 C.A. Strine and C.L. Crouch, “YHWH’s Battle against Chaos in Ezekiel: The Transformation of Ju- dahite Mythology for a New Situation,” JBL 132 (2013): 884-85. Craigie points out that the Song of the Sea follows the pattern of Baal myths: “conflict, order, kingship and palace (or temple) building” (Peter C. Craigie, “The Poetry of Ugarit and Israel,” TynBul 22 [1971]: 25). This is even to the point of having a temple on the mountain, which was its proper place in ancient Near Eastern thought. In fact, Klien explains that -has a near parallel in the Ugaritic Baal cy (הר נחלתך) »Exod 15:17’s “»mountain of your own possession cle”, KTU 1.3 III, 30 (Anja Klein, “Hymn and History in Ex 15: Observations on the Relationship between Temple Theology and Exodus Narrative in the Song of the Sea,” ZAW 124 [2012]: 525).

The everlasting King. At His wrath, the earth quakes, And nations cannot endure His rage.

11Thus shall you say to them: Let the gods, who did not make heaven and earth, perish from the earth and from under these heavens.

12He made the earth by His might, Established the world by His wisdom, And by His understanding stretched out the skies. 13When He makes His voice heard, There is a rumbling of water in the skies; He makes vapors rise from the end of the earth, He makes lightning for the rain, And brings forth wind from His treasuries. This passage links Yahweh’s kingship and his action at creation with his power as a warrior, described in terms of a storm.

2.3. His Entourage Even Yahweh, the deity of a monotheistic religion,88 did not work alone. As a riff on traditional ancient Near Eastern pantheons, Yahweh had his own divine council, made up not of self-serving deities of which he was the head, but of cherubim and seraphim that followed his absolute rule,89 or even of the stars, as in the Song of Deborah.90

88 It should be noted, though, that monotheism in early Israel is not the same as it was in later periods when Israel came to see God as the only living, real god. In its early manifestations, Israel’s religion is more properly termed henotheistic: Yahweh was the most important of all gods, and Israel’s sole national deity, but certainly not the only god. For instance, even the emphasis in Exod 20:1-5 is on mandating that he will be the only god who receives worship, but it does not deny that other gods exist (Christopher A. Rollston, “The Rise of Monotheism in Ancient Israel: Biblical and Epigraphic Evidence,” Stone-Campbell Journal 6 [2003]: 96). Again using the example of the Song of the Sea, the poem takes pains to clarify and identify God as the same god who brought Israel out of Egypt, marking him as the national god of Israel. This would have been unnecessary were he the only god. Israel’s texts emphasized one god because they owed their existence to his victory over the Egyptians (Lois Barrett, The Way God Fights: War and Peace in the Old Testament, vol. 1 of Peace and Justice Series [Kitchener, On: Herald Press, 1976], 16). 89 Miller, The Divine Warrior, 67; 70. This included acting as a judicial court, as in Ps 82. 90 Ibid., 99.

25 2.4. Theophany Many of these ideas come together under the heading of ‘theophany,’ because storms and their nation’s status are ways in which the Israelites saw a manifestation of their deity and his power as a warrior. Patrick Miller explains that: [T]heophany and holy war are inextricably combined, casting Israel’s understanding of warfare fully on the divine plane and de-emphasizing the role of Israel, as the song of the return of the Ark in Numbers 10:36 makes clear.91 War, but more precisely victory in war, was a way in which Israel perceived God. They saw this through their own victories, which they attributed to his power, and they understood his power as integral to their right to the land and use of the Ban.

3. The Defeat of Israel

Israel’s history as its own nation, in its own land, started with their victory over the people in Canaan, thanks to the power of their god. So, if Israel understood that Yahweh was present in war and believed he was a warrior – and not just any warrior, but their warrior – how did they explain their own defeat by the Babylonians? It was at the very least a challenge to their understanding of him. To the ancient Near Eastern mind-set, he had been defeated by Babylon’s deity. Even worse, when the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed many Israelites saw it as proof that God had actually abandoned his people.92 Not only was their perception of their god changed, but one of the most important underlying features of their self-understanding were also altered: they were the people of the Promised Land, and yet they had been taken away from it. Coming to terms with what had happened meant finding a reason for what Yahweh had done. After all, their all-powerful God could not have been defeated. Israel came to understand that everything that

91 Ibid., 104. 92 Kim Hawtrey, “The Exile as a Crisis for Cultic Religion: Lamentations and Ezekiel,” RTR 52 (1993): 79; Gary Knoppers, “Exile, Return and Diaspora: Expatriates and Repatriates in Late Biblical Literature,” in Texts, Contexts and Readings in Postexilic Literature: Explorations into Historiography and Identity Ne- gotiation in Hebrew Bible and Related Texts, ed. Louis Jonker (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 36.

had happened to them stemmed from their original covenant with God, and the curses that were inherent to it should they fail to live up to their end of the bargain. As a result, literature from that time, like Ezekiel and Lamentations, emphasizes Israel’s sins, which broke the covenant and the resultant justice in their punishment. 93 Ezekiel 5:11 provides an example: Assuredly, as I live – said the Lord GOD – because you defiled My Sanctuary with all your detestable things and all your abominations, I in turn will shear [you] away and show no pity. I in turn will show no compassion94 Reconciling the old promise of God’s commitment to Israel to their current situation meant emphasizing the theology of the covenant: its blessings (the land) and curses (removal from the land).95 As a result, Israel’s defeat actually highlighted Yahweh’s control and power, and proved his commitment to making Israel his true people.96 It was understood that Yahweh could use other armies for his own purposes.97 In this way, all the events were still attributed to God’s control and continuing involvement, but with the added understanding that God would fight against Israel when he was angry with them. In that way, it was much more than Yahweh’s absence that resulted in Israel’s defeat: it was actually Yahweh taking arms against them.98 This idea was not unheard of in the ancient Near East. The Moabite Stone also explains Moab’s oppression as their deity

93 Hawtery, “The Exile as a Crisis for Cultic Religion,” 77, 80-81. 94 See also, Lam 1:5; 1:18. 95 Post-exilic Chronicles, as opposed to the earlier Kings, has a much more consistent understanding of the covenant, and explains Israel’s defeat as God’s punishment (Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 142); Chronicles also presents a strong and immediate cause-and-effect understanding of history (Sara Japhet, From the Rivers of Babylon to the Highlands of Judah: Collected Studies on the Restoration Period [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006], 380). 96 Jacob L. Wright, “The Commemoration of Defeat and the Formation of a Nation in the Hebrew Bi- ble,” Prooftexts 29 (2009): 439. 97 c.f., Jer 50:24; Isa 10:5, 45:1; Terence E. Fretheim, “‘I was only a little angry’: Divine Violence in the Prophets,” Interpretation 58 (2004): 368. 98 This is similar to the older story of Israel being given over to the Amorites to be defeated in Josh 7:7 (Millard Lind, Yahweh is a Warrior: The Theology of Warfare in Ancient Israel [Scotsdale: Herald Press, 1980], 109). See also, Daniel 1:1-2.

27 Kemosh’s anger.99 However, for Israel, this was taken much further: it was not just an introduction on an inscription, but a deeply held principle throughout its scriptures.100 Tied together with the idea of covenant and Yahweh as the divine warrior, this idea means that, as Terence Fretheim puts it, “God uses violence both to save Israel from the effects of other people’s sins (cf. Israel in Egypt; Exod 15:1-3) and to save God’s people from the effects of their own sins”.101 So even in Israel’s defeat, Yahweh was still a powerful warrior, still their covenantal deity, and still caring for them. As with the Exodus and Conquest, even in their defeat, he remained Israel’s all-powerful deity.

Conclusion

As we have seen, war was a part of Israel’s foundation stories and vocabulary, especially as they established themselves in the land. Israel’s understanding of war, the Ban, and their god as a warrior, is the background for understanding the reuse of those concepts and images in the post-exilic period, which will be examined in Chapter 3. With this in mind, we move to the other important background component of ‘New Conquest’ imagery, its opening act: the New Exodus.

B. The New Exodus

Introduction

The Exodus story is one that, in many ways, created the Israelites. When they found themselves in a similar position to the one they recognized from their stories – enslaved in a faraway land and facing a dangerous journey home – it was natural that they would

99 Albright, “The Moabite Stone,” 320-21. 100 Lind, Yahweh is a Warrior, 102. 101 Fretheim, “‘I was only a little angry’,” 371. Emphasis original.

see parallels to, and use language reminiscent of, a familiar story. When it came to explaining what was happening to them in exile and on their return to the Promised Land, it was reasonable, therefore, that the writers of the exilic and post-exilic books turn to the Exodus as the prototype of their experience in order to help them explain what was happening. As Bernhard Anderson explains, “typology is fundamentally a mode of historical understanding.”102 The New Exodus has long been recognized as an important theme in books like Eze- kiel, Deutero-Isaiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah, as will be discussed below. It refers to the pervasive use of the allusions and the casting of the exile from and return to Judah, which had become the Persian province of Yehud, in terms of the original Exodus. Since the Ex- odus was the precursor for both the Conquest, and in its figurative form, the Restoration, it is important to understand its influence on the exilic and post-exilic writings. The Exile and Restoration brought about many changes for the identity of the Israel- ite people, as they transformed into the Jewish nation.103 It is important, therefore, to explore how this transformation affected the Israelites’ understanding of their return to the land, especially their interactions with the people who were already living in it. The New Exodus expressions in Deutero-Isaiah, for instance, developed as many Israelites chose to undertake the journey to return to the Promised Land. Not only were similarities drawn to the Exodus, but their identity also emphasized the experience of exile in Baby- lon as a defining and desirable characteristic of the new Jewish nation, just as the original Exodus was the background story that unified the Israelites.

102 Bernhard W. Anderson, “Exodus Typology in Second Isaiah,” in Israel’s Prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg, ed. Bernard W Anderson and Walter J. Harrelson (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962), 178. Furthermore, they “disclose in the concreteness and temporality that which is ultimately real.” (ibid., 180). 103 As an expediency, I will use the term ‘Israelites’ for the pre-exilic people, and ‘Jews’ for the post- exilic group. Golah or ‘the returnees’ will be used specifically to distinguish those that made the journey from Babylon to Yehud and their communal activities.

29 1. The Centrality of the Exodus to the Israelites

The story of the Exodus was frequently reused because it is the story of the creation of Israel as a nation, something all Israelites considered that they had in common. The book of Joshua, for instance, picks up the language of Moses’s burning-bush encounter. 104 In other writings, Yahweh’s identity as “He who brought you out of the land of Egypt” is referenced frequently. 105 The Israelites developed ethnicity through narrative, stories that created and sustained a common bond among the people. As opposed to many of the stories from the ancient Near East, which focused on rulers, the stories Israel told reflect the people as a whole and what was important to them.106 The stories were curated through the long history of the composition of the Hebrew Bible, forming historical memories of a common past.107 Exodus is also the explanation of how the nation came from a common ancestor.108 The stories of Israel explain that the people are, in fact, an extended family.109 The very name, Israel, is patronymic.110 Exod 15:2 not only praises God for saving the new nation, but it also links the god of the Exodus and victory at the Reed Sea with the god of their common ancestor: 111 The LORD is my strength and might; He is become my deliverance. This is my God and I will enshrine Him; The God of my father, and I will exalt Him.

104 Exod 3:15; Josh 5:15 105 For example, Lev 11:45, 26:13; Deut 5:6, 7:8; Judg 2:1; Isa 43:3; Jer 2:6. 16:14. 34:13; Ezek 20:7; Amos 2:10; Hos 13:4; Ps 81:10. 106 Wright, “The Commemoration of Defeat,” 437. 107 Pekka Pitkänen, “Ethnicity, Assimilation and the Israelite Settlement,” TynBul 55 (2004): 168. 108 Ibid., 169. 109 Exod 1:1-7 110 Gen 32:28 111 See also, Deut 10:5-9.

Yahweh chose Israel’s ancestors and promised them the land of Canaan. Those promises became the foundation on which rested their sense of election and right to the land. The Exodus established Yahweh’s position as saviour and national deity. The importance that the story of the Exodus had for the people of Israel is demonstrated by the yearly celebration of the Passover,112 which even today is a regular reminder of Jewish identity. This common-origin story created shared memories of one of the most important moments in their history.113 It went well beyond the event itself, and became part of the framework for their self-understanding.114

2. The Centrality of the Exodus to the Hebrew Bible

Since it was so important to the people of Israel, both to their history and identity, we can expect that the Exodus would likewise be important to their writing, possibly even the most important experience115 shaping the Hebrew Bible. Trito-Isaiah116 used it to explain who Yahweh was; describing him, through allusions to the Exodus, as Israel’s long- time saviour.117 The Song of the Sea is an excellent example of how the story of the Exodus was linked with the larger salvation story of Israel as the people moved from Egypt to Ca- naan. This occurred as a result of its use of common tropes to describe Yahweh and the

112 Pamela Barmash, “The Exodus: Central, Enduring, and Generative,” in Exodus in the Jewish Expe- rience: Echoes and Reverberations, ed. Pamela Barmash and W. David Nelson (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015), ix. 113 Barrett, The Way God Fights, 16; Ex. 12:42. 114 Barmash, “The Exodus,” viii; I. Wilson, “The Song of the Sea,” 123. 115 Lind, Yahweh is a Warrior, 46. 116 The debate about the authorship of Isaiah 56-66 is beyond the scope of this study. I use the phrase as an expediency to denote the chronologically late sections of the book and to separate them from Deutero- Isaiah. 117 E.g. 63:7-14; Jan L. Koole, Isaiah: Part III, Historical Commentary on the Old Testament (trans. Anthony P. Runia, Historical Commentary on the Old Testament; Peeters: Leuven, 2001), 355.

31 battle,118 and because it anachronistically incorporates the conquest of the Promised Land into Exod 15:17. James Watts describes this as “seeing [God’s victories] all encapsulated in the victory by the Reed Sea.”119 By setting the Song of the Sea in a less-than-specific time and place, it easily became a transferable symbol.120 As a symbol, it also became the reason the Israelites believed their god would always help them.121 Exodus imagery was used throughout the biblical writings, which shows its role in the people’s understanding of their past and who they were: the people Yahweh choose and led out of Egypt.

3. Allusions to the Exodus in the Conquest

Allusions to older stories like the Exodus continued into post-exilic books. It is easy enough to say that, because conquest followed exodus, any battle or warrior images in Exodus and New Exodus imagery must be Conquest imagery as well. However, that would be an oversimplification. It does not follow that all war imagery refers to the same thing, even if they superficially resemble each other. There are several times, however, where the connections are made strongly between the Exodus and the Conquest. These are picked up by later writing; therefore, it is worth examining them to see the pattern of the imagery used and its underlying theology.

3.1. The Sea of Reeds This battle and its victory song, discussed above, come up frequently in the Hebrew Bible when examining war imagery because of their standing as the paradigm of Yah- weh’s salvation of Israel and as proof of his warrior credentials. It is no surprise that

118 Including: the divine warrior, the powerful hand and arm of God, and the enemy that was paralysed with fear (I. Wilson, “The Song of the Sea,” 129). 119 James W. Watts, “Song and the Ancient Reader,” PRSt 22 (1995): 143. 120 I. Wilson, “Song of the Sea,” 132.

121 Loewenstamm, Exodus Tradition, 62.

allusions to the battle come up in conquest stories. This is seen both in small gestures, like Joshua’s javelin during the battle of Ai resembling Moses’s rod,122 and tactical events like the panic of Sisera’s army in battle, which had the same result as the Egyptians’ panic.123 While that type of battle is not described in Deutero-Isaiah, imagery that is reminiscent of it certainly is: Egyptian plaques are interpreted as Yahweh’s battle against Pharaoh. According to Isa 51:9, Yahweh slays ‘Rahab.’ That must be understood in the framework of the mythology of the primordial dragon; but Rahab is also a code word for Egypt. And Israel’s deliverance at the Reed Sea is portrayed as Yahweh’s ‘holy war’ against the pharaoh and his military power.124 War and New Exodus images all work together in this passage.

3.2. Covenant Like the Sea of Reeds, covenant is also tied to conquest. Zion was cast as a covenantal mountain125 in Isa 59:20-21: 20 He shall come as redeemer to Zion, To those in Jacob who turn back from sin – declares the LORD. 21 And this shall be My covenant with them, said the LORD: My spirit which is upon you, and the words which I have placed in your mouth, shall not be absent from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your children, nor from the mouth of your children’s children – said the LORD – from now on, for all time. This passage portrays Zion as a post-victory mountain on which a covenant is made, like the one Moses ascended.126 Later, in Isa 63:15-17, when Yahweh is asked to fight the way

122 Exod 14:16, 21, 26; Josh 8:18-19 (Yair Zakovitch, “And You Shall Tell Your Son...” The Concept of the Exodus in the Bible [Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1991], 62). This imagery is also adapted in the battle against the Amalekites in Exod 17:11, though Moses raises only his hand.

123 Judg 4:15 (Zakovitch, “And You Shall Tell,” 51).

124 Klaus Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 40-55, ed. Peter Machinist (trans. Margaret Kohl; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 141. 125 This connection comes from the association of temples and mountains, namely temples that were built after a victory. See above, p. 25, fn. 87. 126 Exod 24; 34; Matthew J. Lynch, “Zion’s Warrior and the Nations: Isaiah 59:15b-63:6 in Isaiah’s Zion Traditions,” CBQ 70 (2008): 255.

33 he fought for Israel during the Exodus, the request is based on the covenantal relationship Israel had with him.127

3.3. Festival of Booths The Festival of Booths is a festival that remembers the Exodus itself. Its celebration in Neh 8:17 is directly tied to the Conquest, since it is claimed that it had not been properly observed since that time: The whole community that returned from the captivity made booths and dwelt in the booths – the Israelites had not done so from the days of Joshua son of Nun to that day – and there was very great rejoicing. Roberto Piani links this to the description of the Passover held by Josiah in 2 Kgs 23:22 because it is also described in similar language:128 Now the passover sacrifice had not been offered in that manner in the days of the chieftains who ruled Israel, or during the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah. The more well known, but the similarly themed, Passover feast is a festival that likewise remembers a great victory. Its links to New Exodus language will be examined below (p. 49).

3.4. Late Links The Qumran War Scroll (1QS), a sectarian document, is very different than any literature we have looked at so far, and its probable second century BCE date is after the main

127 Koole, Isaiah: Part III, 380. 128 Roberto Piani, “The Return from the Exile in Ezra-Nehemiah: A Second Exodus, a Re-Conquest or a Re-Establishment of the Status Quo Ante?” Paper presented at the international meeting for the Society of Biblical Literature (Amsterdam, July 24, 2012), table 2. Besides the similar themes, a linguistic point of .”כי לא-עשה מימי“ and Neh 8:17 ”כי לא נעשה … מימי“ contact between the two is 2 Kgs 23:22

period under review; 129 however, The War Scroll’s forty-year time frame is almost certainly modelled on the length of the Exodus wanderings.130 It is enlightening, in the context of looking at post-exilic work for conquest references, to see that links between exodus and war were still meaningful late into Judaean history. This will be examined in greater detail in chapter 4.

4. Why the Exodus was Compared to the Exile and Restoration

Going beyond the Exodus’ general importance in Israelite history, there are several reasons why it was applied particularly to the situation the people found themselves in while in Babylon. Broadly, of course, the two resemble each other strongly: in both Israel was an oppressed people in a foreign land. More specific themes were also at work. Ian Wilson explains that “[t]hey both symbolize[d] at once the people’s oppression and its freedom, its failures and its successes, its struggle with apostasy and its devotion to Yah- weh.”131 In both situations the Promised Land was a prominent theme. Both looked toward a future in the land;132 for example, the prophet Ezekiel promised a future New Exodus in order to motivate Israel to prepare for it through repentance.133 This is seen in the following verses: 20:39As for you, O House of Israel, thus said the Lord GOD: Go, every one of you, and worship his fetishes and continue, if you will not obey Me; but do not profane My holy name any more with your idolatrous gifts. 40For only on My holy mountain, on the lofty mount of Israel – declares the Lord GOD – there, in the land, the entire House of Israel, all of it, must worship Me. There I will accept them, and there I will

129 Russell Gmirkin, “The War Scroll and Roman Weaponry Reconsidered,” Dead Sea Discoveries 3 (1996): 89. 130 Russell Gmirkin, “Historical Allusions in the War Scroll,” DSD 5 (1998):181. The Damascus Docu- ment (CD), a copy of which was also found at Qumran, though not as militaristic as the War Scroll, likewise uses a forty-year timeline (ibid., 182). 131 Ian Douglas Wilson, “Joseph, Jehoiachin, and Cyrus: On Book Endings, Exoduses and Exiles, and Yehudite/Judean Social Remembering,” ZAW 126 (2014): 527. 132 In particular, in the books of Isaiah and Ezekiel. Isa 57:13 uses expressions familiar from Exod 23:30; 32:12 (Koole, Isaiah III, 87).

133 Rebecca G.S. Idestrom, “Echoes of the Book of Exodus in Ezekiel,” JSOT 33 (2009): 505.

35 take note of your contributions and the choicest offerings of all your sacred things. 41When I bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands in which you are scattered, I will accept you as a pleasing odor; and I will be sanctified through you in the sight of the nations. 42Then, when I have brought you to the land of Israel, to the country that I swore to give to your fathers, you shall know that I am the LORD. Especially in the wider context of Ezekiel, the people are held accountable for their sins, leading to their eventual repentance and restoration in the land. This particular passage includes reference to the holy mountain and the Promised Land, both features of the Exo- dus story. The book of Ezra sees the return to the land similarly, as a new beginning that paralleled their origin story.134 Salvation through Yahweh’s strength, as demonstrated by the Exodus, also played a role in writings about exile. The reminder of them reassured the people that Yahweh was still their powerful god. Ezekiel, especially, used the Exodus as a prototype to explain the exiles’ situation.135 Referring to the Exile as another Exodus made Israel’s circumstances part of a larger pattern,136 one that they had already experienced. This gave them hope that there was nothing strange or unknown in their current situation would have com- forted them.137 After all, if they already knew there was a better ending in store than endless exile, there was nothing to fear.

5. Similarities between the Exodus and Exile

Comparisons between the Exodus and the Exile would mean nothing if they were not similarities between the two events for the people of Israel to draw upon. It was these

134 Ezra 1-6; Japhet, From the Rivers, 203. 135 Yoshiaki Hattori, “Divine Dilemma in Ezekiel’s View of the Exodus: An Exegetical Study of Eze- kiel 20:5-29,” in The Law and the Prophets: Old Testament Studies Prepared in Honor of Oswald Thompson Allis, ed. Oswald T Allis, John H Skilton, Milton C Fisher, and Leslie W Sloat (Nutley: Presby- terian and Reformed, 1974), 422; cf. Ezek 20. 136 Barmash, “The Exodus,” ix; “Reimagining Exile Through the Lens of the Exodus: Turning Points in Israelite History and Texts,” in By the Irrigation Canals of Babylon: Approaches to the Study of the Exile, ed. John J. Ahn and Jill Middlemas, Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 526 (New York: T&T Clark, 2012), 97. 137 Barmash, “Reimagining Exile,” 105.

similarities that made the Exodus resonate with the golah community. They include the reasons behind both events, the players involved, the actual events, and the journey to the Promised Land: they will be covered below.

5.1. Reasons for the Exodus and Exile In both the Exodus and Exile the idea of punishment, especially servitude as punishment, is stressed. One of the covenant curses in Deuteronomy was that Israel would be returned to Egypt should Israel fail to uphold the covenant, as in Deut 28:58-68: 58If you fail to observe faithfully all the terms of this Teaching that are written in this book, to reverence this honored and awesome Name, the LORD your God, 59the LORD will inflict extraordinary plagues upon you and your offspring, strange and lasting plagues, malignant and chronic diseases. 60He will bring back upon you all the sicknesses of Egypt that you dreaded so, and they shall cling to you. 61Moreover, the LORD will bring upon you all the other diseases and plagues that are not mentioned in this book of Teaching, until you are wiped out. 62You shall be left a scant few, after having been as numerous as the stars in the skies, because you did not heed the command of the LORD your God. 63And as the LORD once delighted in making you prosperous and many, so will the LORD now delight in causing you to perish and in wiping you out; you shall be torn from the land that you are about to enter and pos- sess. 64The LORD will scatter you among all the peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, whom neither you nor your ancestors have experienced. 65Yet even among those nations you shall find no peace, nor shall your foot find a place to rest. The LORD will give you there an an- guished heart and eyes that pine and a despondent spirit. 66The life you face shall be precarious; you shall be in terror, night and day, with no assurance of survival. 67In the morning you shall say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening you shall say, “If only it were morning!” – because of what your heart shall dread and your eyes shall see. 68The LORD will send you back to Egypt in galleys, by a route which I told you should not see again. There you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but none will buy. This passage promises not only a return to Egypt, but also a return of the diseases and plagues of Egypt, effectively reversing the Exodus. If, it was reasoned, the sojourn away from the land was a punishment the second time, then retroactively, it must have also been one the first time.138 This is not as strong a theme in the case of the Exodus, though the story was partially shaped so that the slavery in Egypt reflected Sarai’s mistreatment

138 Barmash, “Reimagining Exile,” 95.

37 of Hagar.139 In the Exile, coming as it did at the end of a long period of apostasy, the link between the people’s deeds as a whole and their punishment is more apparent. This holds true whether it is through the Deuteronomistic understanding of sin as a long-term build- up through the generations that finally received its punishment,140 or through the Chroni- cler’s theology of immediate judgment against a sinful generation of Israelites. Chronicles interprets servitude as a process for learning, based on the negative conse- quences for failing to obey and to uphold the Mosaic covenant they made with Yahweh.141 A similar understanding of servitude as a punishment is found in Ezra 9.142 Despite the punishment that the Israelites received in both of their banishments, the literature explaining their punishment comes back to Yahweh’s capacity to deliver Israel after he had disciplined them:143 this shows his control over events and power as Israel’s warrior-god.

5.2. The Players There are correspondences between the nations in the stories. Israel, of course, was the main player in both stories. The enemies in both time periods also show similarities, and there are resemblances between the main characters.

139 The Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic history stress the punishment of the descendants more than later writing (Zakovitch, “And You Shall Tell,” 28-29). The linking of the Exodus to Sarai and Hagar was made by emphasizing the number of years spent by the Patriarchs in Canaan, 215, versus the 430 years of their descendants in Egypt, setting the punishment as a two to one ratio. This is made explicit in the Samar- itan Pentateuch, which splits the 430 years up into two parts (ibid., 33-34). 140 Zevit, “The Search for Violence,” 31. 141 Harm van Grol, “‘Indeed Servants We Are’: Ezra 9, Nehemiah 9 and 2 Chronicles 12 Compared,” in The Crisis of Israelite Religion: Transformation of Religious Tradition in Exile and Post-Exilic Times, ed. Bob Becking and Marjo C.A. Korpel (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 226. 142 Ibid., 217. 143 According to Sweeney “[b]oth Exodus and Isaiah are heavily interested in demonstrating YHWH’s capacity to bring punishment and to deliver Israel from oppression once the period of punishment is concluded.” Ezra also expresses this idea in 12:1-7, 8-16, 17-20, 26-28 (Marvin A. Sweeney, “Ezekiel’s Conceptualization of the Exile in Intertextual Perspective,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 1 [2012]: 171).

Nations. The people of Israel are not the only important element in these stories: they needed enemies or their salvation would have been hollow. Egypt, as their traditional nemesis not only from the account of the Exodus, but also throughout much of Israel’s and Judah’s history, became the antecedent for later antagonistic nations. Isaiah frequently portrays Assyria side-by-side with Egypt.144 Egypt and its heretical (to Israel) supposed-god, the Pharaoh, were also compared to Babylon. As Rikk E. Watts points out: Pharaoh stands as an anti-god, trusting in his own cunning and presiding over Israel’s hard service in his anti-garden whose river brings not life but death. So also Babylon in the second exodus.145 This gave Israel an enemy nation in both time periods, tied together by the physical threat they posed to Israel and their theological role they represented, as they were set up in opposition to Yahweh. However, not all comparisons between the time periods were negative, since the books of Exodus and Ezekiel also share the idea that foreign nations would eventually see Yahweh’s power.146 This is also seen in the references to the mixed multitude that left Egypt with the Israelites (for example, in Exod 12:38), and was also an important part of the second Exodus: 20Come, gather together, Draw nigh, you remnants of the nations! No foreknowledge had they who carry their wooden images And pray to a god who cannot give success. 21peak up, compare testimony – Let them even take counsel together! Who announced this aforetime, Foretold it of old? Was it not I the LORD?

144 As oppressors (Sweeney, “Ezekiel’s Conceptualization,” 155; Isa 52:4); or even in redemption oracles (Isa 19:23-24). 145 Rikk E. Watts, “Echoes from the Past: Israel’s Ancient Traditions and the Destiny of the Nations in Isaiah 40-55,” JSOT 28 (2004): 487. In turn, due to its impact on Israel and the emerging Jewish nation, Babylon became the symbol for any powerful and enemy empire (E. John Hamlin, “Isaiah 47, the End of Empire,” Proceedings: Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies 16 [1996]: 127). 146 Idestrom, "Echoes,” 497. For example, Deutero- Isaiah talks about gathering the nations around the earth in 43:2; 43:5-6 (Alviero Niccacci, “The Exodus Tradition in the Psalms, Isaiah and Ezekiel,” Liber Annus 61 [2011]: 26).

39 Then there is no god beside Me, No God exists beside Me Who foretells truly and grants success. 22Turn to Me and gain success, All the ends of earth! For I am God, and there is none else. This invitation from Isa 45:20-22 is reminiscent of the Exodus passage, but extends the New Exodus to other nations to join Israel.147 Characters. Moses was the key human figure throughout the entire exodus story. As such, he was also referenced in Isa 49:5 as both Yahweh’s representative and the person who led Israel back to proper worship.148 Both of these capacities created links between the Exodus and Exile. In the book of Ezekiel, a comparison is made between Moses and the prophet.149 Ezra, in his capacity as leader throughout the journey toward the Promised Land and in his association with the law,150 is likewise cast in terms reminiscent of Mo- ses, which became particularly developed in later tradition.151 Yahweh the Divine Warrior is the real star of both events. The Exodus established his power in literal demonstrations. The New Exodus takes up his power in a metaphorical sense, both through descriptions of his power (see below, p. 46), his control of events, and his manipulation of Cyrus.

147 R. Watts, “Echoes,” 496; For that reason, the New Exodus would be an improvement on the first (Anderson, “Exodus Typology,” 191).

148 This passage draws on the text of Exod. 33:12 (Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah, 309). 149 Idestrom, “Echoes,” 491. Points of similarity include: coming from priestly families; wilderness wandering; a call to leadership in time crisis; giving covenant instructions, including a for plan a temple (ibid., 492); seeing the glory of god (ibid., 493); exclusively receiving laws about temple worship (ibid., 503); and a connection to a mountain (ibid., 503). In addition, both stories conclude with Yahweh’s presence among his people (ibid., 504). 150 Ezra 7:10

151 Peter R. Ackroyd, The Chronicler in His Age, JSOT Supplement 101 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 299. For examples see 4 Ezra and the famous line from the Babylonian Talmud: “[h]ad Moses not proceeded him, Ezra would have been worthy of receiving the Torah for Israel” (Sanh. 21b). This is in- teresting since Ezra dealt with the temple and cult, much more than the actual law, yet the comparison was drawn with the Exodus regardless (Lester L. Grabbe “What Was Ezra’s Mission?,” in Temple and Commu- nity in the Persian Period, ed. Tamara C. Eskenazi, and Kent H. Richards, vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies, JSOT Supplement 175 [Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994], 296; Piani, “The Return from the Exile,” 1).

5.3. Departing Events No matter how separate they were in years, it was inevitable for parallels to exist between the exodus and restoration journeys. On a broad scale, the pattern is the same: gathering the people, bringing them to the Promised Land,152 and establishing a community there. The similarities are made all the more concrete through minor details.

5.3.1. Plundering the Egyptians and Persians Treasure. When the Israelites were said to have left Egypt the text says they took a great deal of its wealth with them.153 In the Exile, it is slightly different, with Cyrus setting the example for other nations and people to be generous.154 In addition, both Jews and gentiles donated silver and gold to the returnees, which was described in Ezra 1:4-7 and 2:68-69: 1:4and all who stay behind, wherever he may be living, let the people of his place as- sist him with silver, gold, goods, and livestock, besides the freewill offering to the House of God that is in Jerusalem.” 5 So the chiefs of the clans of Judah and Benja- min, and the priests and Levites, all whose spirit had been roused by God, got ready 6 to go up to build the House of the LORD that is in Jerusalem. All their neighbors supported them with silver vessels, with gold, with goods, with livestock, and with precious objects, besides what had been given as a freewill offering. 7 King Cyrus of Persia released the vessels of the LORD’s house which Nebuchadnezzar had taken away from Jerusalem and had put in the house of his god.

2:68Some of the chiefs of the clans, on arriving at the House of the LORD in Jerusa- lem, gave a freewill offering to erect the House of God on its site. 69In accord with their means, they donated to the treasury of the work: gold – 6,100 drachmas, silver – 5,000 minas, and priestly robes – 100. This language is similar to that found in Exod 12:35-36:

152 Specifically, this is in the context of Deutero-Isaiah’s use of exodus motifs (Niccacci, “The Exodus Tradition,” 35). 153 Exod 12:36: “And the LORD had disposed the Egyptians favourably toward the people, and they let them have their request; thus they stripped the Egyptians.” While Exodus says the Egyptians gave their it is clear that they were compelled to do so because it is still called ,(שאל) treasure away when asked .(נצל) ’stripping‘ 154 R. Watts, “Echoes,” 494; Isa 45:1-13. This is in contrast to Pharaoh’s reaction, setting up Cyrus as a much different character than Pharaoh (Melody D. Knowles, “Pilgrimage Imagery in the Returns in Ezra,” JBL, 123 [2004]: 59).

41 35The Israelites had done Moses’ bidding and borrowed from the Egyptians objects of silver and gold, and clothing. 36And the LORD had disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people, and they let them have their request; thus they stripped the Egyp- tians. Both passages use gold, silver, and tunics/clothing, and show a willingness on the part of

give’ [Exod 12:36; Ezra‘ ,נתן/[make a voluntary contribution’ [Ez 1:4‘ ,הנדב) the givers 155 stripping’. This willingness‘ ,נצל although the Exodus passage later calls this ,(2:69 ,1:7 is especially apparent in the Ezra passage description of the Jews themselves giving gifts for the temple.156 How much of this took place, as opposed to what the authors embel- lished, is certainly up for debate. It is unlikely that real Persian policy would have provided monetary support, but would have taxed the temple instead.157 The resulting texts, though, show that, as Fried says, “the goal is not to report a history of the return but to portray the wealth of nations pouring in from all over the world to contribute to the

158 temple’s construction.” This fits with the event’s portrayal as a mirror of the plunder of the Egyptians and its attempted legitimizing of Cyrus. Vessels. Whether or not the people received monetary gifts, they received back the vessels that had been taken from the temple, a symbolically important gesture. In the ancient Near East, cultic vessels were deified.159 Assyrians would ‘capture’ idols and

,Exod 12:36; Ezra 1:7) נתן Exod 12:35; Ezra 1:4, 6, 2:69) and) כסף ,זהר The shared vocabulary is 155 2:69). 156 Knowles, “Pilgrimage,” 58; Zakovitch, And You Shall Tell, 57; Japhet, From the Rivers, 203. 157 Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, vol. 1 (London: T & T Clark International, 2004), 215. The supposed-offering does fit with Persian building stories, however (Lisbeth S. Fried, The Priest and the Great King: Temple-Palace Relations in the Persian Empire [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004], 166). 158 Fried, The Priest, 166. 159 Examples can be found in Ugaritic, Hittite, and Mesopotamian texts (Bob Becking, “Silent Witness: The Symbolic Presence of God in the Temple Vessels in Ezra and Nehemiah,” in Divine Presence and Ab- sence in Exilic and Post-Exilic Judaism, ed. Nathan MacDonald and Izaak J. De Hulster, vol. II of Studies of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on Early Jewish Monotheism [Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013], 273).

treasures from their defeated enemies, playing on the idea that the defeated god had de- fected to the new rulers160 (see above, p. 26, for a discussion of how Israel rationalized their defeat). Although Israel did not share this view to the extent of actual idolatry, they nevertheless regarded the vessels as extremely important symbols of the divine presence.161 For the returnees the vessels carried this meaning and provided continuity to the pre-exilic Israelites and temple.162 Persia certainly would have understood what they were returning. They expanded an older Neo-Assyrian strategy, in which conquerors used the stolen idols to show that a deity’s loyalty had switched to the Assyrians. Keeping cultic objects assured them of the allegiance of the conquered populace, and they were only reinstituted once the population was thought to be properly subdued.163 Cyrus’s gesture and support of the new temple was meant to show that Yahweh approved of his kingship. It also guaranteed his endorsement by cultic leaders.164 The vessels became part of the salvation oracle in Isa 52:11 and were meant to demonstrate a new reconciliation between the Jews and their god.165

5.3.2. The Sea of Reeds After the plunder of the Egyptians the next major event for the Israelites was the rout at the Sea of Reeds. There was no equivalent in the Restoration to the dramatic opening (albeit one-sided) battle of the Exodus. The Jews told the story of leaving Persia not only

, 160 Morton Cogan, Imperialism and Religion: Assyria, Judah and Israel in the Eight and Seventh Cen- turies B.C.E., vol. 19 of Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1974), 23; Fried, “The Land Lay Desolate,” 29. 161 Ibid., 271. 162 Ibid., 278; Robert P. Carroll, “The Myth of the Empty Land,” Semeia 59 (1992): 81. 163 Cogan, Imperialism, 40-41.

164 Cyrus did the same thing for other people-groups as well, see below, p. 84 (Lisbeth S. Fried, “Cyrus the Messiah? The Historical Background to Isaiah 45:1,” HTR 95 [2002]: 388). 165 Fried, “The Land Lay Desolate,” 51; The Priest, 168.

43 with their rulers’ consent, but as we have just seen, with their enthusiastic blessing. Nev- ertheless, the importance and influence of the event was enormous. It was one of the first events to happen to the Israelites as a whole and led to their independence; therefore, it was symbolically linked to its beginning as a nation.166 Because of this it was suitable as a metaphor for the nation during its rebirth and of great redemption in the Restoration.167 Allusions to the event itself are interwoven throughout books like Isaiah that use the New Exodus as a theme and, therefore, feature similar events,168 though updated to the new situation. Klaus Baltzer understands the description of the army in Isa 43:16-17, though obviously inspired by the incident at the Sea of Reeds, as deliberately void of any reference to Egypt or the Pharaoh, so that it could easily be interpreted as Babylon’s army.169 The path in the water in the same passage, and the dried sea in 51:10, are also reminiscent of the events at the Sea of Reeds. Other references are linguistic, echoing words, phrases, or imagery. Some possible allusions are subtle, as with the use of feminine suffixes in the triumphal song of Isa 41:15-16, which may have been meant to evoke Miriam’s song in Exod 15:21.170 Fortu- nately, other references are direct, like the interplay between Isa 12:2 and Exod 15:2.171

5.4. The Journey The Sea of Reeds was barely the beginning of the pilgrimage from Egypt to Canaan.

Subsequently, the Israelites continued their journey to the Promised Land. While the trip that the exiles took lasted a fraction of the time of the original, they nevertheless considered the abilities that Yahweh demonstrated throughout the journey to be integral to his

166 I. Wilson, “Song of the Sea,” 133. 167 Isa 43, 16-21; I. Wilson, “Joseph,” 528. 168 Ibid., 136. 169 Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah, 172. 170 Ibid., 113. 171 Ibid., Deutero-Isaiah, 138.

character and to their current situation: bringing them out of water (Isa 43:16-17), making roads in the desert (v. 19), and providing water (v. 20).172 Like so many allusions to previous miracles, they reminded the people of the earlier salvation, a salvation that that they owed to Yahweh’s power. When speaking of the Exodus, all the people of Israel were considered to have taken part.173 Therefore, the Restoration had to be the same. Despite what we know from later history and even from subtle references in the biblical writings themselves, the authors of Ezra and Nehemiah, in particular, manipulated the books’ writing and language in order to give the impression that the whole people were both forced into exile and returned to the Promised Land, completing their punishment and journey as one.174 Chronicles also frequently refers to “all Israel” having been forced into exile. 175 Ezra-Nehemiah elimi- nates the people still living in Judah from the decision to return, focusing solely on those in Babylon.176 The books of Ezekiel and Ezra, while different in many regards, both apply imagery from the harshness of the Exodus to their new situation. The prophet Ezekiel, though an exile rather than a returnee, nevertheless used a great deal of imagery concerning travel- ling that echoes the Exodus, in particular when he was packing his bags and sneaking off

172 According to I. Wilson, “by playing with references to the exodus and journey to Canaan” (“Song of the Sea,” 140). 173 See above, p. 30, for a discussion on Israel’s foundation as a group with both shared ancestry and experience. 174 In the view of the authors of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, this was because only those that completed the journey were truly part of Israel (Japhet, From the Rivers, 202-3). This interpretation, however, is open to dispute. See below, p. 108. 175 For example, 1 Chr 9:1-2. 176 Interestingly, as opposed to the Exodus, in which Yahweh saved an unwilling (or at least, reluctant) group of people (Exod 16:3), the impetus behind the journey is from the Persian kings and the Jews who resided in Babylon (Sara Japhet, “Composition and Chronology in the Book of Ezra-Nehemiah,” in Temple and Community in the Persian Period, ed. Tamara C. Eskenazi and Kent H. Richards, vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies, JSOT Supplement 175 [Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994], 216).

45 ,עלה in the middle of the night.177 In addition, both books make repeated use of the verb to ‘make one’s way up,’ to describe travel. This verb is also used in military contexts.178 The destination is another major parallel, as both ended in the Promised Land. Fur- thermore, the journey from Babylon to Judah was predicated on the idea that the land to which they were returning had been cleansed of apostasy, and as well was unoccupied.179 In other words, it had the same goal as the original Exodus, as a pure and empty land was the motivation behind the Conquest’s use of the Ban (see above, p. 22). Altogether, the correspondence of the events shows the influence of the narrative of the Exodus on how the Exile was conceived and written about.

6. Exodus Themes in Exilic and Post-Exilic Writing

The correspondence between the Exodus and Exile extends not only to events, but also to several themes that are picked up in exilic and post-exilic writing. Namely, these are the Exodus as proof of Yahweh’s power, creation, the importance of the covenant, and the association of the temple with the Exodus.

6.1. Exodus as Proof of Yahweh’s Redemptive Power Throughout this chapter, the theme of salvation has been mentioned. As the preemi- nent example of Yahweh’s ability to care for his people, the Exodus was a, perhaps the, foremost demonstration of this. Firstly, because it proved he was a victorious warrior: he

177 cf. Exod 12 (Sweeney, “Ezekiel’s Conceptualization,” 166). 178 Piani, “The Return from Exile,” 3. The verb appears 62 times in Exodus and 40 in Ezekiel. HALOT lists the following relevant uses: “a) from Egypt to Palestine, with reference to the stopping-places on the tech. term in the procession of the עָלָה (way … b) from Babylon to Palestine (the return of the exiles) … c Ark … and in pilgrimages”. The military connotations are ones included under the word’s miscellaneous violence of מֵאַחֲרֵי to retreat from … with מֵעַל meanings: “to advance (an army), march against … with .(עלה ,.battle increased” (HALOT, s.v 179 Carroll, “The Myth,” 80. This was thanks to the theology of punishment that develop in order to explain their defeat (see above p. 27); Isa. 36:25 adds purification to traditional Exodus motifs (Niccacci, “The Exodus Tradition,” 30).

was Israel’s salvation and the reason they existed, thus the reason they should have faith that he would continue to be victorious.180 The power of Yahweh, as demonstrated -is a theme in the book of Exodus more than the rest of the Penta ,כבד ,through his glory teuch, and this is mirrored in Ezekiel.181 The use of these motifs in texts like Isa 43 was a reminder of his power and according to Alviero Niccacci, his “self-vindication”.182 Sec- ondly, Yahweh’s salvation of Israel was proven through his ability to provide for them materially, as he did in the wilderness. For instance, he is pictured as a Shepherd in Isa 40:10-11: 10Behold, the Lord GOD comes in might, And His arm wins triumph for Him; See, His reward is with Him, His recompense before Him. 11Like a shepherd He pastures His flock: He gathers the lambs in His arms And carries them in His bosom; Gently He drives the mother sheep. Here, his power in war is directly linked to his ability to simultaneously provide gentle care for Israel, which is also seen in passages such as Exodus 3. The motif of getting water from the desert is a particularly strong example of a metaphor that recalls the Exodus. 183 It is picked up several times in Deutero-Isaiah, including 48:21:

Say: “The LORD has redeemed His servant Jacob!” They have known no thirst, Though He led them through parched places; He made water flow for them from the rock;

180 Though, in Deutero-Isaiah there is a back-and-forth over whether or not the people should remember those things or look to the future: 41:22; 43:9, 18; 44:7-8; 45:11. Nevertheless, even the passage that instructs the people to ‘forget’ the older deeds still recalls them to mind. Or, as Nicacci puts it: “[m]aybe some texts, as Is 41:17-20, do not speak specifically of a departure from the exile but simply make use of exodus terminology to describe an aspect of the future salvation.” (“The Exodus Tradition,” 29). Ezekiel also uses exodus-type language of power demonstration so that the people “will know that I am Lord” in Ezek. 6:7, based on Exod 10:2; 16:6,12 (ibid., 26). 181 Idestrom, “Echoes,” 496. 182 Niccacci, “The Exodus Tradition,” 26. 183 There is also the possibility that, as well as being a reference to the Exodus, this is meant to reverse the curse of Jer 14-15 that there would be no water for Israel (Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah, 109). God as a ‘rock’ in Isa. 44:8 may also pick up on water imagery, since that was the source of water in Deut 32 (ibid., 189).

47 He cleaved the rock and water gushed forth. This passage not only alludes to water, but also directly recalls events from the Exodus.

6.2. Exodus and Creation Elements of nature were familiar foes in ancient Near Eastern myths, especially as representatives of chaos.184 Sea and water imagery, in particular, evokes the ancient salvation stories.185 Isaiah 44:27 describes Yahweh drying up the sea “[I,] who said to the deep, ‘Be dry; I will dry up your floods’”. In this case the allusion goes beyond just the Sea of Reeds allusion (Exod 14:29, 15:19) to have more mythic implications, because the ‘floods’ reference evokes imagery associated with the divine warrior and chaoskampf.186 Similar poetic links between salvation and the waters of creation are made in Psalm 74:12-15: 12 O God, my king from of old, who brings deliverance throughout the land; 13 it was You who drove back the sea with Your might, who smashed the heads of the monsters in the waters; 14it was You who crushed the heads of Leviathan, who left him as food for the denizens of the desert; 15it was You who released springs and torrents, who made mighty rivers run dry In this passage, salvation, victory over chaos, and water are all linked. The author of Deu- tero-Isaiah picks these themes up again with allusions that mix exodus and creation language in Isa 51:9-11: 9Awake, awake, clothe yourself with splendor. O arm of the LORD! Awake as in days of old, As in former ages! It was you that hacked Rahab in pieces, That pierced the Dragon. 10 It was you that dried up the Sea, The waters of the great deep; That made the abysses of the Sea A road the redeemed might walk.

184 Frank M. Cross, Jr., and David Noel Freedman, “The Song of Miriam,” JNES 14 (1955): 239. 185 I. Wilson, “Song of the Sea,” 133. 186 Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 99.

11 So let the ransomed of the LORD return, And come with shouting to Zion, Crowned with joy everlasting. Let them attain joy and gladness, While sorrow and sighing flee. According to Anderson, here “[t]he new exodus, which [Deutero-Isaiah] regards as the counterpart of the old exodus, is portrayed in the mythopoeic colors of creation”.187 We also see Yahweh’s victory at creation and the Sea of Reeds used to assure Israel that it will have the same victory again.

6.3. Exodus and Covenant Renewal Given that the Exodus was the setting for making the Mosaic covenant, and that exile came to be understood as a punishment for breaking that covenant, its renewal naturally became a theme in the New Exodus. There, a covenant is made in response to the intermarriage crisis, 188 and the reading of the law is a focal point of the book of Ne- hemiah.189 This theme is seen especially in Ezekiel’s visions of a restored divine presence, without which there can be no covenant,190 and the promise of a new covenant in 34:25-31 and Jer 31:31. This theme is also seen through the restoration of one of the symbols of the covenant: the Passover. Renewing the observance of the festival was a

187 Anderson, “Exodus Typology,” 185; Zakovitch also makes the connection in this passage between creation and Exodus language (“And You Shall Tell,” 103). This passage is also similar to the poetic declaration of Yahweh’s creation power in Job 26:12. Compare this to Jer 4:13-26, where the battle of Sea of Reeds and creational language are reversed; rather than Yahweh leading the people through the water, he comes in a chariot like the Egyptians did (v. 13; Exod 14:7-9) and the land actually reverts to its pre-crea- .(v. 23; Gen 1:2) תהו ובהו :tion state of being

188 Ezra 10:3

189 Neh 8. This led to the celebration of the Festival of Booths, which was tied to the Conquest (see above, p. 35).

190 William A. Tooman, “Covenant and Presence in the Composition and Theology of Ezekiel,” in Di- vine Presence and Absence in Exilic and Post-Exilic Judaism, ed. Nathan MacDonald and Izaak J. De Hulster, vol. 2 of Studies of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on Early Jewish Monotheism (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 175. This link between presence and covenant is alluded to in Ezek 11:14-21 (Idestrom, “Echoes,” 500).

49 major event in the book of Ezra. The Passover is also a prominent subject in the late ‘P’ source.191

6.4. Exodus and the Temple In previous sections we saw the importance of temples in ancient Near Eastern conquest stories and the first temple’s symbolic importance to Israel. While in exile they were without the temple, the priests, the cultic system, the land, and far away from the holy city of Jerusalem.192 This meant their entire cultic practice had to evolve in order to continue in their new circumstances. This posed a problem because of the considerable discontinuity that exilic practices had with the original cult in Jerusalem. Exilic writers like Ezekiel concentrated on figuring out and emphasizing what had not been inter- rupted,193 so that the cult had something to build on, while at the same time looking forward to a new, everlasting, covenant.194 The importance of the Exodus to the first temple was used to inspire its rebuilding in Hag 2, in particular verses 4-5:195 4But be strong, O Zerubbabel – says the LORD – be strong, O high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak; be strong, all you people of the land – says the LORD – and act! For I am with you – says the LORD of Hosts. 5So I promised you when you came out of Egypt, and My spirit is still in your midst. Fear not! The call to action is linked to Yahweh’s promise of his presence, supported by his past actions in the Exodus. The temple’s importance throughout Israelite history is seen in the book of Kings, where its construction was the defining accomplishment of Solomon’s

191 The instructions in Exod 12:3-20 are generally thought to have been important enough to the redac- tor to merit reworking (Sweeney, “Ezekiel’s Conceptualization,” 169). 192 Philip Francis Esler, “Ezra-Nehemiah as a Narrative of (re-Invented) Israelite Identity,” BibInt 11 (2003): 416-17; Hawtrey, “The Exile as a Crisis,” 75. 193 Hawtrey, “The Exile as a Crisis,” 74. 194 Ezek 16:59-60. This idea is also seen in other places, looking forward to when the religious ideas would have to be rebuilt (see Jer 31:31-34). 195 Barmash, “Reimagining Exile,” 95.

reign, and, significantly, the only event dated in reference to the Exodus.196 The presence of Yahweh legitimized Solomon’s temple in 1 Kgs 8:10-11. Like the description of Solo- mon’s construction of the temple, the book of Ezra shows an equally unbalanced movement of building materials toward Jerusalem, emphasizing the amount of goods that were freely given to the temple.197 In Ezekiel’s vision of the new temple, the final stage is Yahweh’s presence, as it was in the construction of the tabernacle (Exod 40:34-35).198 This presence is a continuation of the one from the Exodus, as in the verse above.

Conclusion

Exodus was not just a journey. It included the battles Yahweh fought on behalf of his people and it led them to war. As we have seen in this chapter, it was a foundational event for the Israelite people, one that affected their identity and self-understanding throughout their history. It was also the basis for their faith in Yahweh’s salvific powers and, through them, institutions like the temple. This event was important enough that it was used to explain the Exile, another major event in Israelite history. The New Exodus was not just a second exodus; it greatly expanded on the themes of the first. The events and themes were reused through exilic and post-exilic books, as we have seen in this chapter, and even beyond, as we will see in chapter four with their reuse in apocalyptic literature. The use of old stories to explain new events continued, changing from exodus references to war and conquest as the Exile became the Restoration. These references are the main focus for this study, and where we now turn.

196 R. Watts, “Echoes,” 493. 197 Gary N. Knoppers, “The Construction of Judean Diasporic Identity in Ezra-Nehemiah,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 15 (2015): 15. 198 Idestrom, “Echoes,” 504; Ezek 40:34-48. For more on the importance of Yahweh’s presence legitimizing the second temple, see below, p. 127.

51 CHAPTER 3: ANTICIPATING A NEW CONQUEST

War, exile, and even living without many of the institutions connected to organized religion, had ended and the worst was over. In the optimism of the events and symbols for which they used in New Exodus typology, as we saw in the previous chapter, it seemed that the returning Jews thought things were going to be very different. Their religious fervour was reborn and their country was rebuilding. Yet, violence and war persisted as themes throughout the post-exilic books, perhaps because even though they had gone back to their land, there was a sense that things were not finished yet. The Exodus was only one part of a bigger story, as Anderson points out, “part of a sacred tradition or Heilsgeschichte that extended from the patriarchal period to the occupation of the Prom- ised Land.”199 The returned Jews occupied the Promised Land, yes, but they did not own it – there was still an entire portion of the story yet to experience – the Conquest. They were still waiting for the ending As we have seen, many texts that speak about the return of the Israelite people use New Exodus language. A New Conquest would be a natural continuation of the New Ex- odus and an appropriate metaphor for the Israelites re-settlement of the land and rebuilding of the temple. War imagery abounds in the post-exilic books. The violent language and overarching similarities of the exile and restoration to elements of the Ban and its justification (see above, p. 13) raise the question of whether or not this overarching pattern purposefully contributes to a figurative New Conquest. The elements of the Ban and the justification for its use will both be treated sepa- rately. The overall pattern of the event will be examined because language alone is not enough to determine if the full event is meant, or if it is simply a coincidence caused by

199 Bernhard W. Anderson, “Exodus Typology in Second Isaiah,” in Israel’s prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg, ed. Bernard W Anderson and Walter J. Harrelson (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962), 182.

common phrases. First, however, we turn to the use of violent imagery and language in texts from the era under study, in order to look at reuse of Conquest imagery in the Resto- ration period.

A. Violence and War in the Exilic and Post-Exilic Period

Introduction

We will start by examining the rhetoric of war, as it was employed in exilic and post- exilic writings. Vocabulary, expressions, and allusions all contribute to the overall language of the books and reflect the culture that created them. These instances will be the basis for seeing that the writers were consciously making reference to the original conquest. These stories evoke war and conquest through oracles against the surrounding nations and use of the Divine Warrior motif. This violent language figures into the late narratives and prophecies, creating a figurative New Conquest to follow the New Exodus.

1. Allusions to the Original Conquest

Allusions to ancient stories are not confined to references to the book of Exodus. When the prophet Deutero-Isaiah promised deliverance for the people of Israel, he did so, according to Rikk Watts, in familiar terms: Not only is the judgment and submission of the nations portrayed in Isaiah 40-55 consistent with the fate of the nations in Israel’s ancient traditions, but, given the nature of the allusions, appears to be dependent on them. In other words, just as the prophet’s proclamation of a new deliverance of Israel was couched in terms of various earlier traditions, so too his envisaging of the defeat and subjugation of Babylon and the nations.200 One such allusion is found in Isa 43:10, 12 and 44:8, which seem to reuse the phrase, “You are my witness”. This phrase is also found in Josh 24:22, in which Israel pledges to

200 Rikk E. Watts, “Echoes from the Past: Israel’s Ancient Traditions and the Destiny of the Nations in Isaiah 40-55,” JSOT 28 (2004): 494.

53 serve Yahweh, a pledge based on his protection of them throughout the Exodus and his grant to them of victory and land.201 It is a rare phrase in the Hebrew Bible.202 Hamlin

203 earth’, from its use in the book of‘ ,ארץ contends that Deutero-Isaiah picks up the word Joshua, although he expands its use: it changes from getting used in the phrase ‘Promised Land,’ to the more encompassing phrase ‘all the people of the earth,’ for example in Isa 204 205 ,’to take possession of‘ ,ירש Connected to the theme of the land is the verb .40:55 both from stories in Joshua and in the context of the land that Israel was to conquer in the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy. Isaiah 54:3 takes it up to describe Israel’s inher- 206 to‘ ,שכל itance of the nations. Another possible linguistic allusion in Deutero-Isaiah is 207 208 have success’, which earlier had demonstrated the success of David’s campaigns and was picked up to describe the Suffering Servant.209 An example of a specific theme of the Conquest, that war was a judgment on the people of the land (see above, p. 22), is also used in the prophets. This may include a reference to the conquest story of Judg 11:27: I have done you no wrong; yet you are doing me harm and making war on me. May the LORD, who judges, decide today between the Israelites and the Ammonites!”

201 Josh. 24:11-18 202 The only other example is Ruth 4:10, which is unlikely to be related (E. John Hamlin, “The Joshua Tradition Reinterpreted,” South East Asia Journal of Theology 23 [1982]: 107). .ארץ ,.HALOT, s.v 203 over 100 times, usually in reference to the Promised Land (there are ארץ The book of Joshua uses 204 only six times it refers to the whole earth [2:11; 3:11, 13] or people of the earth [4:24; 7:9, 21]). In contrast, Deutero-Isaiah uses it 43 times, almost always in a universal sense (Hamlin, “The Joshua Tradition,” 107), and Deutero-Isaiah does not use the phrase “the land the Lord promised to give you”, either, because his .(tends to be on a world-wide, rather than Yehud-sized scale (ibid., 108 ארץ use of .ירש ,.HALOT s.v 205 206 Hamlin, “The Joshua Tradition,” 104-5. .שכל .In the hiphil: “to understand”, HALOT, s.v 207 208 1 Sam 18:5, 14, 15; cf. v. 30. 209 Isa 52:13, 53:10; Hamlin, “The Joshua Tradition,” 106.

Miller sees a connection between this passage and Joel 4, because the characterization in both shows Yahweh as both a divine warrior and judge.210 This theme is also picked up in Ezra-Nehemiah’s prohibitions against mixed marriages (see below, p. 112). The public declaration that victory was complete, as in the final stage of the Ban, was the building of the temple. This belonged to Solomon in the first conquest and Cyrus in the second. In both cases, they were simply building the temple that somebody else, David and Yahweh respectively, had won (see above, p. 20). 211

2. War on the Nations

In addition to Conquest allusions, war was also a general metaphor or theme in the exilic and post-exilic books. Considering what Israel and Judah had experienced because of the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions, it should come as no surprise that Israel desired revenge: 7Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem’s fall; how they cried, “Strip her, strip her to her very foundations!” 8Fair Babylon, you predator, a blessing on him who repays you in kind what you have inflicted on us; 9a blessing on him who seizes your babies and dashes them against the rocks! 212 Yahweh, too, participates in this revenge: 1Get down, sit in the dust, Fair Maiden Babylon; Sit, dethroned, on the ground, O Fair Chaldea; Nevermore shall they call you The tender and dainty one. 2Grasp the handmill and grind meal. Remove your veil, Strip off your train, bare your leg,

210 Patrick D. Miller, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1973), 138. 211 Asher Eder, “King Cyrus, Anointed (Messiah) of the Lord,” JBQ 23 (1995): 189. 212 Ps 137:7-9

55 Wade through the rivers. 3Your nakedness shall be uncovered, And your shame shall be exposed. I will take vengeance, And let no man intercede.213 This rape imagery highlights the depth of the desire for revenge in this passage. Bloody judgment is also handed out in Isa 63, particularly vs 3-4: 3“I trod out a vintage alone; Of the peoples no man was with Me. I trod them down in My anger, Trampled them in My rage; Their life-blood bespattered My garments, And all My clothing was stained. 4For I had planned a day of vengeance, And My year of redemption arrived. After years of victimization and being scattered among enemy nations, it is also easy to understand their discomfort with being surrounded after returning to the land. Yehezkel Kaufmann says that while there was no outright conflict, there was always a threat, so in Deutero-Isaiah Israel portrayed “itself isolated amidst the nations, and stood in battle ar- ray against them.”214 In response to not only this type of threat, but also the long-term treatment of Israel, Yahweh takes vengeance, as in the passage above, against the nations for their unjust actions.215 Zechariah takes up the theme of attacking nations being punished. According to Ackroyd, in 2:10 and 6:5-6 there is: [A] wider and more symbolic use of the theme of the overthrow of the nations; for this is not in fact simply Babylon, the major oppressor: it is the four nations, that is, all the nations, with the figure understood from its relation to the four winds of heaven.216

213 Isa 47:1-3. See also Isa 34. 214 Isa 40:11-12; 42:14; 43:1 et al.; 45:24. Kaufmann uses the term anti-Semitism to describe the other nation’s attitudes (Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Babylonian Captivity and Deutero-Isaiah [trans. C.W. Efroym- son, vol. 4 of History of the Religion of Israel; New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations: 1970], 108). 215 For example, Isa. 59:9-20 (Matthew J. Lynch, “Zion’s Warrior and the Nations: Isaiah 59:15b-63:6 in Isaiah’s Zion Traditions,” CBQ 70 [2008]: 250-51). 216 Peter R. Ackroyd, The Chronicler in His Age, JSOT Supplement 101 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 208.

Therefore, a strand of violence exists throughout the post-exilic writings, and it should not be ignored in favour of seeing only the traces of salvation offered to the nations.217

3. Yahweh Fights

As we have seen, some biblical writers expressed their anger and desire for vengeance using violent language. As their ruler, these metaphors applied to Yahweh, which is why he was often described taking part in combat.

3.1. The Divine Warrior God was pictured as a warrior almost from the beginning of the Hebrew Bible, a metaphor that was reused all the way up to the forecast Day of the Lord in the book of Joel’s apocalyptic future218 (see below, p. 124). This symbol is especially common ,יצא throughout the second half of Isaiah. Isaiah 42:13, for instance, makes use of the verb ‘come out’, 219 which carries a connotation not only of ‘going forth,’ but also “an element of a theophany when Yahweh goes forth to ‘holy war.’”220 Later, towards the finale of the book of Isaiah (chapter 63), according to Jan Koole, he “is stained with blood, but He marches on and reveals himself as the great Victor.”221 The description from that chapter

217 Isa 56:6-8 218 Joel 2. Miller, The Divine Warrior, 171. .יצא .HALOT, s.v 219 220 Klaus Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 40-55, ed. Peter Machinist (trans. Margaret Kohl; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 141; HALOT lists one meaning as “to go forth (to battle) … a to be encamped יָצָא מַחֲנֶה … men fit for military service יֹצְאֵי צָ בָא … before the army יָצָא לִפְנֵי king .(יצא .HALOT, s.v) ”יֹצְאֵי שַׁעַר עִירוֹ :against the enemy) …orig. militarily) 221 Compare also Isa. 40:26; Ps. 33:16; Jan L. Koole, Isaiah: Part III, Historical Commentary on the Old Testament (trans. Anthony P. Runia; Peeters: Leuven, 2001), 333-34.

57 is reminiscent of earlier theophanies.222 As the final passage in Isaiah dedicated to Yah- weh the warrior, it definitively proves his power, judgment, and his protectiveness,223 which in this case were for his people alone.224

3.1.1. Fighting Against Israel Before saving it from the nations, however, Yahweh had to save Israel from itself. Because of their deportation and the changes that living away from their religious homeland had necessitated Israelite identity had to extend, moving beyond a national identity tied to their land. Therefore, their perception of God changed as well. No longer was he a national deity who worked only with Israel and would always come to the rescue (see above, p. 23), he was an internationally powerful God with a wider, more encompassing purpose, one who could use war to punish them by directing other, stronger nations. He was just as willing to judge them, if necessary, as he was later planning to judge their enemies. In Deutero-Isaiah the figure of the divine warrior is pictured not only fighting against Israel, but actually imposing the Ban on them.225 In a discussion about Isa 43:28 :Stern calls the passage an (ואחלל שרי קדש ואתנה לחרם יעקב ישראל לגדופים׃) [I]ronic twist in the prophet’s language. The notion of Israel as a holy people was of course this prophet’s bread and butter.... Given the sacral connotation of the word Deutero-Isaiah was also referring to God’s having made Israel a people apart and ,חרם holy even as he spoke of God’s condemnation and the enemy’s mockery.226

222 For example, Ps 24:7-10, 60:9-12, 108:10-13 (Lynch, “Zion’s Warrior,” 258). Edom is used because it is “associated in Israel’s early traditions with the frightful theophanic march of the divine warrior, a march that caused mountains and earth to melt and tremble (Judg 5:4-5; cf. Deuteronomy 33; Habakkuk 3).” (ibid., 258). 223 Thus proving that Israel should trust in him (Paul D. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching [Louisville: John Knox Press, 1995], 234). 224 Isa 63:4. Isa. 63:1b also shows that judgment to be “the obverse of the advent of liberating salvation” (Koole, Isaiah: Part III, 335). 225 In Isa. 43:28 he actually initiates it (Philip D. Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem: A Window on Israel’s Reli- is also used in Zechariah, though the meaning חרם .(gious Experience [Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1991], 195 there leans more to war ‘killing’ than ‘the Ban’, except possibly when in the context where it is used against Israel (ibid., 205). .(is the judgement on Israel and “sums up the catastrophe of the fall of Judah” (ibid., 195 חרם 226

The word choice here is deliberately evocative of ritual slaughter, setting Israel apart for his cultic purposes, but this time as the victims of the Ban. Even later, towards the end of the book, a warning is given to Israel in Isa 65:6-8; 12; 15-16. In the context of the following verses it is a reminder tucked among the promised future blessing.

3.1.2. God as the Only Warrior Israel Needs Whether fighting against Israel or fighting for Israel, Yahweh’s power was unassaila- ble. This falls in line with his concern over injustice and willingness as the Divine Warrior to fight against wrongs that had been done to them on their behalf.227 The Chron- icler’s presentation of Israelite history show a systematic desire to demonstrate that Yahweh was the only warrior they required to fight on their behalf, routinely showing the futility, or even treachery, of Judah relying on alliances with other nations rather than their own god.228 For instance, the alliances of Asa and Ahaz with Israel, compared to the story in Kings, 229 emphasize the destruction that resulted: Gary Knoppers explains that the Chronicler “reshapes the past, presenting the two alliances not only as failures of faith but also as failures of history”.230 Even an alliance with the northern kingdom was considered to have broken the bond between Judah and Yahweh,231 as they should have relied on Yahweh exclusively.

227 Isa 59:15b-20 (Lynch, “Zion’s Warrior,” 251). 228 Gary N. Knoppers, “‘YHWH is Not with Israel’: Alliances as a Topos in Chronicles,” CBQ 58 (1996): 603; 625. 229 Asa’s stories are found in 1 Kgs 15:9-24 and 2 Chr 13:23-16:14; Ahaz’s in 2 Kgs 16:1-9 and 2 Chr 28:1-18. 230 Knoppers, “YHWH is Not with Israel,” 604. 231 Ibid., 625.

59 3.2. Mythic Elements Yahweh’s role as Israel’s Warrior was often tied to imagery and stories from ancient Near Eastern myths, as discussed above (see above, p. 24). As in earlier writings, mythic elements are seen again in exilic and post-exilic texts.

3.2.1. Chaos Fighting was meant to return order. Yahweh’s activity as a warrior in the New Exo- dus and beyond was necessary because of the turmoil that had broken out with the destruction of Israel and Judah. Destruction, especially because it included the loss of the temple,232 would have had overtones of a return to chaos and resurgence of primordial forces. Assyrian conquest accounts, which K. Lawson Younger analysed, have this understanding of war as well: The real sense of a campaign is to be found in its desire for the restoration of order. The enemy has brought about disorder and chaos, and the Assyrian king must rein- state order, righteousness and life.233 In response to this type of chaos, Yahweh reasserted his kingship by defeating the enemies that had caused it to break out.234 Therefore, despite all the hardships that resulted from the Assyrians and Babylonians, the exiles and returnees were given hope through imagery of the Divine Warrior restoring the order and prosperity of creation.235

232 The impact the temple’s destruction would have had of the people of Israel should not be underesti- mated. According to Linville “[t]he destruction of the Jerusalem temple was not the desacralization of the temple mount, but marked what we might call an inverted theophany, the breakout of a deeply significant chaos.” (James R. Linville, “Myth of the Exilic Return: Myth Theory and the Exile as an Eternal Reality in the Prophets,” in The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and its Historical Contexts, ed. Ehud Ben Zvi and Christoph Levin [de Gruyter, Berlin, 2010], 301). 233 K. Lawson Younger Jr., Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing, JSOT Supplement 98 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990) 123. 234 Isa. 51:9-11; 52:7-8. The context of this was the Jerusalem cult (Anderson, “Exodus Typology,” 346). 235 Referring to Isa 42:10-17, Hanson states that “[h]ope sprang from the image of an active God, en- gaging those threatening forces in order to restore order and renew creation. With the Divine Warrior’s appearance came the fructifying rain, the birthing of cattle, the retreat of enemy forces, and the prosperity of the nation.” (Isaiah 40-66, 49).

3.2.2. Zion and the Temple Opening Battle. However, before Yahweh could rebuild his temple he had to earn it (in the ancient Near East paradigm) by conquering the forces of chaos. In their descriptions of Yahweh’s return to Zion, the biblical writers frequently followed this pattern of ‘conflict’ to ‘stability.’ This marked it as his holy mountain,236 because in the ancient Near East that was the place from which the deity ruled.237 Matthew Lynch explains that Pss 29 and 93, for instance, use this mythological component in their poetry and picture Yahweh’s “enthron[ment] over the world after the subjugation of all enemies – whether human or, in a cosmological sense, the forces of chaos”.238 In a less mythological sense, Deutero-Isaiah adapts this imagery, which is applied to Cyrus, in order to prove that he had been given the right to rebuild Jerusalem. He does this only as an agent of Yahweh, because it was based on Yahweh’s victory and not his own.239 Resulting Justice. The goal behind chaoskampf is to restore order to society. Zion, when re-established, symbolized this order and the power Yahweh had to create and maintain it, 240 reinforced by Yahweh’s proclamation of Zion’s future. Kings in the ancient Near East would begin their reigns with declarations of liberty and social justice,

236 For example, Isa. 59:15b-20 (Lynch, “Zion’s Warrior,” 251). 237 Mountains are important because they are commonly connected to sanctuaries in ancient Near East- ern myths, in particular after a deity had won a victory, as in Baal’s defeat of Yamm. A sanctuary on a mountain was “a sign of his victory and rule.” (Miller, The Divine Warrior, 33). Furthermore, earthly temples were thought to be connected to the deities’ heavenly temple (David Noel Freedman, “Moses and Miriam: The Song of the Sea [Exodus 15:1-18, 21],” in Realia Dei, Prescott H. Williams Jr. and Theodore Heibert [Atlanta: Scholars Pr, 1999], 80). Temples were manifestations of a deity’s presence and thus had both spatial and temporal aspects. They were not just finite buildings: they were connected to heavenly ver- sions of those same temples, ones that filled the universe and lasted forever (Hurowitz, I Have Built, 337.). For more on temples and mountains in the ancient Near East, see above, p. 25 fn. 87. 238 Lynch, “Zion’s Warrior,” 248. 239 Baltzer proposes that due to the battle in Isa. 42:13, its conclusion in 43:16-21, and its allusions to Yahweh’s victory at the Sea of Reeds, Cyrus could be given the commission to rebuild (Deutero-Isaiah, 172-73). 240 Lynch, “Zion’s Warrior,” 248.

61 which were very similar to the promises Yahweh made for Zion in Isa 61 and 62.241 He had earned the right and ability to change society for Zion by defeating chaos. Response from the people. The finale of a battle, what Lynch calls a “Zion Pattern” in the Hebrew Bible, is to receive praise from the people and nations242 after a victorious return to a mountain. The worship response is one appropriate to the warrior king and the warrior’s power. Isaiah 59:19 describes just such a reaction:

From the west, they shall revere the name of the LORD, And from the east, His Presence. For He shall come like a hemmed-in stream Which the wind of the LORD drives on This praise also results in the pilgrimage toward Zion, the place of justice, in chapters 60- 62.243

Conclusion

The imagery and references to violence in the post-exilic books, by their volume alone, show a deliberate connection to the original Conquest. Despite being relatively safe from invading armies and able to practice their religion and culture, the early Jews were still using language of fighting and war and seemed to be anticipating a world-wide scope for the conquest prophecies they had for their God. In particular, Yahweh continued to be pictured as the Divine Warrior, both in his activity against Israel and, eventually, in

New Exodus and Conquest language, on their behalf. A deliberate scheme of conquest, not just violent language, with a goal of retaking the land and re-establishing Israel as an independent nation, emerges. Therefore, we move now from general references to war to looking at a specific institution associated with the event of Conquest: the Ban.

241 Ibid., 260. 242 This pattern is similar to ones found in other ancient Near Eastern texts (ibid., 247). An example in the Hebrew Bible is the Song of the Sea and the Song of Miriam, Exod 15:1-18; 21. 243 Lynch, “Zion’s Warrior,” 253.

B. The Elements of the Ban in the Restoration

Introduction

Within a few generations of the Babylonian conquests the people of Israel and Judah had begun returning to their traditional homeland in order to resettle, rebuild, and re-establish themselves. This culminated in the building of the second temple, the centre of their renewed religious focus. The changes to their national fortunes were remarkable – as is the resemblance of the events to the elements of the Ban, even if they are stretched over a long period of time. This is a useful guide to look at the stories of the period. In many ways, in fact, restoration stories echo what the Israelites knew as their history: they used stories and language from the Conquest in their writing, as we saw in the previous section. This section expands on those references to look at events, specifically the overall pattern of the Ban in the Restoration. With the necessary background on war, the New Exodus, and violent imagery established in the previous chapters, we can now turn to the events of the Restoration itself. The original Exodus was followed by the Conquest and the implementation of e Banth by Israel in order to secure the land. We will, therefore, look at the Restoration against the overall pattern of the ancient Near Eastern ban (destruction, deportation, resettlement, and temple-building) that we covered in chapter 2 (see above, p. 13). Doing so will allow us to further perceive whether or not the language of war was used due to the phrases being a common part of the culture, and thus were only coincidently similar to what was written, or if the actual events were written about in a way that intended to make parallels.

63 1. Destruction

The defeat and destruction of both the northern and southern kingdoms are well at- tested in written and archaeological records, and their effect on Israelite religion is seen throughout the Hebrew Bible.244 As a whole, Israel’s shared history and memories expanded in response, in order to include exilic suffering into the core of their new religious identity.245 Their understanding of the importance of the covenant and appreciation for Yah- weh’s power also broadened. After all, invoking of the Ban was a covenantal curse for Israelites who committed apostasy.246 Therefore, in order to rationalize what had happened to them “defeat bec[ame] a vindication of the deity’s will and a testimony to the deity’s power.”247 In this way, all the events were still attributed to God’s control and continuing involvement, but with the added understanding that God would fight against Israel when he was angry with them (see above, p. 58). The writers of Kings used traditional formulas to tell the story of their defeat. The same formulas were used to tell the stories of victory in the book of Joshua and by the

244 They lost many of the ethnic markers that had made them a cohesive people and, therefore, had to remake their very identity. Hallmarks of the Abrahamic covenant, on which much of their nation and identity was based were gone. Hawtery explains that “what disturbs the writer [of Lamentations] is that God has apparently removed the very centerpieces of covenant history: the festivals (2:6), the monarchy (2:6), the priesthood (2:6), the temple (1:10, 2:7), the law (2:9), the prophets (2:9), and of course, people and their connection to the land (1:3), the very pillars of the Abrahamic promise.” (Kim Hawtrey, “The Exile as a Crisis for Cultic Religion: Lamentations and Ezekiel,” RTR 52 [1993]: 78-79). 245 Wright explains that “[b]y reminding others of their contribution to victory and their participation in collective suffering, one affirms membership within the political community and lays claim to political right.” (Jacob L. Wright, “The Commemoration of Defeat and the Formation of a Nation in the Hebrew Bi- ble,” Prooftexts 29 [2009]: 436-37). 246 Stephen Dempster, “The Prophetic Invocation of the Ban as Covenant Curse: A Historical Analysis of a Prophetic Theme” (M.Th. Thesis, Westminster Theological Seminary, 1978), 73. 247 Wright, “The Commemoration of Defeat,” 439.

Assyrians to brag about their prowess.248 Rather than the text reflecting the chaos that Is- rael must have experienced (as seen in other writing, such as Lamentations or the raw emotion of Psalm 137), this actually shows, in the history writings at least, that the events show a marked continuity with Joshua’s conquest and were considered part of a systematic process.249

2. Deportation

Like the destruction that Israel experienced, the deportation of thousands of Israelites is described in the Bible and Assyrian and Babylonian records, even if they exaggerated the numbers.250 This deportation ushered in the period of the Exile, although Jill Middle- mas argues that it should be called the “templeless” period instead, because the destroyed temple was the defining feature of the era,251 rather than continuing to think of all the people being in exile at the same time. While Jerusalem was not an important city until the Hellenistic period, it was never completely unoccupied (nor was it occupied only by non-Israelites).252

248 Lisbeth S. Fried, The Priest and the Great King: Temple-Palace Relations in the Persian Empire (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004), 157. 249 A further resemblance between destructive events in the Hebrew Bible is the fall of Babylon, as described in Isaiah 47, and what happened to Jerusalem and Zion in others (E. John Hamlin, “Isaiah 47, the End of Empire.” Proceedings: Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies 16 [1996]: 129). 250 For the Assyrians at least, the numbers of deportees were exaggerated by Sennacherib for his own propaganda (Gary Knoppers, “Exile, Return and Diaspora: Expatriates and Repatriates in Late Biblical Lit- erature,” in Texts, Contexts and Readings in Postexilic Literature: Explorations into Historiography and Identity Negotiation in Hebrew Bible and Related Texts, ed. Louis Jonker [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011]: 34). 251 J.A. Middlemas, “Going Beyond the Myth of the Empty Land: A Reassessment of the Early Persian Period,” in Exile and Restoration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, ed. Gary N. Knoppers and Lester L. Grabbe with Deirdre N. Fulton (London: T & T Clark, 2009), 177. 252 Eric Meyers, “Exile and Restoration in Light of Recent Archaeological Studies,” in Exile and Res- toration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, ed. Gary N. Knoppers and Lester L. Grabbe with Deirdre N. Fulton (London: T & T Clark, 2009), 169.

65 The Myth of the Empty Land. Since the number of people in the land was reduced, as in the case of Jerusalem (above), but never completely unoccupied, the Hebrew Bible’s version of the deportation, the exaggeration that everyone left the land, is known as the ‘Myth of the Empty Land.’ Late redactors connected to the ruling golah community likely developed the idea,253 though there is debate about the extent to which the stories are meant to describe the land as completely empty. 254

253 This helped to protect their own claims, and legitimize their interests as the group in power at the time (ibid., 170). 254 B. Oded, for instance, believes that the “myth” refers to something that was entirely made up by scholars who believe the biblical writings are completely devoid of historical truth (“Where Is the “Myth of the Empty Land” To Be Found? History versus Myth,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blenkinsopp [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003], 55). This is an oversimplification of the issue, which is that the text is manipulated to give the impression that the majority of people in the land were removed, and that the text emphasizes the importance of the time spent in Baby- lon to the history and identity of the nascent Jewish identity at the time, and to the larger biblical story as a whole. As the stories of exile and return are major turning points, it is difficult to see the opposite here and that, as Oded claims (ibid., 63), there was no stigma attached to those who were not exiled, and that they were instead immediately assumed to be part of the larger community, the one that had experienced exile. It took much longer than that for the formative experience of exile to become thought of as a universal experience (see below), and furthermore, if it was not an important identifier, it would never have become an integral part of the story of the Jewish people. It is the exaggeration of the scope of this part of the story, and its importance for the identity of the people, that we are here referring to as the ‘Myth of the Empty Land’, and certainly not the idea Oded seems to have of it, that scholars think the story was made up entirely by later generations. As for the acceptance and rejection of the left-behind Jews as ‘people of the land’ or not, see below, p. 110, for a discussion on the varying positions. Oded believes that those who hold with the ‘Myth of the Empty Land’ believe that Judah remained almost the same after the Babylonian Conquest as it was before (ibid., 65), and that they think the Myth was made up in the Hellenistic period for political reasons (ibid., 55). Most academics do not suppose that it was made up entirely by a small returning community, but rather that it is a convenient and careful use of the facts to tell their story. Furthermore, this fits with the ‘Myth of the Mass Return’, which once again tells the story as the entirety of the people of Israel all following the same path. Here I am using the Myth of the Empty Land to refer to the exaggerations and careful language choice that emphasized the exile while mini- mizing or ignoring those who were left behind, similar to something Oded himself proposes (ibid., 60; 65). I would, however, argue against his assertion that: “[t]here is no stigmatization of the non-exiled (that is, indigenous inhabitants) as horrendous sinners who should be dispossessed (see the Pentateuch and the books of Joshua and Judges). Repossession is the word, not possession or retaking of the land from the ‘other people.’ The main issue in Ezra–Nehemiah is separation from the “peoples of the land,” not possession of their land” (ibid., 63). This is incorrect because much of the language precludes thinking that the returnees as left-behind Israelites thought of themselves as one people-group from the beginning, as there is ample evidence of conquest-related language, notably seen when associating those in the land with the names of people-groups from the original conquest when referring to the “empty land”. The emphasis in separating from the people in Yehud is on the Israelite inhabitants, not complete foreigners, a distinction that Oded sees, but fails to realize the importance of (ibid., 63).

The returnees saw themselves, because of their experiences, as the only true people of Israel.255 Therefore, in order to suit their ideological purposes they adjusted the narrative to make the community as a whole appear to have gone into exile. Theologically, the writing also reflects the understanding that it was necessary for the land to be empty because an empty land was the consequence of breaking the covenant recorded in Leviticus.256 While it appears quite certain that the entire population did not go into exile, or later, return from exile (see below, p. 70), careful storytelling in books like Chronicles (2 Chron 36:20) and later Ezra-Nehemiah, which concentrate on the story of the golah rather than those communities left in the land, makes it seem as though the people of Israel all experienced the same events, rather than being split into different communities. It is also important to note that they told the story in such a way to make it seem that the land was empty of people who were part of the Israelite (later Jewish) community, not empty of all people (see below, p. 106, for a discussion on the rhetoric used to describe those in the land). ‘Exile’ as a discrete moment in time is a misnomer in itself: as opposed to a single group that was transported to Babylon, there were multiple deportations, as well as a movement of refugees to neighbouring countries, and later still a large movement to Egypt.257 It is key to see how the stories were told in order to make the people appear to have followed the same, uniform story, one that continued into the resettlement of the land. The way the story is told, as though a united community went to Babylon, is significant because the experience of salvation through exile, as well as Yahweh’s redemption of the

255 Juha Pakkala, “The Exile and the Exiles in the Ezra Tradition,” in The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and its Historical Contexts, ed. Ehud Ben Zvi and Christoph Levin (De Gruyter, Berlin, 2010), 100. 256 Lev 26:33-39; Robert P. Carroll, “The Myth of the Empty Land,” Semeia 59 (1992): 79. 257 Middlemas, “Going Beyond,” 174.

67 community when he brought them back to the land, were major events in the development of Judaism and Jewish identity. This would not have been possible without the biblical story showing the population get deported. Regardless of the many things that were happening to the people, they were presented, overall, as experiencing the same events and following a planned course of events, one that mimics the course of the Exo- dus and Conquest.

3. Resettlement

The first stages of the Ban, destruction and resettlement, take place in the period before the one that really concerns the main thrust of this study. It is the resettlement (and temple building, see below p. 73) that is the part of the story that most closely compares to the original Conquest, thus, it is an excellent area to explore for New Conquest points of resemblance.

3.1. Importance of the Land The deported Judeans who had been waiting, separated from their land and cult, were finally allowed to return when the Persians took over Babylon. The move back to their homeland opened a new chapter in their history, but still one that, relied on their ancient understanding of the importance of the land. Zechariah, for instance, encouraged people to look toward Zion, which would re-establish its place in the cult,258 as in verse 9:9a: Rejoice greatly, Fair Zion; Raise a shout, Fair Jerusalem! Lo, your king is coming to you. He is victorious, triumphant ….

258 Zech 2; Middlemas, “Going Beyond,” 183.

This verse, and its wider context in chapter 9, ties the return to Jerusalem to the Divine Warrior, victorious over Israel’s enemies and even the sinful people within his own nation, in order to restore their fortunes. The chapter ties these enemies259 and Israel to the land. The land and the law. The land, because of its ties with the covenant, was the basis for the people to obey the law. They had to obey in order to remain in the land.260 As seen above (p. 26), disobedience was interpreted as the reason they were expelled. In the returnees’ prayers of confession, it is possible to see the importance of the land to the renewed religion in the numerous references to “the land” scattered throughout their prayers.261 This extended into a renewed desire to take the law and covenant seriously, so as to prevent once again losing the land.262 Connections to the Land. As we have seen above, the returning community devoted considerable time and effort to proving their right to the land. It was the land itself, not only its significance for the cult, which was important. It was for this reason that they traced their lineage so carefully in the genealogies of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.263 These genealogies contain reference to traditional territory and include stories that tie the people they are concerned with to the land.264 The important prerequisite for their inclu- sion in the lists was a connection to the returnees.265 This was not confined to sites within

259 For instance, Zech 9:5 lists the enemies by their lands, not their groups. 260 Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 227. 261 According to Grabbe “a strong theology of the land had developed by the Persian period at the lat- est” (A History, 245). 262 Deut 30 and 1 Kgs 8 contain indications that the people had already been expelled from the land, resulting in a corresponding seriousness to their calls to obey the law should the land ever be regained. In contrast, Chronicles sees the land as having its Shabbat rests, rather than being lost entirely (Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 227). 263 Ezra 2; Neh 7 264 Grabbe, A History, 170. 265 Charles E. Carter, The Emergence of Yehud in the Persian Period: A Social and Demographic Study, JSOT Supplement 294 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press: 1999), 111.

69 the borders of the Persian province of Yehud, since some sites listed were outside of them. People, and their ties to the land, were more important than contemporary political borders.

3.2. The Myth of the Mass Return As a complement to the Myth of the Empty Land, the return from exile was also told in exaggerated terms. That is to say, since the version of the drama that the golah was telling involved the whole people of Israel being removed from their land, they also all had to return to their land and their god. The decree. Cyrus’s decree in Ezra 1 set the entire Restoration into motion. Like so many of the components to the restoration, however, this declaration was exaggerated. It was general Persian policy to allow the existence of local cults. However, for the writer of Ezra-Nehemiah that type of general policy would not have nearly the impact as a decree put out exclusively for the Jews to return home. Consequently, the decree was tailored for the golah community. The opening of the book of Ezra makes Cyrus into a king specially led by Yahweh,266 and the wording hints that it is manufactured propaganda.267 Adding to the impression that the decree was manufactured specifically for its role in the story is its resemblance, not to a Persian decree, but to ancient Near Eastern building inscriptions.268

The true return. The real events were considerably different from the picture that is put forth in Ezra-Nehemiah. Persian records suggest that there was no major drop in the

266 Grabbe, A History, 273-74. 267 Bob Becking, “‘We All Returned as One!’: Critical Notes on the Myth of the Mass Return,” in Ju- dah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 8. 268 Lisbeth S. Fried, “The Land Lay Desolate: Conquest and Restoration in the Ancient Near East,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blenkinsopp (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 36. The outline actual resembles temple restoration schemes (ibid., 33).

Jewish population in Persia and that the group remained quite large throughout the Pe- riod.269 The archaeological evidence shows that there was a slow influx of people into Yehud over the course of the two centuries of Persian rule, with no indications consistent with a sudden population increase.270 Even in the book of Ezra, though subtle, there are mentions that some people made the choice to stay in Babylon, which the leadership accepted,271 although the emphasis in the story was with the returnees. There is also the possibility that the list of returnees in Ezra 2 was meant to catalogue all the Jewish people in the land, not just the returnees, but the writer incorrectly applied it.272 The book of Haggai does not even mention the diaspora or returnees, so it was not as important an event for them as it became for later writers.273 Exile, then, was not a one-time, simulta- neous, experience for the whole community; it was considerably more organic and ongoing. How the return was portrayed. Even though there is a strain of post-exilic literature that, in fact, seems to regard the exile as on-going in the land because of the continued Persian dominance (see below p. 131),274 this portrayal was in the minority. Instead, the narrative of the return was created to mesh with the story of the empty land and show that everything that had happened to the people had happened to them as an entire group.275 They depicted the return as a collective endeavour, creating the Myth of the Mass Re- turn.276

269 Becking, “We All Returned as One!,” 8; 11-12. 270 Grabbe, A History, 274. 271 Gary N. Knoppers, “The Construction of Judean Diasporic Identity in Ezra-Nehemiah,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 15 (2015): 2. In Ezra 1:5 only those whose “heart God had moved” returned. 272 Klaus Koch, “Ezra and the Origins of Judaism,” JSS 19 (1974): 188-89. 273 Sara Japhet, From the Rivers of Babylon to the Highlands of Judah: Collected Studies on the Resto- ration Period (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 105. 274 Linville, “Myth of the Exilic Return,” 296. 275 Becking, “We All Returned,” 7. 276 Ibid., 3. Becking cites the example of Psalm 126:1.

71 The journey itself took on special importance because of the exodus-like overtones the returnees used to describe it and because, in itself, it was a type of religious pilgrimage that lent a special distinction to those who undertook it.277 To the golah community, those in the land had not shared in their experience of judgment, judgment that God had used to transform the exiles into his chosen people.278 In this way, the exiles justified their claims of being the only true people of Israel.279 Furthermore, in the eyes of the golah, only the returnees were descendants of Israel, because only they had experienced the formative struggle of exile in Babylon. It certainly helped that they were the ones who held prominent positions of power and wrote the books. As Juna Pakkala explains: The intellectual or religious primacy of the Babylonian community, at least when it comes to the foundational phase of Second Temple Judaism, seems to have been generally accepted.... [T]he authors imply that the exilic community in Babylon represented the authoritative form of Judaism.280 The people who had remained in Israel did not have either of these newly important ethnic markers:281 judgement and a shared experience of exile. Therefore, they too were excluded from the new community. Regardless of the number of people who returned from Babylon and resettled the province of Yehud, the event had an enormous impact on the development of Jewish identity and religion. As we have seen, it became a central event in their shared history. It

277 Knowles actually says that the journey was not an exodus at all, mainly because of its voluntary nature (Melody D. Knowles, “Pilgrimage Imagery in the Returns in Ezra,” JBL 123 [2004]: 66). Aspects of pilgrimages that were present in the return include: a focus on cult centre (Jerusalem) as the destination, the emphasis on worship, the vocabulary and expressions, and a return home, though in this case, it was to their original home, not their starting point (ibid., 69). 278 Pamela J. Scalise, “The End of the Old Testament: Reading Exile in the Hebrew Bible,” PRSt 35 (2008): 169. 279 Becking, “We All Returned,” 13. Knowles, on the other hand, says that “[u]nlike the exodus, this was not a journey that marked the self-identification of a group” in order to support her argument that the journey was a pilgrimage only, and not a new exodus. However, given that it became a key part of the story of the Jewish people, I would argue that it was both (“Pilgrimage Imagery,” 66). 280 Pakkala, “The Exile,” 100. 281 Esler, “Ezra-Nehemiah,” 418; Scalise, “The End of the Old Testament,” 168. Furthermore, they had brought back the original temple vessels, allowing them to continue the original cult (ibid., 166). See above, p. 43.

also confirmed the importance of the land itself. This, in turn, influenced other features of their religion: the temple.

4. Temple Building

Almost the first thing the returnees did upon arriving in Yehud was to re-establish the cult of Yahweh.282 This is unsurprising given the connection between land and deity, and that the exiles had to live without many of the ties to their religion for so long. The second temple, the focus of the rebuilding efforts, was the largest physical symbol of the community as a whole, the cult’s success, and Yahweh’s presence. The new temple played a major role in post-exilic writing and, for centuries, had an impact on Jewish religion, both on the official cult and sectarian groups (see below p. 84). Furthermore, temples had an important role in the ancient Near East that affect our understanding of New Conquest language.

4.1. The Temple in the Ancient Near East The importance of temples in the ancient Near East has been mentioned several times in connection with other points (see above, p. 20; p. 1, fn. 87; and p. 1, fn. 237). The full discussion, in regards to war and rebuilding, was saved for this in-depth section on conquest elements.

When stories of temples, or temple-palaces were written, there was a pattern that was followed due to scribal conventions, which used a formula rather than reporting on the true events.283 This template involved a five or six stage pattern and was followed in

282 Knoppers, “The Construction,” 9. 283 Victor Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Meso- potamian and Northwest Semitic Writings, JSOT Supplement 115 (Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1992), 128.

73 Mesopotamia as well as in the Hebrew Bible.284 For this study, the most relevant feature is its opening: victory.285 Without proving their worth through combat, deities and kings alike had no right to build themselves a tribute. With conquered people-groups, however, the paradigm was a little different, though it still allowed a defeated people-group to restore their temple, as Fried explains: [T]here is a common ideology in the ancient Near East of temple-restoration after conquest.... The motivation to restore a destroyed shrine begins with the willingness of the god who abandoned it to move back in.286 In this schema, the deity did not win another victory, per se, but had changed his or her mind on a major event that happened to the people (whatever had allowed their defeat), and had consented to return as their god and protector. The replacement of the temple was done in order for it to be fit to receive the god,287 but it was the deity who was seen as the true temple builder.288

4.2. The Importance of the Temple in Israel Temples in the ancient Near East were important institutions with a deep influence on the people who built them, and the temple in Israel was no different. The temple was a central concern for the returning Jews and played a role in many of their hopes and plans.

4.2.1. Hope for the Future Prosperity. The temple, when rebuilt, would not only be a symbol that the returning

Jews had reclaimed their land, but also that they had managed to put their country back together to the point that they could accomplish a large-scale building project. However,

284 Ibid., 126. In her analysis of temple-building account Fried has a slightly more detailed, or broken- down, list. The overall pattern is the same (The Priest, 160-61). 285 As comes from royal building inscriptions and myths, such as Enuma Elish (Hurowitz, I Have Built, 95). 286 Fried, “The Land Lay Desolate,” 30. 287 Ibid., 31. 288 Exod 15:17; 11Q19, Temple Scroll XXIX 7-10. This theology is also found in Canaanite and Meso- potamian literature (Hurowitz, I Have Built, 332).

in a sense, it was actually the other way around – the temple was needed first, before prosperity would come to the community. Logistically, the temple would be an economic centre and was, therefore, necessary for business to be conducted, even to the extent that -store‘ ,בית האוצר it acted as a storeroom.289 Malachi 3:10 also describes the temple as a room’ or ‘treasure house.’ Theologically, as well, the books of Haggai and Zechariah the temple is pictured as essential to the prosperity of the community. Take, for example, Haggai 1:9-11:290 9You have been expecting much and getting little; and when you brought it home, I would blow on it! Because of what? – says the LORD of Hosts. Because of My House which lies in ruins, while you all hurry to your own houses! 10That is why the skies above you have withheld [their] moisture and the earth has withheld its yield, 11and I have summoned fierce heat upon the land – upon the hills, upon the new grain and wine and oil, upon all that the ground produces, upon man and beast, and upon all the fruits of labor. This is similar to the way that Yahweh’s manifestation was essential for victory in war, and his displeasure led to removing his presence and defeat, as in Deut 28:22-25, which uses similar imagery to the passage above: 22The LORD will strike you with consumption, fever, and inflammation, with scorch- ing heat and drought, with blight and mildew; they shall hound you until you perish. 23The skies above your head shall be copper and the earth under you iron. 24The LORD will make the rain of your land dust, and sand shall drop on you from the sky, until you are wiped out. 25The LORD will put you to rout before your enemies; you shall march out against them by a single road, but flee from them by many roads; and you shall become a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. Presence was essential in both cases for Israel’s success. In the ancient Near Eastern paradigm, it would have been understood that without a temple there was nowhere, and no reason, for the deity to return. In the post-exilic period, it would have seemed that they were showing disrespect for Yahweh, since he had returned with them in the New Exodus

289 In fact, Carroll suspects that the second temple was considerably more humble than the texts would like the reader to believe, to the extent that its role as a storeroom may have outweighed its role as a religious landmark (Robert P. Carroll, “So What Do We Know About the Temple?,” in Temple and Community in the Persian Period, ed. Tamara C. Eskenazi and Kent H. Richards, vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies, JSOT Supplement 175 [Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994], 47). 290 Other examples include Hag 2:15-19; Zech 1:12-17; and 8:10-12.

75 and granted them their land, but they had not built a temple. According to Hanson, Hag- gai 1:5-11 contends that this disrespect led to the people’s hardships and difficulty working the land.291 Within this school of thinking, because the temple, Yahweh’s presence, and prosperity were intertwined, the temple needed to be rebuilt in order to renew the fortunes of the people and the land.292 Other attitudes toward the temple will be explored below (see p. 84). Independence. Wanting success for the nation dovetailed into hope for independence. Na- tionalistic sentiment was incompatible with foreign rule, even with stability and well- being returning to the land. The temple, though, could have mitigated that to some extent, since it was a symbol for the people, the community, and their religion, without interfer- ence from outside Persian influence. It was something altogether their own.293 For the Chronicler, the temple was a symbol that the people had repented and that Yahweh would, therefore, give them mercy, mercy that meant they would be able to resume the cult.294 The temple was an enormous achievement for a group that was still rebuilding after a long period of destruction and sealed the new-found religious fervour of the transformed Jewish nation.295 The temple brought hope that ties into the story of Israel as a whole. According to Ian Wilson: There is wandering in the wilderness, judgment and purification, divine instruction for the people (cf. Ez 20). Thus, any future hope, that which lies beyond oppression and slavery in a foreign land (be it a restored kind of Davidic kingship of not), was to

291 Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 185. 292 Ibid., 177; Herbert Niehr, “Religio-Historical Aspects of the ‘Early Post-Exilic’ Period,” in The Cri- sis of Israelite Religion: Transformation of Religious Tradition in Exile and Post-Exilic Times, ed. Bob Becking and Marjo C.A. Korpel (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 236. 293 Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Temple and Society in Achaemenid Judah,” in Persian Period, ed. Philip R. Davies, vol. 1 of Second Temple Studies, JSOT Supplement 117 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 26. 294 Brian E. Kelly, “‘Retribution’ Revisited: Covenant, Grace and Restoration,” in The Chronicler as Theologian: Essays in Honor of Ralph W. Klein, ed. M. Patrick Graham, Steven L. McKenzie, and Gary N. Knoppers (London: T & T Clark, 2003), 226. 295 Japhet, From the Rivers, 231-32.

be accompanied by a prolonged coming-of-age process in which Israel must (re)receive and (re)learn Yahweh’s Torah and (re)establish a holy abode for the deity in the promised land.296 This sequence is based on the use of New Exodus language, here finding its conclusion in the new temple. The later Isaiahian prophecies (commonly referred to as Trito-Isaiah, see p.1, fn. 116) take the hopes for a temple and land further, towards an eschatological ending in which the temple, or more specifically the holy mountain, 297 became the peak of

298 Israel’s hopes, both literally and figuratively. The original temple had come at the end of the original conquest and was one of the major accomplishments of an independent, united Israel. With the return to the Promised Land and rebuilding accomplished, the returnees could confirm their ‘re-conquest’ with the second temple.

4.2.2. Land and the Temple In the ancient Near East deities were tied to the traditional land of their people, as represented by their temple, which was their dwelling on earth.299 The Jewish people hoped for independence, a restoration of their pre-exilic freedom, which could never happen without their land. That meant the land needed to be theirs to return to, given to them again by Yahweh. Haggai foresaw the return of the monarchy and independence through the work of the Divine Warrior, in 2:22-23: 22And I will overturn the thrones of kingdoms and destroy the might of the kingdoms of the nations. I will overturn chariots and their drivers. Horses and their riders shall fall, each by the sword of his fellow. 23On that day – declares the LORD of Hosts – I will take you, O My servant Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel – declares the LORD – and make you as a signet; for I have chosen you – declares the LORD of Hosts.

296 Ian Douglas Wilson, “Joseph, Jehoiachin, and Cyrus: On Book Endings, Exoduses and Exiles, and Yehudite/Judean Social Remembering,” ZAW 126 (2014): 530. 297 For example, Isa 56:1-8 and 65-66. 298 Jacob Stromberg, “Deutero-Isaiah’s Restoration Reconfigured,” in Continuity and Discontinuity: Chronological and Thematic Development in Isaiah 40-66, ed. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer and Hans M. Barstad (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 200. 299 The book of Ezra follows this type of understanding of the link between land, temple, and ancestors, especially given the importance in this story of returning to the land (Knoppers, “The Construction,” 13).

77 This passage comes as the final prediction in the book, immediately following the blessings promised upon the rebuilding of the temple (Hag 2:15-19), which predicts the temple’s role in the prosperity of the nation300 (see above, p. 74). For Israel, a new temple at the centre of the land and their lives meant affirming their place in the land and Yah- weh’s sanction of their return.301 As we saw above, this was essential or they would never be able to make a living on their land, because nothing would prosper without his presence. Since the land was given to the returnees through the Persian rulers, 302 it was essential to establish that the Persians were merely the medium for Yahweh. Otherwise, the occupation of the land and the new temple would have been delegitimized.

4.2.3. Royalty and the Temple The king was not needed for the temple simply because he had the power and the money to accomplish such a huge project. In the ancient Near East he was an essential part of the narrative of temple-building (or in this case, rebuilding). Neo-Babylonian royal inscriptions mention very little about a king’s heroism (unlike earlier Assyrian and Sumerian texts), focusing instead almost exclusively on their building projects and support of the cult.303 Just as it was part of his function to maintain order, it was the king’s role in society to uphold the law and build the city and temple.304 Kings built temples, but

300 David J.A. Clines, “Haggai’s Temple, Constructed, Deconstructed and Reconstructed,” in Temple and Community in the Persian Period, ed. Tamara C. Eskenazi, and Kent H. Richards, vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies, JSOT Supplement 175 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 65. Furthermore, according to Car- roll “[t]his sudden influx of treasure into the temple will reverse the judgment that it was inferior to the first temple. Thus, we may read Haggai as describing the new temple as a potential storehouse or treasury of the empire. It is hardly a holy place for worship or the celebration of cultic rituals, but it is to be a place for the generating of great wealth. (Carroll, “So What,” 41). 301 Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 307. 302 Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 227. 303 Hurowitz, I Have Built, 81. 304 Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 44; Niehr, “Religio-Historical Aspects,” 234.

only on the command of a god. Fried explains that: “[t]he divine command to the king is paramount, for it implies the god’s willingness to return to his temple.”305

4.3. Justifying the Temple A temple project was finally moving forward, but it was not the Temple, with the same status as the original, that was built. It was neither as big, nor as grand; and despite his role in the project, Cyrus was not the proper king to build it. In time, in order to change the way Jews saw the temple a considerable amount of ideology developed around its rebuilding, legitimizing its place in the cult. 4.2.1. Cyrus and Yahweh’s Right to Build the Temple Cyrus was the second temple’s patron, and the justification for his involvement is based on the role of kings and temples in the ancient Near East. Kings were essential to temple-building projects; therefore, Cyrus also had a major role as the project’s patron, not just as the owner of the location. In the case of the second temple, the king that was needed was a Persian ruler, in lieu of the Davidic king. The Hebrew Bible, therefore, linked the Davidic line and the Persian ruler to the construction of the second temple. Chronicles did it by emphasizing the role of the Davidic king in the cult, which carried through to Zerubbabel’s involvement (who was of the Davidic line, although he was a vassal of the Persians) in the new temple in both Ezra 1-6,306 Zech 4:7,307 and Haggai

2:1-9. We saw through the decree in Ezra 1 how Cyrus was connected to a divine granting of the land.

305 This is in the context of discussing the decree in Ezra, a Jewish version of a building inscription for the temple: “They name the king, they state his year in office (the appropriate first year), they state the god whose temple it is, and most importantly they state that the impetus for the temple-building came by a divine command from the god to the king.... The phrase ‘to stir up the spirit’ is a Hebrew idiom indication that the command has indeed come from YHWH... These words are strange if interpreted ... as a genuine edict of Cyrus (or even if interpreted as Cyrus’s response to an official Jewish request). They are entirely appropriate, however, in a building inscription for a Jerusalem temple.” (Fried, The Priest, 163) . 306 Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 136. 307 Niehr, “Religio-Historical Aspects,” 235.

79 Deutero-Isaiah, too, exerts a great deal of effort to legitimize Cyrus as an agent of Yahweh, even to the point of calling him ‘anointed.’308 This makes it clear that Yahweh chose Cyrus and so remains the ultimate authority.309 Furthermore, Cyrus was the king who Yahweh had chosen in order in defeat Babylon. He was not just some hostile idolatrous king; he was a part of the divine plan.310 Cyrus and his descendants were important to Deutero-Isaiah because, like the Davidic king with whom they were compared, they undertook the type of endeavours that only kings were capable of performing: bringing back the status quo, rebuilding the temple, replacing the vessels, and facilitating worship.311 This does not make him a mere agent for Yahweh, but actually goes much further, connecting him to the previous Davidic rulers312 and proving his purpose in history. As Jacob Stromberg explains: [B]oth halves of the Cyrus oracles in 44:24-45:13 employ the language of creation to articulate the theological rationale for God’s use of this controversial figure.... The imagery seeks to subordinate the Persian ruler to a broader sequence of events controlled by the divine will.313 The Cyrus songs are part of a larger section that praises Yahweh for his power as creator and king. Because of this authority, he has the right to use whomever he chooses, even a foreigner, to give back the land to his people and to build a temple for them.314 Ezra-Nehemiah, especially, goes to great lengths to explain that Cyrus’s involvement with the project was divinely mediated. Not doing so would have completely delegitimized the temple, and in the process, the religion and culture of the golah community

308 Isa 45:1 309 Ralph W. Doermann, “Cyrus, Conqueror of Babylon: Anointed (by the Lord) or Appointed (by Mar- duk)? A Reexamination of Conflicting Perspectives,” Presentation at the Eastern Great Lakes Bible Society Annual Conference (Pittsburgh, April 24, 1987), 10. 310 Kaufmann, The Babylonian Captivity, 115. 311 Isa 45:13, Fried, “Cyrus,” 392-93. 312 Lisbeth S. Fried, “Cyrus the Messiah? The Historical Background to Isaiah 45:1,” HTR 95 (2002): 380-382. 313 Stromberg, “Deutero-Isaiah’s Restoration,” 206. 314 Fried, “Cyrus,” 376.

that produced the books. No matter what, Yahweh was always the one who really built the temple; however, because ideologically it was a king’s role to support the temple, he worked through a foreign king.315 Cyrus is shown as a supportive ruler, from his decree to his provision of materials. His role in the books is to facilitate the building of the temple, which is in keeping with his assigned ideological purpose.316 As Cyrus’ later successor, Darius also shared in these royal accomplishments. According to Frank Cross: [S]ince Zerubbabel completed the temple upon Darius’s decree, it is quite natural to attribute the return of Zerubbabel to the beginning of the reign of Darius. The chaos which marked the beginning of Darius’s reign was the appropriate time for a return to Zion, as it was an appropriate time for the prophets to arise anew and proclaim a new David and a new temple, i.e. the re-establishment of the Judean kingdom.317 The Persian monarchs were recast in light of what Israel and the returning Jews valued in their rulers; that is to say, their role revolved around the temple. Yahweh earned his right to build the temple through both his New Exodus warrior activity (see above, p. 20) and his victory over Babylon through Cyrus. Many of the background theological concepts that became attached to Cyrus (and his descendants) have already been covered. In relation to the themes of war the these books, Cyrus became associated with Yahweh’s battles, especially in Deutero-Isaiah, where he was tied to imagery of Yahweh’s power of creation.318 Through them Yahweh had proven his right to use Cyrus to build his temple and to seal his victory. To make it official necessitated certain formalities, like a building inscription to begin the construction, a pattern followed in

315 Dennis J. McCarthy, “Covenant and Law in Chronicles-Nehemiah,” CBQ 44 (1982): 32. 316 Knoppers, “The Construction,” 11. 317 Frank Moore Cross, “A Reconstruction of the Judean Restoration,” JBL 94 (1975): 12. 318 Fried, “Cyrus,” 376.

81 Ezra’s opening description of the project.319 The story of the rebuilding is not an explanation of events as much as a highly-theologized presentation of the restoration with the rebuilding and celebration of the temple at its centre.320 The parties behind the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Deutero-Isaiah collaborated with the Persian administration to support this ideology because it meant that the temple would be built. Cyrus had his own motivation to be seen as Yahweh’s appointed king. It provided both sides with legitimacy, stability, and continuity: religious, for the Jews building the temple; and political, in the case of Cyrus.321 It should be noted that Yehud was not the only province in which Cyrus became the ‘chosen one’ of the local deity. The Persians used this strategy in several provinces: in Babylon, Marduk gave Cyrus his blessing;322 in Egypt, he became the Pharaoh and “Offspring of Re”;323 and in Greece, the priests of Apollo at Magnesia endorsed him.324 In Yehud, this resulted in the Cyrus songs of Deutero-Isaiah, in which Cyrus was bestowed with the royal title of ‘Yahweh’s anointed,’ along with the associated mythology.325 As a result of this arrangement, Cyrus gained the loyalty of the disparate subjects he had conquered. The Jews were allowed to rebuilt, which would only have transpired if their foreign rulers had believed that it posed

319 However, Fried also says that while the opening fits the pattern of a building inscription, the story itself does not follow a building formula (The Priest, 163). 320 Ezra 3; Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 147. 321 Knoppers, “Exile,” 50. 322 Cyrus is reported to have seized hand of Marduk on entering Babylon “as a sign of his willingness to rule as a Babylonian rather than a foreign conqueror. After this obeisance to Marduk he was hailed by many as the legitimate successor to the throne.” (Doermann, “Cyrus,” 9). In return, the citizens of Babylon being freed from the corvée (Fried, “Cyrus,” 388). 323 Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius all took advantage of this type of endorsement, in return for allowing the Egyptians to rebuild their temple and maintain their cult (Fried, “Cyrus,” 384; 388). 324 Doermann, Cyrus,” 9. 325 Isa 45:1; Fried, “Cyrus,” 390.

no threat of insubordination, or an increase of nationalistic sentiment.326 The Jews satis- fied this requirement by inserting Cyrus into their religious world as the king Yahweh chose to lead them. In the ancient Near East temples and royalty were bound together. An important component to this cultural association was the battles that the king had fought in order to secure order. As Cyrus had, in the real world, built the temple, it was essential for the He- brew Bible to link Yahweh with Cyrus’s victories. We have seen how this was accomplished, and turn now to the second major justification, the continuity that was said to stretch between the two temples. 4.2.2. Continuity Between the Temples At the core of this theology was the idea that the new temple did not replace the old, at least not in the sense that it superseded it. It was actually meant to carry on directly from the original in both purpose and authority, since, as the centre of the cult, the temple needed to be permanent. Legitimizing the new building as the temple, not just a second temple, therefore, meant connecting it to the old. Furthermore, the vessels that equipped it were the originals; they legitimized the people who started the project and secured the golah community’s authority within the temple.327 The genealogies provided another link, ensuring that the temple leadership had the traditional jurisdiction to do so.328 Everything was done so that the temple was functionally a continuation of the one Solomon had built.329

326 Lester L. Grabbe, “What Was Ezra’s Mission?,” in Temple and Community in the Persian Period, ed. Tamara C. Eskenazi, and Kent H. Richards, vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies, JSOT Supplement 175 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 290. For more on this idea see above, p. 43, for a discussion on the return of the temple vessels. 327 Scalise, “The End of the Old Testament,” 166. 328 Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 180. 329 Ezra 3; Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 198.

83 4.4. Opposition to the Temple

4.4.1. Why the Second Temple was not Universally Endorsed The exiled community seems to have put an extraordinary amount of work into proving they had the right to build the temple and that the temple was the legitimate cult centre.330 Perhaps it was the amount of opposition that spurred them into these claims. Even the book of Ezra itself talks about the hostility they faced, though only as opportunity to vilify their opponents’ viewpoints, so we learn very little about their motivation.331 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah show a relatively homogeneous view on the second temple, which is linked to their views on the returning community’s rights as re-conquerors, aided and abetted by the ruling Persians – or, perhaps, willing to aid and abet the Persian authorities in order to achieve their own goals (see above discussion on Cyrus’s legitimization). Due to the prominence of their work in the Hebrew Bible, it is easy to think it was the only understanding of the temple.332 Even many of Deutero-Isaiah’s pro- nouncements about Cyrus were helpful in affirming their doctrine of the new temple. Nevertheless, not everyone was willing to accept Persian influence in their religion, or that the exiles were the only true Israel and authority in religious matters. After all, as Middlemas points out: “[a]n ‘exile’ only exists from the point of view of people who have been deported. The people who remained in Judah did not regard the forced relocation of some of its citizenry in any special way”.333 Their pre-eminence was in their own eyes. The books of Haggai and Zechariah, for instance, do not even refer to Cyrus. Their understanding of the temple was that it was based on covenant renewal and linked directly

330 Grabbe says it has an “apologetic quality”, especially in Ezra 10:15; Neh 6:10-19; 13:4-9 (“What Was Ezra’s Mission?,” 297). 331 Ezra 4 332 Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 74. 333 Middlemas, “Going Beyond,” 175.

between Yahweh and the Jewish people. It did not require an idolatrous, human king as an intermediary.334 In the book of Zechariah the importance of the returnees was not the people themselves, or their religious ideas, but what they represented: that Yahweh himself had decided to return.335 The books of Haggai and Zechariah seem to have a more realistic view of the temple than Ezra-Nehemiah. They tried to make a kind of compromise: accepting the new temple while still anticipating an eschatological dimension to its existence.336 Other groups outright rejected it. It was, quite simply, the wrong temple, a religious fraud based on Per- sian propaganda that allowed Yahweh to be linked to Cyrus’s battles for Persia’s own gain. These groups, naturally, also rejected the authority of the golah community and their priesthood, which will be discussed in the following section and chapter in relation to their role in the development of apocalyptic battle imagery (see below, p. 125). Even making allowances for prophetic language, Ezekiel describes a very different picture of his anticipated future temple. Ezekiel’s vision came from a priestly tradition, but he interpreted it in very different ways from the ‘P’ source and the Jerusalem priesthood.337 The book of Isaiah, perhaps not unexpectedly given its variety of authors, had several views of what was important to the temple. According to Anderson “Second Isaiah gives virtu- ally no weight to the two fundamental tenets of Davidic theology (cf. Ps 132): Yahweh’s election of the Davidic king and his election of the Jerusalem temple as the place of his

334 Ibid., 176. 335 Peter Marinkovic, “What Does Zechariah 1-8 Tell us about the Second Temple?,” in Temple and Community in the Persian Period, ed. Tamara C. Eskenazi, and Kent H. Richards, vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies, JSOT Supplement 175 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 93. 336 Hag 2:6-9. Haggai and Zechariah “represent an attempted compromise between P and Ezekiel.” (R.G. Hamerton-Kelly, “The Temple and the Origins of Jewish Apocalyptic,” VT 20 [1970]: 13). 337 Ibid., 15.

85 sacramental presence.”338 At the same time, as we have seen, he named Cyrus Yahweh’s anointed. Yet another idea entirely is presented in Isa 66:1-2: 1Thus said the LORD: The heaven is My throne And the earth is My footstool: Where could you build a house for Me, What place could serve as My abode? 2All this was made by My hand, And thus it all came into being – declares the LORD. Yet to such a one I look: To the poor and brokenhearted, ho is concerned about My word. In this passage, the author concentrates not on the temple, but the worshipper’s spirit: here Yahweh has no need for a temple at all.339 Later, the sect at Qumran outright rejected the Jerusalem cult’s authority. Their problems with the temple led them to boycott the it entirely, move away, and create their own religious centre.340 In addition to these sectarians having problems with the temple and Jerusalem, there are examples of apocryphal works, such as the Testament of Levi, dis- playing very negative assessments of the priesthood.341

4.2.3. What They Were Waiting for Instead It was easy enough to reject the second temple, but the various communities that came from the Jewish tradition still recognized the importance of the original temple and the importance of a temple to their religion. Ezekiel represents a different expectation for the new temple, one that focuses on the eschatological dimension of Yahweh’s arrival in

338 Anderson, “Exodus and Covenant in Second Isaiah and Prophetic Tradition,” in Magnalia Dei, the Mighty Acts of God: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright, ed. G Ernest Wright, Frank Moore Cross, Werner E Lemke, and Patrick D Miller (Garden City: Doubleday, 1976), 343. 339 Japhet, From the Rivers, 223-24. 340 Carroll, “So What,” 49. 341 Michael A. Knibb, Essays on the Book of Enoch and Other Early Jewish Texts and Traditions (Lei- den: Brill, 2009), 199. See below, p. 127, for more examples of opposition to the second temple.

Jerusalem, as the culmination of Ezek 33-39’s salvation oracles.342 The temple would not come through someone Yahweh chose, it would come from Yahweh who would transform the land himself. This in turn would lead to a completely renewed temple and city of Jerusalem.343 Therefore, those who built the temple early had betrayed that hope.344 Yah- weh’s presence was an essential feature of the eschatological temple. Ezekiel’s temple started with the return of his spirit to Jerusalem in 43:1-5,345 as opposed to the second temple, which the Jews expected Yahweh to occupy after it was built.

4.2.4. The Variety of Temple Hopes The temple represented a myriad of hopes and expectations. Its role in the ancient Near Eastern paradigm fit what some people were expecting, sealing a victorious god’s return to the Promised Land, while others saw its construction as premature or worse, even heretical, because it had been built unilaterally by humans before Yahweh had finished his victory. Yehud was, after all, still a Persian province. Many of these opinions stem from the place temples had in contemporary thought, as important markers of victory and a god’s power in addition to being the end of the Ban pattern, which has been studied throughout this chapter. For those who saw Israel’s continued subservience to Persia as a sign that they had not yet gained the right to a temple this was a problem. The interplay between temple expectations and victory expectations will be addressed in chapter 4.

342 Nathan MacDonald, “The Spirit of YHWH: An Overlooked Conceptualization of Divine Presence in the Persian Period,” in Divine Presence and Absence in Exilic and Post-Exilic Judaism, ed. Nathan Mac- Donald and Izaak J. De Hulster, vol. 2 of Studies of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on Early Jewish Monotheism (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 115. 343 Knoppers, “The Construction,” 19. 344 Hamerton-Kelly, “The Temple,” 12. 345 William A. Tooman, “Covenant and Presence in the Composition and Theology of Ezekiel,” in Di- vine Presence and Absence in Exilic and Post-Exilic Judaism, ed. Nathan MacDonald and Izaak J. De Hulster, vol. 2 of Studies of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on Early Jewish Monotheism (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 151.

87 Conclusion

The four major stages of the ancient Near Easter Ban: destruction, deportation, resettlement, and temple, therefore, were all present in Israel’s story of exile and restoration. Destruction and deportation came at the hands of the Babylonians, whom Yahweh actually led in order to punish Israel for abandoning the covenant. Yahweh also led the resettlement, however, which was couched at first in a New Exodus paradigm during the journey and then in allusions to conquest and violence during the rebuilding. The temple, given its importance to society, religion, and conquest patterns, became a major symbol of the people’s renewal, even to the point of dividing the Jews based on their understanding of how the second temple would inaugurate their renewed status in the land. While they were still under the rule of the Persians, they had rebuilt much of their former lives and culture. Even those who did not accept the legitimacy of the second temple anticipated that one would soon be built. This anticipation was often expressed through battle imagery, which will be covered in the following chapter. The language and imagery of war, studied specifically in the previous chapter, are present throughout the stages of the Ban. This shows that there were consistent references to the conquest and to war-related tropes. In much the same way as they utilized the story of the Exodus to explain what had happened to them in exile, they used the Conquest to explain the

Restoration, affirm their claim on the land, and anticipate their independence. We have examined this through the elements of the Ban, and so now we turn to the justifications that were employed to explain its necessity to the New Conquest.

C. Justification of the New Conquest

Introduction

There are significant connotations to the use of war in a religious context. It is not just a fight for land or resources, but for ideals – and the end justifies the means when the Ban is used as a religious tool. We went over the pattern of the Ban in the previous section, and now turn to the reasons for its use. The justifications that explain the use of war and the Ban in the Hebrew Bible can be grouped into three main theological categories: sacrifice to the deity (more explicitly explained in the rest of the ancient Near East, although the Hebrew Bible record instances when Israel did set aside people and goods for destruction, even if the purpose of the Ban was not to provide sacrifices to God); judgment on the original inhabitants of the land; and the election of Israel, which brings with it the need to maintain the purity of the Israelite cult, or what Susan Niditch calls the “ideology of expediency”.346 As a consequence of seeing the elements of the Ban in the Restoration, as covered in the previous chapter section, these three justifications need to be explored for their new application. It must be kept in mind that the justifications for violence repeatedly return to the Israelites’ (later the Jews’) special grant of, and right to, the Promised Land.347 Without the land, none of the conflict would have been required. While the Jews of the

Restoration did not go to the lengths of slaughtering other people-groups in their own occupation of the land, they certainly still viewed the space as their divinely-given right and, therefore, many of the themes still apply, with fresh relevance, in their New Con- quest.

346 Susan Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence (New York: Oxford UP, 1993),123. 347 Martin Noth, The Chronicler’s History (trans. H.G.M. Williamson, JSOT Supplement 50, Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 172.

89 1. Sacrifice

1.1. Sacrificial Language Destroying what the gods hate and worshipping them through sacrifice made the world a better, holier place.348 Sacrifice was a significant part of ancient Near Eastern re- ligions, so it is no wonder that it played a role in war. In the Exile and Restoration, Israel did not literally devote captured people or goods to Yahweh in their reoccupation of the land, as could be said of their original use of the Ban in the book of Joshua. 349 Isaiah 34, however, shows that the symbolism continued to be applied.350 Take verses 5-6, for instance: 5 For My sword shall be drunk in the sky; Lo, it shall come down upon Edom, Upon the people I have doomed, To wreak judgment. 6 The LORD has a sword; it is sated with blood, It is gorged with fat – The blood of lambs and he-goats, The kidney fat of rams. For the LORD holds a sacrifice in Bozrah, A great slaughter in the land of Edom. Here, not only does Edom become traditional sacrificial animals in a metaphorical sense, through (ועל־עם חרמי) but it also has the Ban imposed upon it in the last section of verse 5 the person of the divine warrior. This particular example also incorporates the second justification for the Ban, judgement, which will be covered below.

1.2. Israel`s Sacrifice Sacrifice is also found, not as the sacrifice of other nations, but of Israel, in order to purify their sin. The difference is that for the good of their god, their religion, and their

348 Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 72. This is said in the context of the Sumerian Utuḫegal Inscription, c. 2110 BCE, in which Enlil commands the king to fight off the people’s foreign occupation. The language it uses is that of treaty curses (ibid., 70-71). 349 Josh 6:17 350 Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 46.

land, Israel itself had to become the sacrificed people. This reversal is a theme in 2 Chronicles. According to Mark McEntire: This explains the intensity of sacrifice in the reforms of Josiah. Those responsible for the sins of the nation, the priests, were sacrificed. In addition, further sacrifice was offered to cleanse the people during Josiah’s Passover.351

The symbolism of sacrifice was used in Israel’s exile, but in a very different way than they were accustomed. Though this instance is not tied to the Ban itself, it is tied to themes that are intrinsically connected to it: purity of Israel and the land. Sacrifice is tied to ideas of punishment and servitude in Ezra 9,352 and to salvation through punishment in the book of Daniel.353 As with all sacrifices, it would result in purification, in this case for the land itself, because it was allowed the time to have its Shabbat rests once the people were removed.354 In Deutero-Isaiah the Suffering Servant figure takes on the role of sacrifice in the exile, standing in for the people of Israel as a whole.355 Sacrifices required both purity and separation,356 exactly what the new community was hoping to achieve. This was especially important because it needed to avoid any re- contamination by the elements that had resulted in the downfall of Judah and destruction

351 Mark McEntire, “Sacrifice in II Chronicles 34 – Ezra 6,” Proceedings: Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies 12 (1992): 41. 352 Harm van Grol, “‘Indeed Servants We Are’: Ezra 9, Nehemiah 9 and 2 Chronicles 12 Compared,” in The Crisis of Israelite Religion: Transformation of Religious Tradition in Exile and Post-Exilic Times, ed. Bob Becking and Marjo C.A. Korpel (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 217. 353 Dan 11:33-35; This was “an era made necessary by the lack of repentance of exiled Israel during the 70 years prophesied by Jeremiah.” (John S. Bergsma, “The Persian Period as Penitential Era: The ‘Exegeti- cal Logic’ of Daniel 9.1-27,” in Exile and Restoration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, ed. Gary N. Knoppers and Lester L. Grabbe with Deirdre N. Ful- ton [London: T & T Clark, 2009], 61). 354 2 Chr 36:21; cf. Lev 26:34-35, 43; Carroll, “The Myth,” 80. 355 Isa 53; McEntire, “Sacrifice,” 41. 356 Ibid., 39.

91 of the first temple.357 Sacrifice, in the context of the Ban, differentiated who was considered to be inside and who was considered to be outside the group.358 This theme is found in the golah community’s concern with temple sacrifices, since sacrifices would establish proper cultic practises and enable the people to maintain their purity.359 Their first communal act was a sacrifice.360 Both literally and figuratively then, sacrifice was a theme in exilic writing as diverse as Deutero-Isaiah all the way through to the book of Ezra.

1.3. Priestly Justification Israel had been judged to be impure. Its rebellion and long period of apostasy had polluted the entire religion and its followers. Therefore, according the Niditch, a “priestly emphasis on clean and unclean that frames the ideology as a whole” developed.361 Ethi- cally, breaking Yahweh’s laws meant the perpetrator would have to be punished,362 because justice was religious in nature and purity needed to be restored for the people of Israel. Purity could be restored through sacrifice (whether a literal sacrifice in the temple or a figurative one through suffering, as we saw above) and maintained through separation. The golah believed Yahweh had singled out and purified them through their exile, and therefore, ideologically, they had a special religious status that needed to be preserved.363 In turn, this punishment would keep the people pure.364In the context of covenant renewal this meant that they had been given an obligation (and this time they intended to follow

357 Ezra 1-6 shows this concern, which is echoed in Hag 2:10-14 (McEntire, “Sacrifice,” 38). 358 Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 28; Num 2:2-3. 359 McEntire, “Sacrifice,” 38. 360 Ezra 3:1-5; McEntire, “Sacrifice,” 40. 361 Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 153. 362 Cyril S. Rodd, Glimpses of a Strange Land (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001), 8. 363 Grabbe, A History, 286. 364 Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 63-64.

through) to keep themselves pure, which meant keeping themselves far away from the ban,’ but not‘ ,חרם peoples of the land.365 The priestly writings continued to use the word it was ,חרם in the same connotation as earlier applications. According to Stern’s study of instead “reduced to a technical term among other technical terms”, but it “still reflect[ed] its etymology as a form of separation, inviolability, and holiness.”366 Only the exiles had been purified and it was their deportation that had given the land its Shabbat rests, whereas the people of the land, by remaining, had continued to live in a polluting environment. They had become like the original inhabitants (see below, p. 106).367 Therefore, the golah could not be associated with them. Impurity could easily be transferred, so the new returnees took extra precautions in order to maintain their special status. Therefore, sacrifice, as one of the reasons behind the use of the Ban, is closely associated with the second justification for its use: judgement upon those who were sacrificed, where we now turn.

2. Judgment

That Yahweh sanctioned the Ban against inhabitants of Canaan as a judgment on their behaviour has already been discussed (see above, p. 22). In the previous section, we also saw this in the example of Isa 34:5-6, combined with the metaphor of sacrifice against some of Israel’s traditional enemies, the Edomites. Yahweh could also pass judgment on his own people, when they needed to be punished for their sins.368 This legal ideology was shared with other cultures in the ancient Near East.369 As it had been in the

365 Carter, The Emergence of Yehud, 313. 366 Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 125-26. 367 Carroll, “The Myth,” 85. 368 See above, p. 17, for a discussion of the sin of Achan and how Israelites could fall under the Ban. 369 The conclusion of this pattern, or “transmission code,” provides for the defeat of that people’s oppressors, once they have been sufficiently punished and returned to proper worship of the deity in question

93 Conquest, judgment was again an important theme in the Exile and Restoration. In this later time period, however, it was against the people of Israel. This also ties into the destruction and deportation components of the Ban. As Yahweh was shown to be in control of history, he was also credited with the justice behind those events, as we have seen.

2.1. Justice Served Against Israel Israel deserved its punishment. At least, that was how they came to understand what had occurred. Based on the covenant they had made with Yahweh, he had granted them the land they called home and become their god, deserving of their worship. They had not kept up their side of the bargain, however, and so had to be judged for their unfaithful- ness.370 It was justice, even if it was against themselves. Chronicles shows that a theology of prompt judgment developed in the exilic period in accordance with the covenant, which understood that Yahweh had the right to immediately punish his chosen people.371 Justice was at least partially couched in Deuteronomistic terms, as in the blessings and curses of Deut 27:11-28:57.372 Implementing the Ban was a covenantal curse. Deuteronomy calls for its employment against towns in Israel that failed to uphold the covenant.373 This is exactly how they understood what had transpired. The obligation to keep the covenant was mandatory, so that even Israelites would fall under the Ban if they made themselves offensive to Yahweh, like the sinful inhabitants of the land.374 The Hebrew of Isa 43:28

(Younger, Ancient Conquest Accounts, 236). See above, p. 27, for a discussion on defeat being understood as a deity’s punishment against his own people, as in the Moabite Inscription. 370 Ezek 39:23; Dan 9:7; 1 Chr 9:1 371 Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 142. 372 Marvin A. Sweeney, “Ezekiel’s Conceptualization of the Exile in Intertextual Perspective,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 1 (2012): 163. 373 Deut 13:12-18 374 Dempster, “The Prophetic Invocation,” 76.

חרם and חלל makes this explicit by linking (ואחלל שרי קדש ואתנה לחרם יעקב ישראל לגדופים׃) (see above, p. 58). So, when Israel was deported, Sara Japhet explains, “the wilful and deliberate trans- gression of that generation was proven beyond doubt.”375 Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles also shows an understanding of exile as punishment and judgment,376 because Yahweh was personally active in delivering his sentence against his people.377 Israel’s failure to live up to its covenantal obligations resulted in its judgement, as though it too was one of the idolatrous nations of Deuteronomy and Joshua. Both Ezekiel and Deutero-Isaiah refer to Israel in terms generally reserved for their traditional enemies. Ezekiel 17:19-21 casts Israel in the role of a force of chaos, like Egypt, through its alliance with the latter. Yahweh uses a net, a traditional weapon in chaoskampf,378 against Zedekiah because he chose to ally himself with Egypt. Yahweh then picks Babylon as his tool to discipline Israel.379 Like Ezekiel, Deutero-Isaiah reverses the position of Israel, which is judged like the nations, with only a remnant left to be saved.380 Take Isa 42:24- 25, for instance: 24Who was it gave Jacob over to despoilment And Israel to plunderers? Surely, the LORD against whom they sinned In whose ways they would not walk And whose Teaching they would not obey. 25So He poured out wrath upon them,

375 Japhet, From the Rivers, 396. Ezek 12:2 also “charges that the people are rebellious” and could have followed Yahweh, but chose not to, hence their punishment (Sweeney, “Ezekiel’s Conceptualization,” 162- 63). 376 Knoppers, “Exile, Return and Diaspora,” 43. 377 As their righteous judge (2 Chr 12:6, 20.12) and king (1 Chr 29:11) “his actions are properly judicial.” (Kelly, “Retribution’ Revisited,” 213). 378 C.A. Strine and C.L. Crouch, “YHWH’s Battle against Chaos in Ezekiel: The Transformation of ,רשת Judahite Mythology for a New Situation,” JBL 132 (2013): 891; 896. Note, the word for ‘net’ here is so no double meaning is meant with the Ban, as it might have been had the noun ,חרם a hunting net, not .(חרם .form of the word been used in its non-ban related meaning (HALOT, s.v 379 Strine and Crouch, “YHWH’s Battle,” 902. 380 Just a remnant turns to Yahweh in Isa 45:20; cf. 44:5; 49:6; 51:4-5 (Watts, “Echoes from the Past,” 507).

95 His anger and the fury of war. It blazed upon them all about, but they heeded not; It burned among them, but they gave it no thought. Here Yahweh is described as the force that, righteously, punished Israel through battle.

2.2. It was a Good Thing All the punishment and purification was justified as necessary to eventually make Is- rael a better nation. They would make a strong foundation on which to rebuild. The rhetoric used to describe their exile proclaimed that only their absence allowed the land to rest. Combined with a new, whole temple, the land would not only be rid of its pollutants, but also holy again.381 Restoration, when explained like this to the people, renewed Is- rael’s commitment to Yahweh and to their covenant. The implementation of the Ban, and a surviving remnant, were not mutually exclusive ideas, since the episode of the people’s apostasy at Sinai shows that Yahweh could spare some of his people in order to renew his covenant with them.382 The remaining people, finally, fully embraced its place in the covenant and accepted the law.383 Deutero- Isaiah stressed in his message that the punishment was for a purpose: to make Israel fit for its calling.384 Passages often alternate between explaining Israel’s guilt and warning about its return. In reaction to their sin Yahweh says in Isa 54:7-8: 7For a little while I forsook you, But with vast love I will bring you back. 8 In slight anger, for a moment, I hid My face from you; But with kindness everlasting I will take you back in love This is followed in verses 13-14, to make clear the intended end-state for the people:

13 And all your children shall be disciples of the LORD,

381 Carroll, “The Myth,” 84. 382 Exod 32; Dempster, “The Prophetic Invocation,” 131. 383 “Restoration is possible only out of judgment; it can only be through exile that the community comes to hope.” (Peter R. Ackroyd, “The Theology of the Chronicler,” LTQ 8 [1973]: 106-7). 384 According to Hanson this is in order to “extend the witness of God’s reign far beyond their own borders” (Isaiah 40-66, 188).

And great shall be the happiness of your children; 14 You shall be established through righteousness. You shall be safe from oppression, And shall have no fear; From ruin, and it shall not come near you Exile and restoration were a learning process.385 According to Pakkala, after a long period of destruction, there was at last hope for a new beginning: Whereas 2 Kings shows where the history of the monarchy ended, for the authors of the Ezra narrative the new beginning started with the exile. The exile represents purification but also the foundation period for the new Jewish community that was established after the exile.386 Because of their exile, the Jews matured in their service to their god, and developed into the true people of Yahweh. As a result of their punishment, they saw a new hope for restoration and an improved future. The Jewish community believed that they had been awarded a brand-new start with Yahweh as their god, which was possible only because they had recognized their sin when they were punished by deportation to Babylon.387 This led to restoration, not because they had been exiled, but because they had recognized their sin and separated themselves from it and the polluted people who had remained.388 The book of Ezra’s pilgrimage imagery stresses that Yahweh remade Israel into a new community, focused on worshipping him in Jerusalem.389 Yahweh, the divine warrior, after leading the Babylonians against them, had then fought on their behalf, and so their return to the land was a new beginning he had generated for them. This is compa-

see above, p. 19), or Enuma Elish) בנה rable to the way the Moabite Stone used the word and the Ugaritic epics end with a rebuilt world order.390 Isa 48:9-10 states:

385 Von Grol calls it an “indirect invitation to turn away from the service of the kingdoms of the lands (and their gods) and enter into the service of God” (“Indeed Servants We Are,” 226). 386 As opposed to the feeling of finality in texts like the ending of Kings. See Isa 14:1-4 and Zech 2:11- 13. Even the prophecies of Jeremiah set an end-date to the suffering (Pakkala, “The Exile,” 100). 387 Isa 42:24-25; 43:1-7; 44:1-5; Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah, 205. 388 Ackroyd, “The Theology,” 270. 389 Knowles, “Pilgrimage Imagery,” 73. 390 Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 41.

97 9For the sake of My name I control My wrath; To My own glory, I am patient with you, And I will not destroy you. See, I refine you, but not as silver; I test you in the furnace of affliction. 10Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. They believed that they had a second chance: if Yahweh had not judged them (or judged but exterminated them entirely), it would never have been possible for them to become the true people of the Promised Land.

2.3. Warning About Future Judgment It was all well and good that Israel understood what had happened to them and intended to keep the covenant – but they had already claimed that during the Exodus,391 and there, their exclusive service to Yahweh had disintegrated into apostasy and judgment. Their recent forgiveness already hinged on their repentance.392 Therefore, the pure devotion of the returnees is somewhat tempered by a warning against yet again turning to other gods, thereby bringing down more judgment. Ezra’s public prayer in 9:5-15 warns about the possibility of future punishment, even while it confesses old sins.393 Keeping the law became heavily emphasized, because no one desired to invite Yahweh’s wrath, and they were invariably anxious that outside enemies would be allowed to succeed if they were “faithless to God”.394 The prophets, too, foresaw the possibility even while looking forward to Israel’s rebuilding. According to James Linville: In Amos we might see reflected in Amos’s equation of the exile with death as a fear of the primordial expulsion coming true within history. To address this terror, the reader is given a future-oriented, prophetically-mediated myth of re-creation. How could this new paradise ever be second temple Jerusalem? It is an ideal to strive for, long for, and perhaps, once again, squander.395

391 Josh 24:19-28 392 Neh 1:9 393 Pakkala, “The Exile,” 95. 394 That is why Israel fasted in Ezra 9 and Neh 9 (Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 146). 395 Linville is referring to Amos 9:13-15, which may be a later addition (“Myth of the Exilic Return,” 305).

Therefore, Israel’s new-found devotion was still couched in terms of fighting, winning the land, and resisting their enemies. As it had been a punishment, judgement was a continuing threat.

3. Election

3.1. Israel was a Special People Judgment was covenantal justice that refined the Jews and sparked their devotion to the cult. All the destruction, purification, sacrifice (as in the first justification for the Ban), and the judgment (the second justification) had been because Yahweh loved Israel and had picked them out as his own, special people. Otherwise, he would not have both- ered at all. This may have been cold comfort, but it was the fundamental principle for their status and, as Grabbe puts it, “the concept of a purified remnant as the basis of a new creation”. 396 It was the core of their community, the basis for their claim to the land in the original conquest, and the reason why Israelites who had remained in the land had become “foreigners.”397 Without their purification, Israel would never have been worthy of renewing the covenant398 and, therefore, they accepted that they had a standard to uphold. The golah saw themselves as the true heirs to the election of ancient Israel because they were descendants of those they believed had first conquered the land and because they had been selected, trained, and disciplined through their experience of exile.399 Nev- ertheless, it was not all a negative experience. Once their selection and training had been

396 Grabbe, A History, 247. 397 Ibid., see below, p. 108. 398 McCarthy, “Covenant and Law,” 36. 399 Japhet, From the Rivers, 349.

99 concluded, they received some of the privileges extended to those with special status. Ac- cording to the texts, even the Persian government recognized their position.400 Outside recognition would have been good publicity to reinforce the position of Ezra and his ,(אזרח) ”community.401 In the late Priestly Law, Israelites were described as “full citizens emphasizing that they belonged in the land .402 They were special, not only because of their origin, but also for what they knew. Pakkala contends that Ezra-Nehemiah: [I]mplies that the intellectual and religious center (sic) of Judaism was in Babylon and that Judah was more or less a backward area where people lived without the knowledge of the Law. The Law is presented as coming from the exile, whereas those who had remained in the land are completely unaware of its instructions and regula- tions.403 They knew (or, at least thought) they were special and attempted to convince everyone else of it as well, in order that their privileged status would be protected, as will be explored further below.

3.2. Election and Law What really sealed Israel’s unique status was its covenant with Yahweh. Anyone can say they are special, but a contract with a god – that is something else, entirely. The law helped bring the people of Yahweh together. According to Ackroyd: [T]he Chronicler regarded Ezra’s work as bringing about the re-establishment of the whole people of God.... The linking of Ezra with Exodus themes and his portrayal as giver of the law point the way to the final stage of the description. The proper sequel

400 As with most of the texts, we are treating them for what they tell us about what the writers wanted us to believe, not considering their historical veracity or how the returnees might actually have been treated. 401 Becking, “We All Returned as One!,”13. They also very likely added themselves into the temple- building inscription at the beginning of the book of Ezra to reinforce the idea of their importance (Fried, “The Land Lay Desolate,” 40). 402 This word is used almost exclusively in Priestly material (Christiana de Groot Van Houten, “Remember that You Were Aliens: A Traditio-Historical Study,” in Priests, Prophets and Scribes: Essays on the Formation and Heritage of Second Temple Judaism in Honour of Joseph Blenkinsopp, ed. Eugene Ulrich, John W. Wright, Robert P. Carroll, and Philip R. Davies, JSOT Supplement 149 [Sheffield: Shef- field Academic Press, 1992], 238). 403 Pakkala, “The Exile,” 93-94.

100

should lie in the renewed occupation of the land, the re-establishment in its proper form of the people of God.404 Because of what Yahweh had repeatedly accomplished for them throughout their history, the Jews felt a deep need to respond by following his law.405 It was the manifestation of their special relationship with him.

3.2.1. Responsibility The Jews were aware of the privilege they had been given and of the responsibility that came with it, so they knew they had to make following the law a priority. As Ackroyd explains: The work of Ezra, described in a theological rather than a chronological order (Ezra 9-10; Neh 8-10 in which the themes of Ezra 9-10 belong in reality after the description of the reading of the law in Neh 8), shows a new restoration in the acceptance of the law and the making of a new covenant, a restoration which is set against the background of ignorance of the law and disobedience to it and the contamination of the community with alien influence.406 Given their knowledge of the law and special status with Yahweh, the community felt under an obligation to keep the covenant407 in order to maintain their relationship with Yahweh. Their place in the land, now that they had finally recovered it, rested on their behaviour (see above, p. 98). This zealousness translated, for instance, into the placement of the altar dedication story in Ezra, so that the prescribed sacrifices appeared to be the very first thing the community performed upon reaching Jerusalem.408 Since they had finally corrected their behaviour and had again been entrusted with the Law, they did not intend to return to their previous situation. It was their responsibility to keep the cult going and to keep the people pure. The religious community could not

404 Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 301. 405 Martin Noth also dates the Deuteronomistic law to after the destruction, when there seemed to be no hope of restoration, hence the extra emphasis on following it was based on what should have been done to save themselves (The Deuteronomistic History, JSOT Supplement 15 [trans. J.A. Clines et al.; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981], 91). 406 Ackroyd, “The Theology,” 106-7. 407 Middlemas, “Going Beyond,” 188. 408 Fried, The Priest, 168-69.

101 tolerate any backsliding, just as the early Israelites could not countenance apostasy in the story of Achan in the book of Joshua (see above, p. 16). Unlike the surrounding idolaters who were not under the covenant, it was considered it a sin when Jews worshipped other gods themselves, and so keep the land holy they had to act in accordance with the laws governing proper behaviour and worship.409 The community was on the lookout: because they had been entrusted with the law, its preservation was their responsibility. The fate of the land rested with them.

3.2.2. The New Importance of the Law Itself Given the pressure that the returnees were placing on themselves to keep the law, it is unsurprising that the law, in and of itself, became very important. In Nehemiah 10:29 it is the law, not Yahweh or the temple, that is the object of the people’s oath:410 [J]oin with their brothers, their nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law that was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord and his rules and his statutes. The chapter carries on from there, going over many statutes considered important to the people’s special status with Yahweh and continued existence in the land. The importance of the Torah, is an echo of Joshua’s role in bringing the law to the people and attempting to get them to follow it. Piani’s comparison of the Neh 8 covenant renewal to those of Josh 8:31 and 23:6 shows that “[t]he scroll of the Torah becomes progressively the focus of attention”.411 The passage in Nehemiah makes regular references to Moses and Joshua

409 van Houten, “Remember,” 238. 410 McCarthy, “Covenant,” 26. 411 Roberto Piani’s analysis of these passages highlights several linguistic links, in addition to thematic ones (“The Return from the Exile in Ezra-Nehemiah: A Second Exodus, a Re-Conquest or a Re-Establish- ment of the Status Quo Ante?,” Paper presented at the international meeting for the Society of Biblical Literature [Amsterdam, July 24, 2012], 5).

102

and to their role in giving the law, showing the law’s importance in relation to its original conquest context. 412

3.3. Re-establishment of the Elected Group The golah community was cognizant of its status, so it was still vital to establish who they were as a group, and by extension, who they were not. In order to maintain their exclusivity, they separated themselves from the surrounding cultures, creating boundaries for their own people. This type of segregation is the hallmark of a well-defined ethnicity. Elizabeth Bloch-Smith uses the term “Meaningful Boundaries” to describe the way cultures select what is important internally to their group and then apply those markers to define their own identity.413 Boundary markers distinguish both who is inside the group and who is outside.414

3.3.1. Identity of the Golah Who the returning community considered itself to be is straightforward: the people who rightly belonged in the land. Yet, finding the land not quite as empty as they would have liked, and being unable to literally implement the Ban against those who were already living there, they did whatever they could to prevent any polluting influences. That meant setting strict guidelines for themselves in order to determine and regulate who was on the inside. This was especially necessary since they were a minority group.415

412 Deutero-Isaiah shows a very different understanding of the role of the covenant in the returnees’ new cult and community. He indicates no faith in it whatsoever, relying instead on Yahweh’s mercy for salvation, and he allows for no future for the Mosaic covenant (Anderson, “Exodus and Covenant,” 340; 342.). However, as we have seen, Ezra- Nehemiah’s understating of the relationship between election and the law became the dominant voice during the Restoration era. 413 Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, “Israelite Ethnicity in Iron I: Archeology Preserves What is Remembered and What is Forgotten in Israel’s History,” JBL 122 (2003): 406. 414 Pekka Pitkänen, “Ethnicity, Assimilation and the Israelite Settlement,” TynBul 55 (2004): 168. 415 Carter, The Emergence of Yehud, 49.

103 The returning exiles prized their continuity with the original people of Judah who had suffered defeat because their experience, as we have seen, validated them as the exclusive people of God and followers of the true religion.416 This is one reason why they traced their lineage so carefully in the genealogies in some of the passages of Ezra-Nehe- miah (see above, p. 69). This practise also emphasized the kinship aspect of ethnicity. In addition, the traditional genealogical formulas where expanded in order to clearly include the priests’ continuity with the pre-exilic lineage.417 The returnees believed that it was necessary to trace their ancestry back to the pre-exile Judeans, and therefore took pains to ensure their genealogies were linked.418

3.3.2. Boundaries for Self-Preservation Once the returnees had established their exclusive position, they required clear boundaries in order to keep their culture from becoming assimilated into the surrounding culture. Ezra-Nehemiah shows a systematic attempt to establish both religious and legal boundaries.419 Hostile groups surrounded them – including people who had never been in exile in Babylon – and they were always under the watchful eye of the Persians, so the small community felt threatened. They could too easily have been assimilated, so they undertook all they could to maintain a strong sense of identity,420 shutting themselves off from the perceived threat of outside, negative influences.421 Daniel Smith describes their methodology as: [A]ll add[ing] up to a self-conscious community that is occupied with self-preservation, both as a pure community in a religious sense, and also in a material sense, a

416 Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Exclusive Inclusivity (Bloomsbury: New York, 2013), 28. 417 Ezra 2 (Esler, “Ezra-Nehemiah,” 419; Knoppler, “Exile, Return and Diaspora,” 40). 418 Esler, “Ezra-Nehemiah,” 418. 419 Carter, The Emergence of Yehud, 311. 420 McCarthy, “Covenant,” 35. 421 Kaufmann, The Babylonian Captivity, 106.

104

self-consciousness that continued at least two generations after the liberation of c. 520 BCE.422 For the small community, with this sense of self-preservation, boundaries were unequivo- cal: they refused help rebuilding the temple423 and established a strict policy against intermarriage.424 They used harsh measures because they considered their small community to be a “threatened minority”.425 In addition, they rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. Combined with the census taken on its completion, in Neh 7, the walls created a physical boundary to match the symbolic ones.426 These courses of action have a militaristic character, since both censuses and walls were necessary before fighting. 427 The walls really provided a measure of control for the authorities, because they could then literally decide who was allowed inside their city boundaries, thus controlling the population.428 In this case, the wall was symbolically defensive for the people, one the golah Judeans built as a group,429 because they were concerned with protecting their culture from the surrounding groups and because the walls provided a sense of pride.430

422 Daniel L. Smith, “The Politics of Ezra: Sociological Indicators of Postexilic Judaean Society,” in Persian Period, ed. Philip R. Davies, vol. 1 of Second Temple Studies, JSOT Supplement 117 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 97. 423 Esler, “Ezra-Nehemiah,” 420. 424 Ezra 9:1-2; Neh 10:30; Neh. 13:23-30. According to Esler this created a “symbolic boundary between Israel and other ethnic groups” (“Ezra-Nehemiah,” 421). They were even compared to the anti-elect though no deaths were called for (Joel S. Kaminsky, “Did Election Imply the Mistreatment of Non-Israel- ites?,” HTR 96 [2003]: 422). See above, fn. 59 However, these edicts contrast with the historical evidence from the time, and was a probably “biased, internal polemic”, which emphasizes the policy’s symbolic role (Rom-Shiloni, Exclusive Inclusivity, 12). 425 Kaminsky, “Did Election Imply,” 417. 426 Esler, “Ezra-Nehemiah,” 424. 427 In fact, Ezra’s opponents use this against him, in an effort to prevent the rebuilding efforts (Ezra 4:13-16). 428 Lisbeth S. Fried, “The Political Struggle of Fifth Century Judah,” Transeuphratène 24 (2002): 12- 13. 429 Neh 3-4. Wright says “[t]he account emphasizes the Judeans’ ethnic unity over against their neighbors who reproach them”, as opposed to ch. 6, which was about Nehemiah and his enemies (Jacob L. Wright, Rebuilding Identity: The Nehemiah-Memoir and its Earliest Readers [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2004], 60). 430 Lisbeth S. Fried, “‘Something there is that does not love a wall (around Jerusalem)’ - Why Would a Simple City Wall Create Such a Crisis?” Transeuphratène 39 (2010): 84.

105 Another major choice made during this time period was to use Hebrew for the many biblical texts produced. Scripture and identity were closely linked, and so the choice was made in light of the growing prominence of Aramaic. Turning back to Hebrew created yet another strand of continuity between the original Israelites and returning Jews.431

3.4. Group Boundaries The recently returned community developed a new identity, which included de-legit- imising the people already in the land, thus creating a binary division between the groups.432 There are two major schools of thought regarding the returning Jews’ views towards Judeans who had been left in the land. The debate is about whether the ‘people of the land,’ of whom Ezra and Nehemiah were suspicious, included those Judeans who had never gone through the formative experiences of exile in Babylon that the golah community valued so highly, or if ‘people of the land’ referred only to foreigners who had settled in Yehud. The two positions are explained below.

3.4.1. Including Judeans in the ‘people of the land Identifying the people who had been left in the land with the ancient, original inhabitants (who had been placed under the Ban) was the strongest way to demonstrate the returnees’ opinion of them. The exiles had exerted a great amount of effort to preserve their culture, strictly restricting progress, so that by the time they returned to Yehud, they could not even integrate into their own land.433 Coupled with that, the returnees’ convic- tions that they had become a special, refined, community of God made it inevitable that

431 The Hebrew scrolls from the Second Temple period, and those that have been found at Qumran far outnumber the amount written in Aramaic (Martha Himmelfarb, “Judaism in Antiquity: Ethno-Religion or National Identity,” JQR 99 [2009]: 69). 432 Rom-Shiloni, Exclusive Inclusivity, 27. 433 Exiled groups tend to artificially maintain their practices without allowing for any changes, as opposed to the original culture, which would have carried on from where they were, and therefore evolved (Katherine E. Southwood, “‘And They Could Not Understand Jewish Speech’: Language, Ethnicity, and Nehemiah’s Intermarriage Crisis,” The Journal of Theological Studies 62 [2011]: 18).

106

they would clash with those who had remained in the land. There is evidence, both archaeological and epigraphical, that Yahweh-cults had remained in the land after the Assyrian and Babylonian deportation, and that their adherents had maintained sanctuaries in Samaria, Maqqēdāh, and Lachish that would have challenged the Jerusalem-centred worship of the returnees.434 Rather than regarding them as Jews who had had different experiences and forms of worship, the returnees religiously ostracised the non-exiled people, actually turning them into their enemies, literally and figuratively.435 Ezra 9:1 in- ventories the groups that the returnees needed to avoid: When this was over, the officers approached me, saying, “The people of Israel and the priests and Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the land whose abhorrent practices are like those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. This, according to Bob Becking, “resembles the lists ... in the Pentateuch and Former Prophets that stand symbolically for the indigenous population of the land in its entirety.”436 Specifically, though, it is the practices of the people of the land that are like those of foreigners, rather than the people themselves, since their background is actually ambiguous.437 In addition to the enumerated people-groups that derived from older texts, the book of Ezra expands the list to include newer enemies, both contemporizing the list and making it absolutely clear that there were to be no connections outside the ‘proper’ group.438 Naming people in Judah as traditional enemies is an application of conquest rhetoric and emphasized their undesirability.

434 Bob Becking, “On the Identity of the ‘Foreign’ Women in Ezra 9-10,” in Exile and Restoration Re- visited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, ed. Gary N. Knoppers and Lester L. Grabbe with Deirdre N. Fulton (London: T & T Clark, 2009), 42. 435 According to Eskenazi and Judd, the most likely explanation was that the ‘peoples of the land’ were Israelite, or at least included some of those who had been left behind in the land (“Marriage to a Stranger,” 285). 436 When, in fact, the Canaanites, Hitties, Perizzites, Jebusites had died out from the land long before the post-exilic period (Becking, “On the Identity,” 42). 437 Eskenazi and Judd, “Marriage,” 268; A. Phillip Brown II, “The Problem of Mixed Marriages in Ezra 9-10,” Bibliotheca Sacra 162 (2005): 447-48. 438 Japhet, From the Rivers, 112.

107 The view that the ‘people of the land’ included the Judeans considers that even though the majority of pre-exilic people had probably remained in the land, it was a small, vocal minority that returned and refused to acknowledge the inhabitants as family.439 The difficulty of retaining their identity in the face of a much larger group explains the extreme lengths they went through in order to separate themselves. It comes down to the returnees valuing their experiences as the most important ethnic marker440 for defining the true community of Yahweh, over and above ancient familial ties. Harold Washington explains that: Ezra 1.11; 2.1; 9.4; 10.6; Neh. 7.6), had) גולה The true Israel, now identified with the entered the land from the outside, and those presently occupying the land, like the Ca- naanites during the first conquest, were excluded from the covenant community. 441 Those who had continued to reside in the land had become polluted and, therefore, lost their special status.442 Reuniting the Judeans who had stayed in the land with the returnees would have negated the prophets’ demand for a clean break from their past sins. Accordingly, they erased their existence in the land through the Myth of the Empty Land (see above, p. 66) and removed all ties with them.443 In order to achieve the impression that the land was empty they had to ‘other’ the people who had remained in the land, effectively removing their experiences from the story of Israel, thereby making them non-Israelites. The returnees were able to trace their lineage while the people who had remained in the land could not.444 The picture that is

439 Grabbe, A History, 287. 440 J.A. Middlemas, The Troubles of Templeless Judah (Oxford UP: New York, 2005), 76. Ezra 1 also identifies who is allowed to worship, based on their experience in exile, and this removes those who are in the land from the in-group (Carroll, “The Myth,” 81). -of Proverbs 1-9 and Post-Exilic Ju (אשׁה זרה/נכריה) Harold C. Washington, “The Strange Woman 441 daean Society,” in Temple Community in the Persian Period, ed. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Kent Harold Richards, vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies, JSOT Supplement 175 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 232. 442 Carroll, “The Myth,” 85. 443 Middlemas, The Troubles, 7; Carroll, “The Myth,” 83-84. 444 Philip Francis Esler, “Ezra-Nehemiah as a Narrative of (re-Invented) Israelite Identity,” BibInt 11 (2003): 418.

108

given in books like Ezra-Nehemiah, therefore, does not openly admit to potentially Jew- ish inhabitants in the land and actually goes so far as to link those who are left with the original, Canaanite inhabitants.445 Therefore, according to Robert Carroll: Paralleling the empty land myth in the Hebrew Bible is the myth of the promised land which must be taken (militarily) by exterminating its current occupants because they have polluted the land. This myth is very much a part of the primary narrative – that story which stretches now from Genesis to 2 Kings (at least) – and belongs to one of the strands of justification for possession of the land. A land gained by conquest from peoples given up to annihilation at YHWH’s command is one form of the argument about warrants for possessing the land. Again it has as its focus a land (ideally) emp- tied of its original (even aboriginal) inhabitants.446 447 Ezra 9:1 compares the practices of the ‘foreigners’ to those of the original inhabitants. This ties the Myth of the Empty Land firmly to the conquest stories, re-imagining the contemporary inhabitants as the original ones in order to function as rhetoric against the

‘enemies’ of the Restoration era.

3.4.2. Excluding the Judeans from the ‘people of the land’ On the other hand, the ‘people of the land’ could have been referring solely to those complete outsiders who remained in Judah even after centuries of Israelite dominance, or those who had moved into the gap left by the deportees. This seems to operate contrarily to Ezra-Nehemiah’s particular understanding that the golah was the only community of Israel, as we saw above, which considered absolutely everyone outside their group to be ‘people of the land.’448 However, scholars like Sara Japhet say Chronicles has a broader

445 Lester L. Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, vol. 1 (London: T & T Clark International, 2004), 286. Furthermore, the “ideological story controlling membership in the new community, needs also to be read in conjunction with another myth, that of the land polluted by its Ca- naanite inhabitants.” (Carroll, “The Myth,” 79). 446 Carroll, “The Myth,” 84. 447 Although, it does not actually name the group to whom they belonged (Tamara C. Eskenazi and El- eanore P. Judd, “Marriage to a Stranger in Ezra 9-10,” in Temple and Community in the Persian Period, ed. Tamara C. Eskenazi and Kent H. Richards, vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies, JSOT Supplement 175 [Shef- field: JSOT Press, 1994], 268). 448 Japhet, From the Rivers, 108.

109 sense of who was and was not included in the community of Israel, as well as acknowl- edging that not everyone was deported to Babylon.449 Deutero-Isaiah, too, in his anti- idolatry statements, likely did not have a specific set of people in mind, but was simply using prophetic rhetoric.450 The ending of the book of Isaiah heavily features the nations coming to Yahweh. Nevertheless, over the course of time, redactions by those who had the power changed the narratives. In that way, the returnees alone became the Jews.451

3.4.3. Allowances for Letting Foreigners In Regardless of whether the returnees included the non-exiled Israelites, we need to keep in mind that the Jewish community was not a completely closed group and people could join if they chose to live by the golah community’s rules. Despite the harsh measures taken to ensure the returnees’ purity, they did not eliminate all possibility of in- teraction with people outside their group – providing they were willing to become ‘insiders.’ It is essential to note that the importance of remaining a group dedicated to Yahweh did not translate automatically into a hatred of anyone who was not Jewish. Fol- lowing God and joining his cult trumped birth when it came to deciding who belonged. There are also text-critical hints that some of the genealogies were adjusted so that people could claim exilic decent, thereby making them a part of the community (see above, p. 69).

There are many examples of non-Israelites converting to the Israelites’ religion and, consequently, becoming part of their society. At the very beginning of their history, a mixed-multitude went up with Israel in their exodus,452 including Caleb the Kenizzite.453

449 Ibid., 116. 450 Kaufmann, The Babylonian Captivity, 169. 451 Pakkala, “The Exile” 94. On the other hand, Sara Japhet contends that “[c]onceptually, however, they are all defined as »returned exiles«.” (From the Rivers, 346). 452 Exod 12:38 453 Num 13:6

110

The law even allowed for traditional enemies, the Edomites and Egyptians, to “enter the assembly of the LORD”454 after the third generation.455 Even when Israel was at war they permitted others into their group, like Rahab and the Gibeonites. New members would become a part of Israel and take on their identity. This involved, eventually, adopting their ethnicity, even their foundational stories.456 David himself, Israel’s epitome of a warrior-king, attracted a number of non-Israelites, for instance Uriah, even as David was exacting Yahweh’s judgment on their people.457 This process, according to Japhet, included the story of the exile.458 An echo of this is seen in Isa 45:20-23: 20Come, gather together, Draw nigh, you remnants of the nations! No foreknowledge had they who carry their wooden images And pray to a god who cannot give success. 21Speak up, compare testimony – Let them even take counsel together! Who announced this aforetime, Foretold it of old? Was it not I the LORD? Then there is no god beside Me, No God exists beside Me Who foretells truly and grants success. 22Turn to Me and gain success, All the ends of earth! For I am God, and there is none else. 23By Myself have I sworn, From My mouth has issued truth, A word that shall not turn back: To Me every knee shall bend, Every tongue swear loyalty. In this example, a triumphant Yahweh invites the nations to turn to him.459

454 Deut 23:7-8 455 The last three examples were from Pitkänen, “Ethnicity,” 175. 456 Ibid., 179. 457 Watts, “Echoes,” 501; 503. 458 From the Rivers, 346. See above for discussion on the updating in the book of Ezra’s genealogies for examples of this in the post-exilic period, p. 106. For those that were exceptionally devoted to Israel’s God and values, this process could even happen in reverse. For example, Ruth was a foreigner who was actually integrated into Israel’s story, becoming an ancestor to David (Ruth 4:18-22). 459 Watts, “Echoes,” 500.

111 3.4.4. Mixed Marriages Nowhere are the new cultural boundaries more clearly articulated than in the stories of the mixed marriages between the returning Jews and the people in the land, the ones that were forbidden and dissolved in Ezra- Nehemiah.460 The narratives are harsh, though they are in keeping with the prioritization of purity for the divinely-elected returnees,461 so as not to bring risk to their continued existence.462 It called for their removal if they refused to conform to the golah community’s religious demands, which is the reason they used the metaphor of the foreign, enemy nations to remove the women.463 Here, for Ackroyd: [T]he theme of Exodus and wilderness is taken a stage further with a pointer to the occupation of the land. Before there can be a full establishment of the new community, there must be an abandonment of the mixed marriages which corrupt religious life, lest the land be again defiled.464 Given that there were very likely other, more substantial problems than who the people were marrying, it is very feasible that the women were used as a scapegoat,465 one that reinforced the importance of the golah community’s claims. In addition, the text may reflect the ideal of the leaders and writers, rather than actual practise. Ezra’s prayer in chs. 9-10 draws on the law in Lev 18:24.466 Ezra 10:8 actually em- :’although meaning ‘separation’ rather than ‘destruction ,חרם ploys the word

וכל אשר לא־יבוא לשלשת הימים כעצת השרים והזקנים יחרם כל־רכושו והוא יבדל מקהל הגולה׃

460 Here we are following the understanding that Ezra and Nehemiah were concerned with the exiled and non-exiled Jews, rather than Israelites and non-Israelites, as that had always been forbidden. Concern with exiled and non-exiled Jewish of marriage would be consistent with the overall them in the books of defining the true people of Yahweh. (Knoppers, “YHWH is Not with Israel,” 623). 461 Becking, “On the Identity,” 31; Carroll, “The Myth,” 84. This was especially important in order to avoid returning to idol worship (McCarthy, “Covenant,” 33; 35). 462 Brown, “The Problem” 438. 463 Japhet, From the Rivers, 115. 464 Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 298. 465 Becking, “On the Identity,”34. 466 Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 297.

112

This use of the word, while not about physical destruction, maintains the sense of dis- tancing the true community from those who had been unfaithful.467 Taking up the old themes of exodus and conquest tie this new concern for separation, based on Israel’s election, into the long struggle Israel had with apostasy leading to its defeat.

Conclusion

Looking at the manner in which they regarded their sacrifice, judgment, and election highlights the relationship of the Israelites and the Jews to the land. These themes were important for understanding the use of the Ban in the original conquest, as we saw in Chapter 2, and again in the post-exilic period. Their prominence in late literature demonstrates that ideas from the earlier time period persisted long into a period of history that is rarely associated with conquest themes. The land is the common thread that ties the justifications for the Ban together: sacrifice made and kept Israel pure enough to be in the land; judgment had punished them, so only those who were rid of their old sins remained and were collectively a holier people, in order to keep the land pure; election confirmed their special relationship with Yahweh and their right to the land. The land was the object of the original Conquest, and after a period of time away, the returning Jews saw its value and renewed their commitment to it and to the god who had given it to them. They expressed their intent through themes and imagery taken from their accounts of the first time Yahweh gave them the land. All three themes are tied into ideas that derive from their understanding of the Conquest, an understanding that informed their interpretation of contemporary events. Everything from physical walls to marriage partners had ideological meaning that was described with words and phrases borrowed from accounts of the first time the people conquered and settled the land. The Jews’ legitimacy in the land, their decisions affecting everyone who

467 Stern, The Biblical Ḥerem, 211.

113 lived in the land, and their justification in seeing themselves the true people of the Prom- ised Land, therefore, evolved from the Conquest, as we have seen, and is observable throughout the post-exilic period. Throughout chapter three we have gone over the references to war and violence in the exilic and post-exilic books, as well as the way that Restoration events, particularly the way they were written about, drew on Conquest events and patterns. The purpose throughout this part of the study has been to show that violence was a part of the vocabulary Israel used to describe its situation, self-understanding, and expectations. The Conquest was not only referenced, but was an event that was deliberately applied to the situation of the returnees. Arguably, it was even anticipated that it would come to fruition and that the nation would regain their independence, a possibility that will be explored in the following chapter.

114

CHAPTER 4: UNFULFILLED CONQUEST, THE SECOND TEMPLE, AND APOCALYPTIC ORIGINS

Introduction

Having looked at the language and events of the Restoration, specifically conquest imagery and the pattern of the Ban as they were used in literature of the period, we can begin to evaluate them against the idea of a New Conquest, to establish to whom the victory belonged and how it was understood. We will look at the results of this language and how it evolved. Deliberate New Conquest imagery, as part of the culture, would very likely have been present outside of biblical literature as well. There is a wealth of deuterocanonical material to examine in this regard. We will look, in particular, at apocalyptic literature, because many of the themes we examined in the previous chapter are present in it, showing evidence of the influence of the idea in a wider context. As the Jews returned to the land and began rebuilding, the stories they used to explain what was happening changed. They were no longer on a journey; they were resettling the land. The New Exodus became a New Conquest. Yet, it did not go quite according to plan: even as they rebuilt their temple and praised Yahweh for his power over foreign kings, the Jewish people remained under foreign control in the Persian province of Yehud. They were not their own nation in their own land, and so some the Jews increasingly looked to their prophecies for hope, but change failed to materialize. Even the rebuilt temple, rather than being a symbol of hope and independence, was, for some, a sign of what was not functioning and all that was wrong with the new community (see above, p. 84). Things were not improving for them in the world of the Persian Empire. Subsequently, Alexander the Great began his defeat of the world’s armies: this resulted in even more chaos, and yet there was still no divine intervention.

115 Therefore, the paradigm shifted. All the stories that the Jews were recounting to explain what was happening, the imagery they used, the prophecies they looked forward to, were modified. Their situation was not changing, so instead, how they understood their situation had to develop. Therefore, we will examine the way the Jews discussed their return to the land, their interpretation of events, and their expectations. This discussion will show that violent rhetoric and conquest language was used continually, rather than emerging late in the Hebrew Bible’s development. The Jews moved away from anticipating a near-future conquest, a conquest that should have been part of the pattern of Israel’s return to the Promised Land and was to have concluded with Israel’s independence. The results of New Conquest language and the way this language evolved altered their interpretation of the stories and prophecies that employed those symbols and patterns, relocating them to the realm of metaphor or the distant future, a process that shaped the development of apocalyptic literature.

1. The New Conquest

Before moving on to the development of apocalyptic literature, we need to examine New Conquest language and events. Not to determine if they appeared, as we established in the previous chapter, but an overall evaluation of its purpose and effects. Understand- ing the images used in biblical literature aids in identifying how the Jewish people understood their experiences and expectations – expectations of a New Conquest. The New Conquest is established in the exilic and post-exilic books through the language and images employed, the circumstances common to war and the Ban, and the reasons that they were used – or rather, reused – to justify both the employment of the language of war, and the treatment of those who were in the land. That the New Conquest was something the golah community consciously employed to explain the Restoration does not imply, however, that that conquest was successful. The realization of the New Conquest

116

was, in fact, mixed. Yahweh, as the omnipotent deity, was praised for his accomplishments and direction of history. The golah community, on the other hand, remained subservient to the Persians and so did not share in his triumph. The various levels to which New Conquest was accomplished will be explored below.

1.1. Conquest for Yahweh In control. The returned Judeans used conquest rhetoric to describe and justify what they were doing. They were looking forward to victory, but Yahweh had it already. One thing is consistent in the conquest language and rhetoric of exilic and post-exilic writing: Yahweh is in charge. Whether as the nation’s Divine Warrior or through a human agent,468 he is always sovereign. He abandoned his temple, starting the entire sequence of events that lead to Judah’s defeat.469 Second Kings 24-25 uses Assyrian conquest accounts as the format to describe the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem (see above, p. 11).470 Their great defeat is framed like a triumph, because for Yahweh, it was. Yahweh controlled Assyria, Babylon, and Persia in order to discipline his people and then to bring them home. 471 During its defeat, the prophets had warned Judah about the violent tactics Babylon employed, because, as Terence Fretheim says, “[t]he portrayal of God’s violent action is conformed to the means that God uses”, and the Babylonians were well-known for their cruelty.472 Later, Yahweh is even revealed as the power who names

468 Examples include Jer 50:24; Isa 10:5, 45:1. 469 Fried explains that “Ezekiel describes how YHWH abandoned his Temple in anger, leaving both city and Temple open to destruction.” (Lisbeth S. Fried, “The Land Lay Desolate: Conquest and Restora- tion in the Ancient Near East,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blenkinsopp [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003], 50). 470 Fried, “The Land Lay Desolate,” 24-29. 471 See above, pp. 27 and 41. 472 In reference to Jer 13:14; 21:7 (Terence E. Fretheim, “‘I was only a little angry’: Divine Violence in the Prophets,” Interpretation 58 [2004]: 365; 375). Emphasis removed.

117 and installs a new king in place of the Davidic one. He put Cyrus over his people473 because he would be the one to fulfil Yahweh’s purposes.474 Regardless of who he chose to work through, Yahweh was always the instigator475 and worked through human means. As opposed to the way Assyria and Babylon were treated, many exilic and post-exilic texts show Yahweh not simply granting Cyrus authority, but actually integrating him into his battles. The Cyrus Songs in Deutero-Isaiah illustrate this. For instance, Isa 45:1-4 says: 1Thus said the LORD to Cyrus, His anointed one – Whose right hand He has grasped, Treading down nations before him, Ungirding the loins of kings, Opening doors before him And letting no gate stay shut: 2I will march before you And level the hills that loom up; I will shatter doors of bronze And cut down iron bars. 3I will give you treasures concealed in the dark And secret hoards – So that you may know that it is I the LORD, The God of Israel, who call you by name. 4For the sake of My servant Jacob, Israel My chosen one, I call you by name, I hail you by title, though you have not known Me. This type of writing places Cyrus deep into the story, intertwining his military function into Yahweh’s purposes.

473 Fried says that “Deutero-Isaiah handed over to Cyrus the royal Judean title of ‘YHWH’s Anointed,” as well as the entire royal Judean court theology associated with it. The Davidic themes of victory for the anointed king, of nations falling under his feet are now applied to Cyrus.” (Lisbeth S. Fried, The Priest and the Great King: Temple-Palace Relations in the Persian Empire [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004], 179). 474 Ibid., 181. It is worth noting, however, that Cyrus was given similar titles and credit from leaders throughout his empire, in return for allowing them to rebuild their temples and resume their native cults. This allowed him to consolidate his power, as he was seen as the choice of that particular deity (Lester L. Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, vol. 1 [London: T & T Clark In- ternational, 2004], 271-72). See above, p. 84. 475 Victor Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Meso- potamian and Northwest Semitic Writings, JSOT Supplement 115 (Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1992), 114.

118

Use of the Ban. Yahweh controlled the stages of the Ban against Israel as they were employed. He sent Assyria and Babylon against Israel and Judah, destroying them and leading them into exile.476 It is also important to remember that while Assyria and Baby- lon burned the cities and deported the people, they did not heavily resettle the cities with their own people or integrate them into their kingdom. Babylon, in particular, left the land empty. Neither did it build its own temple in Jerusalem. They did not take the role of conqueror in Israel. Instead, it was Yahweh, who was said to have later selected Cyrus to restore his people, who led them himself in the New Exodus and resettlement of the land. Finally, as per ancient Near Eastern beliefs about the temple, Yahweh built one and occupied it when his battle was won (see above, p. 20). Fighting Chaos. Often, warrior gods and kings proved their leadership and right to rule through battle, which in turn led to order and even creation, as in Enuma Elish. Deu- tero-Isaiah takes up this image in New Exodus passages, especially in Song of the Sea references, because as Israel’s foundational salvation story, it was an important narrative.477 This language is also picked up to describe Cyrus. According to Stromberg, Isa 44:24-45:8 “places the work of Cyrus squarely within the providential dealings of the God of Israel on behalf of his people.”478 In the Restoration, even through an idolatrous king, Yahweh was the victorious and, therefore, reigning warrior.

476 For his own redemptive purposes (see above p. 98). Divine aid in destroying a temple was also a component of traditional conquest accounts (like the form used to tell the story of Jerusalem’s destruction), in this case it was Yahweh himself and not the Babylonian gods who provided the help, although “the com- plicity of the god whose temple was destroyed is also common in Assyrian conquest accounts” (Fried, “The Land Lay Desolate,” 29). 477 Exod 15:2 (James W. Watts, “Song and the Ancient Reader,” PRSt 22 [1995]: 143). 478 Stromberg, “Deutero-Isaiah’s Restoration,” 205

119 1.2. Continuing Defeat for Israel Yahweh had already achieved victory. He had clearly won, and so the rhetoric of New Conquest applied to his actions. His people, therefore, expected to share in his victory. The returnees were looking forward to conquest. This was not to be the case, however, as Ian Wilson explains: Fourth-century Judeans, though, like singers of the Song of the Sea, likely imagined themselves wandering between initiation and completion, rejoicing from re-inhabited Zion but at the same time awaiting its full restoration and elevation to glory.479 Their defeat continued, still under a foreign king – since Cyrus did not fulfil the optimis- tic prophecies Deutero-Isaiah set out for him – and they were strangers within, and unable to control, their own land.480 Studying New Conquest rhetoric helps us to compre- hend the Jews’ reaction to their continued existence in the land, since they did not consider that they had retaken it. Continued servitude. Yehud remained a province in the Persian empire, and the people remained politically dependant on it, even owing it taxes and forced labour.481 Servitude was, in some sense, accepted as a continuing punishment that went along with exile.482 Whereas Exodus was a story of servitude in a foreign land leading to freedom in their own, the New Exodus had become almost the opposite. While they were not independent, they were at least alive – forced to survival instead of freedom.483 In Neh 9:36- 37 the people declare:

479 Ian Douglas Wilson, “The Song of the Sea and Isaiah: Exodus 15 in Post-monarchic Prophetic Discourse,” in Thinking of Water in the Early Second Temple Period, ed. Ehud Ben Zvi and Christoph Levin (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 138. 480 Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Babylonian Captivity and Deutero-Isaiah, vol. 4 of History of the Reli- gion of Israel (trans. C.W. Efroymson; New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations: 1970), 124. 481 Neh 9:37, 5:4, 5:15, 9:37; Harm van Grol, “‘Indeed Servants We Are’: Ezra 9, Nehemiah 9 and 2 Chronicles 12 Compared,” in The Crisis of Israelite Religion: Transformation of Religious Tradition in Ex- ile and Post-Exilic Times, ed. Bob Becking and Marjo C.A. Korpel (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 216. 482 Even if Persian rule was divinely ordained, as in Ezra 9:9 (Peter R. Ackroyd, The Chronicler in His Age, JSOT Supplement 101 [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991], 198). 483 von Grol says this is “a continuation of servitude.” (“Indeed Servants,” 219).

120

36Today we are slaves, and the land that You gave our fathers to enjoy its fruit and bounty – here we are slaves on it! 37On account of our sins it yields its abundant crops to kings whom You have set over us. They rule over our bodies and our beasts as they please, and we are in great distress. Even in this generally pro-Persian text, a sense of bondage and dissatisfaction is apparent.484 Sense of injustice. But Yahweh, their god, had been victorious! The returning Jews’ anticipated sharing in his triumph. As their own victory failed to materialize their sense of injustice increased. Their hopes surpassed the reality that they were servants in their own land.485 Deutero-Isaiah’s god was one of social justice, who delivered people from slavery.486 Nevertheless, the outside nations continued to oppress them,487 seemingly at will, despite their renewed energy and care in adhering to Yahweh’s cultic requirements. Continued exile. This frustration persuaded some Jews that their exile had not really ended. Middlemas explains that “[t]he main message of Deutero-Isaiah is that Yahweh is about to intervene in a decisive way to restore the fortunes of defeated and exiled Judah because the period of divine wrath is over.”488 Yet, he did not intervene. The book of Daniel explains the Persian period as an era set aside for penitence, so that Israel could atone and repent. It had set a deadline, yet despite it passing, and their return to the land,

484 Gary N. Knoppers, “The Construction of Judean Diasporic Identity in Ezra-Nehemiah,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 15 (2015): 18. Furthermore, those who were appointed by the Persian government were indebted to it (ibid., 13). 485 Ackroyd, The Chronicler, 249. 486 Paul D. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1995), 51. Furthermore, one of the ancient Israelites’ founding principles from the Exodus was equality. For them, coming from a background of slavery and oppression, having their own land was ‘justice’ (John Mansford Prior, “‘Power’ and ‘the Other’ in Joshua: The Brutal Birthing of a Group Identity,” Mission Studies 23 [2006]: 30). This was lacking in their return. 487 Collins observes that “[f]rom an early time, this experience was generalized, so that psalmists and prophets could identify the enemies of Israel not just as Babylon or Syria, but as ‘the nations.’” (John J. Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls [New York: Routledge, 1997], 92). 488 J.A. Middlemas, “Going Beyond the Myth of the Empty Land: A Reassessment of the Early Persian Period,” in Exile and Restoration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, ed. Gary N. Knoppers and Lester L. Grabbe with Deirdre N. Fulton (London: T & T Clark, 2009), 187.

121 they were still waiting for their punishment to end.489 Prophecies in Zechariah and Deu- tero-Zechariah also continued to anticipate a future return.490 Take Zech 10:6-7, for instance: 6I will give victory to the House of Judah, And triumph to the House of Joseph. I will restore them, for I have pardoned them, And they shall be as though I had never disowned them; For I the LORD am their God, And I will answer their prayers. 7Ephraim shall be like a warrior, And they shall exult as with wine; Their children shall see it and rejoice, They shall exult in the LORD. This passage puts the return in terms of Israel regaining its fighting strength. All this type of language reinforced the concept that, even though they were in the land, they had not been fully restored and were therefore still, metaphorically, in exile.491 Outside the He- brew Bible, there are also texts that do not recognize any closure to the exile, which is tied to the belief that the second temple was illegitimate492 (see above, p. 84; below, p. 125).

489 According to Bergsma this was “an era made necessary by the lack of repentance of exiled Israel during the 70 years prophesied by Jeremiah.” (John S. Bergsma, “The Persian Period as Penitential Era: The ‘Exegetical Logic’ of Daniel 9.1-27,” in Exile and Restoration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, ed. Gary N. Knoppers and Lester L. Grabbe with Deirdre N. Fulton [London: T & T Clark, 2009], 61). 490 Zech 8:1-12; 10:6-12 (Knoppers, “The Construction,” 19). 491 According to Linville, this idea is later picked up in “The Book of the Twelve [that] has a similar chronological span as Isaiah, and, at its conclusion, exhorts the second temple community to maintain proper rituals in the newly legitimized temple. But it is hardly a paradise, as there remains evil to be van- quished, God remains offended. The myth of a full return to the garden is yet to unfold.” (James R. Linville, “Myth of the Exilic Return: Myth Theory and the Exile as an Eternal Reality in the Prophets,” in The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and its Historical Contexts, ed. Ehud Ben Zvi and Christoph Levin [Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010], 307). 492 According to Carroll “[o]utside the canon of the Hebrew Bible are numerous books that do not recognize any cessation of the so-called ‘exile’ (i.e., for them there was no ‘return’ with Ezra or rebuilding of the legitimate temple). For the producers of these books Zerubbabel, Cyrus, Ezra and Nehemiah do not figure as major architects of the Jerusalem community. The auspicious legitimation of the rebuilding of city and temple finds no echo in their work. All that (i.e., Restoration, rebuilding, etc.) lies in the future when YHWH will cause a temple to be built.” (“So What Do We Know?,” 50).

122

1.3. Expectations of Conquest The repatriated Jews were certainly not content to stop at a New Exodus. They were expecting more than a physical release from Babylon. From what we have observed above, in the themes of war and the Ban, they wanted their land back, they coveted revenge, and they expected Yahweh to intervene. From the time Babylon was defeated their stories centred on Jerusalem and were heavily dependent on eschatological imagery and expectation,493 as was the New Exodus.494 Conquest imagery continued to be applied, even in peaceful contexts, for example in Isaiah 61:5-6: 5 Strangers shall stand and pasture your flocks, Aliens shall be your plowmen and vine-trimmers; 6 While you shall be called “Priests of the LORD,” And termed “Servants of our God.” You shall enjoy the wealth of nations And revel in their riches. This passage pictures the restored nation of Israel, having led the redemption of the foreign nations, surrounded by all the foreign wealth brought to Jerusalem. Verse 6 also recalls the Exodus in a reference to Exod 19:5-6a: 5Now then, if you will obey Me faithfully and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples. Indeed, all the earth is Mine, 6but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ Yahweh spoke these verses in the context of the defeat of the Egyptians, and looks forward the covenant at Sinai, which made Israel Yahweh’s people. The author of Trito- Isaiah references the Exodus through this use and changes the people from servants of a foreign king to “Servants of our God.” Through this change, the prophecy promises wealth, retribution, and power to the contemporary Judeans. Because Yahweh gave the nations salvation, they would recompense Israel for everything they had put them through

493 Paul D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 35. 494 Anderson explains that Deutero-Isaiah’s “expectation of YHWH’s coming to inaugurate his eschatological rule was shaped according to the pattern of the Exodus from Egypt, the crucial event of Israel’s past.” (Bernhard W. Anderson, “Exodus Typology in Second Isaiah,” in Israel’s prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg, ed. Bernard W Anderson and Walter J. Harrelson [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962], 181).

123 in their defeat and exile.495 However, not everyone shared this attitude. Ezek 39:21-26 takes it further, picturing restoration coming about through the destruction of Judah’s enemies. The book of Joel’s Day-of-the-Lord prophecy called on Yahweh to bring the nations to the valley of Jehoshaphat so that the Divine Warrior could judge them.496 Nationalistic movements. Perhaps in anticipation of Yahweh soon including his ‘chosen people’ in his rule, and certainly fuelled by eschatological hopes, nationalistic expectations were high. Ultimately, to them, it was only a matter of time until Yahweh let Judah share in his conquest and become the world’s dominant military power.497 The book of Daniel expected a new order that took place on this earth. It would be a better earth, but it would be the same one.498 For the returning Jews, it was not just that they felt as though they were servants: they craved real independence, full restoration as their own nation, and power. This was, according to Ackroyd “in part a desire for control of the land which, in the more theological writings, is regarded as the possession of the deity, lent to Israel and therefore inalienable.”499 This aspiration to reclaim their land may be seen in Zech 9’s prophecy of a renewed monarchy regaining all the land, within idealized borders that reference David’s conquests.500

495 Kaufmann, Babylonian Captivity, 190. 496 Joel 3:9-16 (Collins, Apocalypticism, 92). 497 Venter says “[t]he legitimation and even participation of these military actions were advanced by also linking the history of Israel to universal history.” (P.M. Venter, “Reviewing History in Apocalyptic Lit- erature as Ideological Strategy,” HvTSt 60 [2004]: 720). 498 This is also seen in the War Scroll and 1 Enoch (Peter Lampe, “La littérature apocalyptique: un Dieu violent et un ethos orienté vers la violence?,” in Dieu est-il violent?: la violence dans les représenta- tions de Dieu, ed. Matthieu Arnold and Jean-Marc Prieur [Strasbourg: Presses universitaires de Strasbourg, 2005], 42). 499 Ackroyd says this is in the context of “the long succession of nationalistic movements, particularly well documented for us in the period of Greek and Roman rule, but by no means absent in the earlier periods too”, which included the hope some had centred on Zerubbabel as the Davidic heir (The Chronicler, 184). 500 Ackroyd claims that the importance of these borders is that later, when the some of the people ‘conquered’ by David were, in fact, part of a much later assimilation, as in “the defeat of the Idumaeans in the second century BCE by John Hyrcanus, of the Maccabaean/Hasmonaean family, and the forcible incorpora- tion of that people into the Jewish community” (ibid., 218).

124

1.4. The New Conquest and the New Temple Temples were closely associated with confirming conquests in the culture of the ancient Near East. Yahweh had conquered the Babylonians, and so, to many, he deserved and received a temple.501 And yet, its construction was not without controversy, since it was not universally accepted as legitimate. After all, Israel had not shared in his victory, and the expected culmination of the New Conquest had an eschatological dimension that had not been fulfilled. Likewise, not all Jews tolerated the second temple’s ties to the Per- sian rulers. They were expecting something better.502 Opposition to the second temple. Despite the effort that went into legitimizing the temple,503 questions remained. Those who had been left in the land had no reason to accept the golah’s theological supremacy504 and, therefore, did not accept that the returnees had the right to unilaterally direct the cult and control the community. There were considerably more opinions on the second temple and what the replacement temple would resemble than Ezra-Nehemiah records: Ezekiel’s anticipated temple had mystical elements, and sects like Qumran rejected the cultic system in Jerusalem outright (see above, p. 84). Despite what a reading of Ezra-Nehemiah would encourage us to believe, there was no consensus on the legitimacy of the temple. Carroll sums up the various opinions: If Ezekiel’s temple and the Qumran temple scroll were produced and could exist in the Second Temple period, then we must accept the inevitable conclusion that the second temple was not widely accepted as the legitimate temple. In other words, we must think of the ‘second temple period’ as a period of contested temple projects.505

501 Here, we are speaking about the role of the ancient Near East and the people’s desires that fit within that culture, rather than the theology of Yahweh’s need for a temple (see above, p. 22, fn. 69). 502 See above, p. 76, for discussion on the what the second temple was like. 503 Grabbe, “What Was Ezra’s Mission?,” in Temple and Community in the Persian Period, ed. Tamara C. Eskenazi, and Kent H. Richards, vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies, JSOT Supplement 175 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 297. 504 Middlemas, “Going Beyond,” 175. 505 Carroll, “So What,”49.

125 Contrasting ideas and expectation of the temple abounded.506 Even those who accepted the second temple were left unsatisfied when it came to the reversal of their fortunes in regards to their independence. Waiting for the right temple. The right temple, for those who rejected the Ezra-Nehe- miah building, was primarily eschatological. It was a future temple that would end the exile: Yahweh himself would build and it would be his activity and presence that would legitimize it.507 Writings that came after the canonical Hebrew Bible show a great concern for the future temple and the importance of the temple to their religion.508 In this stream of thought, since exile was ongoing, without a finalized New Conquest there was, consequently, no proper temple. Expectations for the temple dovetail with expectations of a fulfilled New Conquest. The people were still anticipating the completion of both.

2. Development of Prophecy

Unfulfilled New Conquest language affected not only how the returnees understood themselves, but also how they described their place in the world and their hope for the future. Without any changes to Yehud’s political situation in the Persian period the prophecies that looked forward to Israel sharing in Yahweh’s conquest were in danger of becoming irrelevant. As we have seen, the Jewish people had an expectation that something would happen, something to improve their fortunes and legitimize the temple (at least among certain circles). And yet, historically, nothing seemed to be materializing that

506 Brian R. Doak goes as far as to say that the diversity of opinion divided the Jewish people (“Legal- ists, Visionaries, and New Names: Sectarianism and the Search for Apocalyptic Origins in Isaiah 56-66,” BTB 40 [2010]: 12). 507 In Ezekiel (Carroll, “So What,” 50); in Deutero-Isaiah (Hanson, Dawn, 280-281); and in Enoch, with echoes of Ezek 18:1-7 (R.G. Hamerton-Kelly, “The Temple and the Origins of Jewish Apocalyptic,” VT 20 [1970]: 5). 508 Coupled with hostility toward the second temple (Hamerton-Kelly, “The Temple,” 1).

126

would indicate there was a foundation for those hopes. They did not abandon them altogether, since it was an integral component of the way they described what was happening around them. As time went on, however, New Conquest language had to evolve in the same way that prophecies changed to fit their new situation. Prophecy has a long history of being rewritten and adapted for new situations, which is similar, in fact, to the way older stories and experiences were adapted to explain what occurred to the Israelites in exile. Despite, or perhaps because, many expectations went unfulfilled, prophecy continued to be produced, but it evolved in order to stay relevant to the religion and people that had produced it. The following are several examples of the way this worked. Isaiah. The book of Isaiah, with its long compositional history, is an excellent example of how prophecy was adapted and reconfigured for new situations. The first section of the book was changed with the addition of the chronologically late ‘Isaiah Apocalypse’ and ‘Little Isaiah Apocalypse,’509 so that, as Ronald Clements summarizes: “the oldest prophecies [were] vested with radically fresh meaning by adding fresh comments to them”.510 Deutero-Isaiah’s high expectations and optimism never came to fruition, so that later sections of Trito-Isaiah used them as a starting point rather than a climax.511 These passages not only had to explain why Deutero-Isaiah’s prophecies were unfulfilled,512 but also had to renew the hopes of the earlier prophet:513 the restoration was still coming, but because sin remained it had to be postponed.514

509 Isa 24-27 and 34-35, respectively. 510 Clements says their “summarizing formulas drawing attention to the wider, universal, implications of the older prophecies” (Ronald E. Clements, “Isaiah: A Book without an Ending?,” JSOT 97 [2002]: 118). 511 See Isa 62; 66:7ff; cf. 49:21 (Hamerton-Kelly, “The Temple,” 10). 512 Middlemas, “Going Beyond,” 185. 513 For example, Isaiah 58:8-12 (Hanson, Dawn, 105; Stromberg, “Deutero-Isaiah’s Restoration,” 209). 514 Hamerton-Kelly, “The Temple,” 10.

127 Daniel. Like the book of Isaiah, the book of Daniel is composed of more than one section. The symbols and metaphors of the first half came from the wisdom groups that wrote them, and were then adapted to a completely different, apocalyptic setting in chapters 7-12.515 Results. Prophecy continued to develop. As the examples just looked at, the books of Deutero-Isaiah and Daniel show that, like Exodus or Conquest imagery, familiar stories were adapted to a new situation. In particular, Conquest stories continued to have relevance for the people of Israel as they resonated with the people given their situation as a subordinate nation to Persia. It is to the development of conquest language and prophecy we now turn.

3. Use of New Conquest Rhetoric in Apocalyptic516 Literature

Prophecy set the precedent for re-imagining old, outdated, or unfulfilled predictions. While the predictions were re-imagined, the violence of many of these late prophecies reflect a continual use of conquest and conquest-related themes and language. Underneath all apocalypses is the idea that the world of the writer is fundamentally flawed, in a way that can only be fixed by otherworldly means.517 The longer they went without any of

515 Robert R. Wilson, “From Prophecy to Apocalyptic: Shape of Israelite Religion,” Semeia 21 (1981): 91. Even if it was likely the same group, the ‘Maskilim,’ (or rather, descendants of the same group) who continued to write the story, their major influences moved from Persian court-tales to biblical stories (ibid., 92); John J. Collins also sees the two halves as products of a group who “identified with Daniel the vision- ary [and] also identified with Daniel the wise courtier.” (“The Court-tales in Daniel and the Development of Apocalyptic,” JBL 94 [1975]: 218). 516 Here we are using Collin’s definition of an apocalypse: “‘Apocalypse’ is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world” (John J. Collins, “Introduction: To- wards the Morphology of a Genre,” Semeia 14 [1979]: 9). We are herein concentrating on the eschatological salvation dimension of the literature as the clearest examples of war imagery being used in the genre. We are also following Cook’s description of apocalyptic literature having a “family resemblance”, rather than being a strict genre (Prophecy and Apocalypticism: The Postexilic Social Setting [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995], 22-23). 517 John J. Collins, “The Jewish Apocalypses,” Semeia 14 (1979): 27. Hanson sees this change as stem- ming from the failure of prophecies coupled with the rejection of the groups that followed eschatological

128

those expectations coming to fruition,518 the more the prophecies had to change519 and adapt to the problem of reality continuing around them. Therefore, the language was altered. As Ziony Zevit puts it: After 586 BCE, the desire for vengeance was directed into language. Expressions of might came to be imaged in metaphor and not imagined in battle. Psychically seared, militarily powerless, Israelite aggression was sublimated into Schadenfreude and fan- tastic dreams.520

Since it did not seem like there was any chance of victory in the real world the imagery of the New Conquest became eschatological and otherworldly,521 but the themes continued. prophets like Deutero-Isaiah, so that their “optimism yielded to the pessimism of apocalyptic eschatology, held by people clinging to the prophetic promises of restoration, but failing to see how the order of this world could accommodate those promises, prompting them to leave the vision of restoration on the cosmic level of myth.” (Dawn, 26). 518 Communities are unlikely to be able to maintain imminent eschatological expectations for more than a few decades, as seen in Qumran and early Christianity (Philip R. Davies, “Eschatology at Qumran,” JBL 104 [1985]: 44). 519 For example, according to Hanson, Isa 56-66 was “more advanced on the typology of prophetic genres, as well as on the continuum from prophetic eschatology to apocalyptic eschatology.” (Dawn, 36- 37). Hanson later says that the defeat led to using apocalyptic imagery because it allowed them to “maintain their plans and hopes by looking to fulfilment on a plane which is indifferent to the contingencies and limi- tations of mundane realities.” (ibid., 229). I would not go to this extreme a description, as it ignores the possibility that those creating the texts saw real world implications for their writing. However, I would agree that it moves the hopes further away, so that they are not temporally bound to a specific time and place, and expected immediately, so that they are easier to continue using, unlike prophecies that had to be continually updated. Hanson bases some of this on his theory that apocalypses came from groups that were excluded from the main religion, and so used eschatological language because they could not affect real- world change (ibid., 209). However, Klaus Koch offers another suggestion, or rather caution, that we know very little about the societies that produced this literature outside of speculation, and, that when Apoca- lypses were written, mainly between 200 BCE-100 CE, Judaism not a united: “Every one of the groupings of the late Israelite period for which we have any evidence at all has been suggested as the Sitz in Leben of the apocalyptic writings.... [o]ur survey indicates how completely obscure the sociological basis of the apocalyptic writings still is.” (“The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic,” Studies in Biblical Theology 22, London: SCM Press, 1972, reprint of “Ratlos ver der Apokalyptik” [trans. Margaret Kohl; Gtersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, Gtersloh, 1970]: 21-22). Cook has also shown that millennial groups (groups concerned with eschatology) could be in positions of power (Prophecy, 55) and this also blunts Hanson’s implication that eschatology was used primarily by fringe groups as other-worldly escapism. 520 Ziony Zevit, “The Search for Violence in Israelite Culture and in the Bible,” in Religion and Vio- lence: The Biblical Heritage, ed. David A. Bernat and Jonathan Klawans (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007), 37. 521 This was a change from prophesying historical events to apocalypses with similar motifs (Hanson, Dawn, 27). While prophecy and apocalypse were both concerned with eschatology, only prophecy was set in this world: apocalypses in the next (Frederick J. Murphy, Apocalypticism in the Bible and Its World: A Comprehensive Introduction [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012], 7). Wisdom literature has also been put forward as a possible influence on the development of apocalyptic literature (ibid., 19), but the purpose

129 Many of the themes common to New Conquest passages, especially violence, lent themselves well to use in Apocalyptic literature.522 Many of these developments are seen in the Hebrew Bible itself, and in addition, the imagery persisting into later period sectarian writing.

In the book of Isaiah we see the returning community develop this type of analysis through the activity of the Divine Warrior. Hanson explains: [L]eaving their vision more on the cosmic level of the activities of the Divine Warrior and his council, they increasingly abdicated the responsibility to the politico-historical order of translating the cosmic vision into the terms of the mundane.523 Later writing showed a refusal to interpret prophecies into an historical setting, as had been more common earlier. Vague settings and language facilitated a prophecy’s application to new situations without the need for future updating. The eschatology of these later prophecies, for example in Isa 51:9-11, references divine intervention to save Israel from chaos, rather than a specific enemy: 9Awake, awake, clothe yourself with splendor. O arm of the LORD! Awake as in days of old, As in former ages! It was you that hacked Rahab in pieces, That pierced the Dragon. 10It was you that dried up the Sea, The waters of the great deep; That made the abysses of the Sea A road the redeemed might walk. 11So let the ransomed of the LORD return, And come with shouting to Zion, of this study is to show ties between conquest language in the prophetic books and apocalyptic literature, and so will concentrate on that area. 522 There is some debate over the term proto-apocalyptic and it application to the study of apocalyptic texts. Hanson often uses it to mean literature with only small amounts of apocalyptic themes (regardless of the dating of the piece), while Cook uses it to mean early texts, uninfluenced by Hellenistic ideas, regardless of how developed the apocalyptic themes are in the text (Prophecy, 34). Since apocalyptic literature did not develop linearly, I will apply separate terms to avoid confusion. If the piece is chronologically early, I will call it early apocalyptic literature, regardless of the density/amount/extremeness of view of apocalyptic imagery within it. If I mean the piece has only a few apocalyptic qualities, I will talk about it in terms of imagery and themes, rather than genre. 523 Hanson, Dawn, 26.

130

Crowned with joy everlasting. Let them attain joy and gladness, While sorrow and sighing flee. This intervention is one of the major themes of apocalyptic literature,524 and includes combat motifs that trace all the way back to the Sea of Reeds (see above, p. 32). They are also found in Zech 9:1-8’s hymn to the Divine Warrior, in the context of a description of a 525 ritual conquest of Israel’s traditional enemies, complete with a return to the temple. The prophet Ezekiel, too, used an eschatological battle in his description of Yahweh’s war against Gog and Magog.526 The book of Joel uses chaos imagery to describe the reversal

527 of some elements of creation before the Divine Warrior’s arrival to set the world right in an apocalyptic battle.528 The second half of Daniel describes an entire historical process of successive kingdoms, which Yahweh controlled through various wars, until he finally intervenes at the end to bring about his personal kingdom.529 In the uncertain and sometime chaotic period following their Restoration, with the wait for full restoration beginning to weigh on the people of Yehud, eschatological and nationalistic themes can likewise be seen in sectarian writings, and war and revenge, themes that were continually in use in the Exile and Restoration, were among the themes found in their visions of the future. Davies shows that scrolls from Qumran, especially the Temple Scroll (11Q19), contain continuing-exile language to explain the sect’s situation: [I]n which the present time is characterized as a ‘time of wrath,’ namely, God’s continuing punishment of Israel for its past sins, the perpetual exiling of Israel from full

524 Koch, “Rediscovery,” 30. 525 Hanson, Dawn, 319. He dates this to the mid-sixth century (ibid., 324). 526 Ezek 38-39, Cook dates this as one of the earliest examples of apocalyptic literature in the Hebrew Bible (Prophecy, 96). 527 Joel 2:10; Cook, Prophecy, 178. 528 Joel 2:28-3:31 (Cook, Prophecy, 171). 529 Venter, “Reviewing History,” 722. The likely historical setting for Dan 7-12’s composition was the Maccabean revolt, putting these situations that were described in apocalyptic terms into the context of a real war (Collins, Apocalypticism, 12).

131 enjoyment of its land. The ending of this exile is implicitly or explicitly calculable as a final jubilee.530

Other scrolls look forward to the conclusion of their exile through war. First Enoch’s Ani- mal Apocalypse531 concludes with a massacre of the nations, when Israel finally gets to take revenge on its enemies.532 The War Scroll (1QM) found at Qumran carries this further and actually mixes eschatology with practical instructions for war.533 The War Scroll, which looks forward to eventual victory over other nations,534 is, perhaps, the best example that conquest was prepared for and expected535 by a group in Israel. It also demonstrates an ideal of militarization governed by religious precepts.536 In these examples, war and destruction are rampant. This is seen symbolically, in the return to chaos (as above), and plainly, in the description of battle. Conquest imagery, clearly, was important for describing Yahweh’s activity historically, metaphorically, and eschatologically. Practically speaking, militant sentiment continued from the early period of post-Res- toration expectations, manifesting itself eventually in the Jewish rebellions of 66 CE and 132 CE. According to Steven Weitzman, both show a possible [L]ink between apocalyptic world view and armed resistance in Jewish culture…. The answer, many scholars suspect, lies in the apocalyptic fantasies that seem so widespread among Jews at the time, the expectation that the End of Days was near, and the

530 In the Temple Scroll (the main example in his argument), Damascus Document, and Sons of Heav- enly Lights (Davies, “Eschatology,” 49). 531 4Q201, col. 85-90 532 1 Enoch 89:59-90:19. This passage may come out of the context of hope brought by the Maccabean revolt, represented by militant ram with horn (Venter, “Reviewing History,” 719). 533 Practical in the sense of it setting out how the war was to be fought (Steven Weitzman, “Warring against Terror: The War Scroll and the Mobilization of Emotion,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 40 [2009]: 215; Russell Gmirkin, “Historical Allusions in the War Scroll,” DSD 5 [1998]: 172), not in the sense of it offering sound tactical guidance. However, Weitzman’s article does explain some of the ways religious principles could be used to motivate troops (“Warring,” 219-220). 534 1QM 2-9 (Davies, “Eschatology,” 45). 535 Collins says “[o]ne of the recurring features of the ‘end of days’ is the expectation of a final war between Israel and the Gentiles or between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness.” (Collins, Apocalypticism, 91). 536 Gmirkin, “Historical Allusions,” 208.

132

conviction that it would take violence to fulfil the political and religious transfor- mations that it entailed.537 These events show a continuation of the sentiments that had led to the Maccabean revolt and possibly even earlier to Jewish participation in Tennes, the King of Sidon’s rebellion against Artaxeres III Ochus in 351-350 BCE.538 To what extent these rebellions were driven by theological ideas of New Conquest is impossible to know; however, the desire for an independent nation, and a willingness to take up arms for it, was certainly present. So, we recognize here that, even though apocalyptic imagery seems esoteric and imagi- nary, the use of military language had real-world implications. Furthermore, late apocalypses show that conflicts were part of the cultural framework, literally and figuratively, in which the Jews of the Restoration and beyond operated.

Conclusion

In the first section of this chapter we went over the implications of New Conquest language, especially when Yahweh was pictured as the victor but Israel was not. Apoca- lypses are an example of later Jewish writers employing violent conquest themes, though in an eschatological setting. It had to derive from somewhere, and unfulfilled expectations of New Conquest from the post-exilic period are the background for the hopes and imagery that developed into much of the language adopted to describe Yahweh’s coming battles and victories, just as they once predicted his return in a more historical sense. The use of images and the language of destruction, as late as the Common Era, shows the importance of conquest typology to the communities that produced the post-exilic and intertestamental texts.

537 Weitzman, “Warring,” 214. 538 Their participation is speculated based on widespread destruction in Hazor, Megiddo, ʿAthlit, Lachish, and Jericho that dates to the time period (Dan Barag, “The Effects of the Tennes Rebellion on Pal- estine,” BASOR 183 [1966]: 9-10). This may be the source of 1 Enoch 89:74b, rather than the Maccabean revolt (Michael A. Knibb, Essays on the Book of Enoch and Other Early Jewish Texts and Tradition [Lei- den: Brill, 2009], 196).

133 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

Throughout this study, we investigated the possibility that there a conscious evoca- tion of a New Conquest in exilic and post-exilic writings. Was the language and imagery simply ingrained into the culture, or was it deliberate? We need to answer this because scholars have often ignored the use violence and violent language in late Biblical writing. Firstly, this is because the references are often subtle and secondly, because many scholars are uncomfortable with the implications of violence in theological texts. However, as we have seen, there is ample evidence through the exilic and post-exilic books that the golah community was, to at least some extent, consciously thinking about their restoration in terms of conquest. The quantity of imagery, symbols, and textual allusions above point to their occurrence being deliberate references. Combined with broader themes and justifications from the Ban, it is impossible to ignore that Israelite and Jewish literature was following a familiar story, drawing on stories of their past to understand their future. Further to this, the themes persisted and influenced the development of apocalyptic literature and real world rebellions. The amount that these themes influenced late texts and events may be difficult to determine, but they are, nevertheless, a component that should be explored in biblical studies of later writings. New Exodus. When Israel returned from exile there were numerous questions about their situation and condition, as well as their future. Many changes had taken place in the golah community: they had been conquered and forcibly removed from their homes and resettled, but they had adjusted and found ways to continue their lives and their religion. Then suddenly, they were allowed to return – but to an unfamiliar place of which they had little memory except in past generations’ stories. In order to make sense of these events, the restored community adapted a familiar narrative to explain their situation. Their journey back became a New Exodus. As we saw in chapter 2, metaphors, imagery, and stories were updated and repurposed, giving the people a sense of comfort and hope:

134

as he had done in the original wilderness, Yahweh would provide for them, and they would march into the Promised Land – their land – as his special, covenantal people. It is unsurprising that the returning Jews used imagery and stories from the Exodus to explain their return from Exile. It should, therefore, be natural to find references that include the combat elements of the Exodus, and to its conclusion, the Conquest. We considered the reuse of imagery from the first battle, at the Sea of Reeds, which is particularly apparent in Deutero-Isaiah. Furthermore, the metaphor of Yahweh as the divine warrior, from both the Sea of Reeds and throughout Joshua and Judges, was used throughout the post-exilic books. This use of old imagery was not necessary in a more peaceful setting, as is often claimed. It was deliberately used even though the writers could have picked from a variety of ways to describe Yahweh’s actions and Israel’s return. Instead, they used warrior and battle imagery, stretching the image beyond the Restoration period and well into late prophetic works that foresee apocalyptic battles and revenge against enemy nations. The Ban. In addition to violent language, there are references to situations that were more particular to the conquest, that is to say, the Ban. In chapter 3 we examined the use of ban-related imagery in the exilic and post-exilic period on two fronts: the elements of the Ban (destruction, deportation, resettlement, and temple building), and the justification of the Ban (sacrifice, judgment, and election).

The elements of the Ban, as they happened to the Israelites and then the Jews, are in- teresting as a pattern. The resettlement of the land, for instance, bares more than coincidental resemblance to the original conquest: it shows a deliberate updating of conquest stories and themes, as seen in the comparison of the people who had remained in the land to its pre-conquest inhabitants (see above, p. 106). Furthermore, the building of the temple echoed the original’s construction, and the major role it had in the community’s understanding of Yahweh’s presence is rooted in ancient Near Eastern conquest- myth paradigms.

135 The justifications for the use of the Ban, too, were updated for the new situation the Jewish people found themselves in. Sacrifice and judgment were applied to the golah community itself, in order to explain what had happened and why they were defeated. Election took on even more meaning, because Yahweh had not only selected the people of Israel, but had also shaped them through their experience of exile, in order to make them his special people. Some of the returnees, convinced that they were the only true remnant of Israel, used their influence to exclude Jews who had not gone into exile, justifying their position and treatment of the people in the land in the same way the conquest stories did. Like the original Exodus and Conquest, the experience of exile led to the identical ultimate goal for Yahweh’s chosen people: possessing the Land. It is important that the New Conquest followed a similar pattern of events and anticipated the same, specific, conclusion. Conquest followed the Exodus, or Israel would still be wandering around in the desert. It was part of a longer story.539 This applied to the metaphorical use of the imagery in the Exile and Restoration as well. The anticipated New Conquest was to have the same finale as the original: subjugation of the people in the land, independence for the Jewish people, and political and religious rule of the land from Jerusalem.540 Conquest Expectations. Moving beyond biblical writing that dealt with the history of the Jewish people in that land, such as Ezra-Nehemiah, allusions and violence continued in the themes of violence, eschatology and war that are often present in apocalyptic literature. Conquest-influenced imagery and expectations were present in late Second Temple Judaism. As we saw in chapter four, Yahweh’s return as the Divine Warrior and his future

539 I.e. the Heilsgeschichte tradition (Bernhard W. Anderson, “Exodus Typology in Second Isaiah,” in Israel’s prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg, ed. Bernard W Anderson and Walter J. Harrelson [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962], 182). 540 In this case, expanded to the whole earth, but from the same location. See above, p. 125.

136

battles for Israel’s independence were a common expectation. Furthermore, the anticipation of a completed conquest continued past the writing of the canonical post-exilic books, informing their perception of future events (see above, p. 128) and even influenc- ing their involvement in real-world rebellions. Conclusion. Based on the pattern of events, the themes, the imagery, and the quantity of allusions, the New Conquest was, therefore, a metaphor that was deliberately evoked to explain the Restoration. As uncomfortable as it may be to know that scriptures used violence to express how Yahweh acted on behalf of his people, this language should be dealt with and understood. New Conquest framework provides background for examining literature from the Restoration, and could be enlightening in the study of apocalyptic literature and Judean militaristic movements. It sheds light on the relationship of the Jewish community to the people in the land, the attitudes that existed to the land itself, and the desire for independence that influenced historical events like the Maccabean Revolution. It may not have been as prominent in later writings as themes of restoration and grace, but conquest rhetoric was, nevertheless, a part of the way the golah community and their descendants understood history, themselves, and their god, and should be addressed in study of late biblical passages.

137 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ackroyd, Peter R. The Chronicler in His Age. JSOT Supplement 101. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991.

---. “The Theology of the Chronicler.” Lexington Theological Quarterly 8 (1973): 101- 116.

Albright, William F. “The Moabite Stone.” In Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, edited by James B. Pritchard. 3rd edition with supplement. Prince- ton: Princeton University Press, 1969.

Anderson, Bernhard W. “Exodus and Covenant in Second Isaiah and Prophetic Tradi- tion.” In Magnalia Dei, the Mighty Acts of God : Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright, edited by G Ernest Wright, Frank Moore Cross, Werner E Lemke, and Patrick D Miller, 339-360. Garden City: Doubleday, 1976.

---. “Exodus Typology in Second Isaiah.” In Israel’s Prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg, edited by Bernard W Anderson and Walter J. Harrelson, 177-195. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962.

Baltzer, Klaus. Deutero-Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 40-55. Translated by Margaret Kohl, edited by Peter Machinist. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001.

Barag, Dan. “The Effects of the Tennes Rebellion on Palestine.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 183 (1966): 6-12.

Barmash, Pamela. “The Exodus: Central, Enduring, and Generative.” In Exodus in the Jewish Experience: Echoes and Reverberations, edited by Pamela Barmash and W. David Nelson, vii-xiv. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015.

---. “Reimagining Exile Through the Lens of the Exodus: Turning Points in Israelite His- tory and Texts.” In By the Irrigation Canals of Babylon: Approaches to the Study of the Exile, edited by John J. Ahn and Jill Middlemas, 93-106. Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 526. New York: T&T Clark, 2012.

Barrett, Lois. The Way God Fights: War and Peace in the Old Testament. Peace and Jus- tice Series 1. Kitchener: Herald Press, 1976.

Becking, Bob. “On the Identity of the ‘Foreign’ Women in Ezra 9-10.” In Exile and Res- toration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, edited by Gary N. Knoppers and Lester L. Grabbe with Derdre N. Fulton, 31-49. London: T & T Clark, 2009.

---. “Silent Witness: The Symbolic Presence of God in the Temple Vessels in Ezra and Nehemiah.” In Divine Presence and Absence in Exilic and Post-Exilic Judaism, edited by Nathan MacDonald and Izaak J. De Hulster, 267-281. Vol. 2 of Studies of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on Early Jewish Monotheism. Tubi- gen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013.

138

---. “‘We All Returned as One!’: Critical Notes on the Myth of the Mass Return.” In Ju- dah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, edited by Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming, 3-18. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006.

Bergsma, John S. “The Persian Period as Penitential Era: The ‘Exegetical Logic’ of Dan- iel 9.1-27.” In Exile and Restoration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, edited by Gary N. Knoppers and Lester L. Grabbe with Derdre N. Fulton, 50-64. London: T & T Clark, 2009.

Blenkinsopp, Joseph. “Temple and Society in Achaemenid Judah.” In Persian Period, edited by Philip R. Davies, 22-53. Vol. 1 of Second Temple Studies. JSOT Supplement 117. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991.

Bloch-Smith, Elizabeth. “Israelite Ethnicity in Iron I: Archeology Preserves What is Re- membered and What is Forgotten in Israel’s History.” Journal of Biblical Literature 122 (2003): 401-425.

Brown, A. Phillip II. “The Problem of Mixed Marriages in Ezra 9-10.” Bibliotheca Sacra 162 (2005): 437-58.

Carroll, Robert P. “So What Do We Know About the Temple?” In Temple and Community in the Persian Period, edited by Tamara C. Eskenazi and Kent H. Richards, 34- 51. Vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies. JSOT Supplement 175. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994.

---. “The Myth of the Empty Land.” Semeia 59 (1992): 79-93.

Carter, Charles E. The Emergence of Yehud in the Persian Period: A Social and Demo- graphic Study. JSOT Supplement 294. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press: 1999.

Carvalho, Corrine. “The Beauty of the Bloody God: The Divine Warrior in the Prophetic Literature.” In The Aesthetics of Violence in the Prophets, edited by Julia M. O’Brien and Chris Franke, 131 – 152. New York: T&T Clark, 2010.

Clements, Ronald E. “Isaiah: A Book without an Ending?” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 97 (2002): 109-126.

Clines, David J.A. “Haggai’s Temple, Constructed, Deconstructed and Reconstructed.” In Temple and Community in the Persian Period, edited by Tamara C. Eskenazi, and Kent H. Richards, 60-87. Vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies. JSOT Supplement 175. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994.

Cogan, Morton. Imperialism and Religion: Assyria, Judah and Israel in the Eight and Seventh Centuries B.C.E. Vol. 19 of Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Se- ries. Missoula: Scholars Press, 1974.

Collins, John J. Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls. New York: Routledge, 1997.

---. “The Court-tales in Daniel and the Development of Apocalyptic.” Journal of Biblical Literature 94 (1975): 218-234.

---. “Introduction: Towards the Morphology of a Genre.” Semeia 14 (1979): 1-20.

---. “The Jewish Apocalypses.” Semeia 14 (1979): 1-20.

139 Craigie, Peter C. “The Poetry of Ugarit and Israel.” Tyndale Bulletin 22 (1971): 3–31.

Cook, Stephen L. Prophecy and Apocalypticism: The Postexilic Social Setting. Minneap- olis: Fortress Press, 1995.

Cross, Frank Moore. “A Reconstruction of the Judean Restoration.” Journal of Biblical Literature 94 (1975): 4-18.

Cross, Frank M., Jr., and David Noel Freedman. “The Song of Miriam.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 14 (1955): 237–50.

Davies, Philip R. “Eschatology at Qumran.” Journal of Biblical Literature 104 (1985): 39-55.

Dempster, Stephen. “The Prophetic Invocation of the Ban as Covenant Curse: A Histori- cal Analysis of a Prophetic Theme,” Master’s thesis, Westminster Theological Seminary, 1978.

Doak, Brian R. “Legalists, Visionaries, and New Names: Sectarianism and the Search for Apocalyptic Origins in Isaiah 56-66.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 40 (2010): 9-26.

Doermann, Ralph W. “Cyrus, Conqueror of Babylon: Anointed (by the Lord) or Ap- pointed (by Marduk)? A Reexamination of Conflicting Perspectives.” Presentation at the Eastern Great Lakes Bible Society Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, 24, 1987.

Eder, Asher. “King Cyrus, Anointed (Messiah) of the Lord.” Jewish Bible Quarterly 23 (1995): 188-192.

Eskenazi, Tamara C. and Eleanore P. Judd. “Marriage to a Stranger in Ezra 9-10.” In Tem- ple and Community in the Persian Period, edited by Tamara C. Eskenazi and Kent H. Richards, 266-285. Vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies. JSOT Supplement 175. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994.

Esler, Philip Francis. “Ezra-Nehemiah as a Narrative of (re-Invented) Israelite Identity.” Biblical Interpretation 11–4 (2003): 413–26.

Freedman, David Noel. “Moses and Miriam: The Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-18,21).” In Realia Dei, 67–83. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999.

Fretheim, Terence E. “‘I was only a little angry’: Divine Violence in the Prophets.” Inter- pretation 58 (2004): 365-375.

Fried, Lisbeth S. “Cyrus the Messiah? The Historical Background to Isaiah 45:1.” Har- vard Theological Review 95 (2002): 373-393.

---. “The Land Lay Desolate: Conquest and Restoration in the Ancient Near East.” In Ju- dah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blenkinsopp, 21-54. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003.

---. “The Political Struggle of Fifth Century Judah.” Transeuphratène 24 (2002): 9-21. ---. The Priest and the Great King: Temple-Palace Relations in the Persian Empire. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004.

140

---. “‘Something there is that does not love a wall (around Jerusalem)’ – Why Would a Simple City Wall Create Such a Crisis?” Transeuphratène 39 (2010): 79-89.

Gmirkin, Russell. “Historical Allusions in the War Scroll.” Dead Sea Discoveries 5 (1998): 172-214.

---. “The War Scroll and Roman Weaponry Reconsidered.” Dead Sea Discoveries 3 (1996): 89-129.

Grabbe, Lester L. A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period. Vol. 1. London: T & T Clark International, 2004.

---. “What Was Ezra’s Mission?” In Temple and Community in the Persian Period, edited by Tamara C. Eskenazi, And Kent H. Richards, 286-299. Vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies. JSOT Supplement 175. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994.

Hamerton-Kelly, R.G. “The Temple and the Origins of Jewish Apocalyptic.” Vetus Testa- mentum 20 (1970): 1-15.

Hamlin, E. John. “Isaiah 47, the End of Empire.” Proceedings: Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies 16 (1996): 127-139.

---. “The Joshua Tradition Reinterpreted.” South East Asia Journal of Theology 23 (1982): 103–108.

Himmelfarb, Martha. “Judaism in Antiquity: Ethno-Religion or National Identity.” Jewish Quarterly Review 99 (2009): 65–73.

Hanson, Paul D. The Dawn of Apocalyptic. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975.

---. Isaiah 40-66. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louis- ville: John Knox Press, 1995.

Hattori, Yoshiaki. “Divine Dilemma in Ezekiel’s View of the Exodus: An Exegetical Study of Ezekiel 20:5-29.” In The Law and the Prophets: Old Testament Studies Prepared in Honor of Oswald Thompson Allis, edited by Oswald T Allis, John H Skilton, Milton C Fisher, and Leslie W. Sloat, 413-424. Nutley, New Jersey: Pres- byterian and Reformed, 1974

Hawtrey, Kim. “The Exile as a Crisis for Cultic Religion : Lamentations and Ezekiel.” Reformed Theological Review 52 (1993): 74–83.

Hawk, L. Daniel. “Fixing Boundaries: The Construction of Identity in Joshua.” Ashland Theological Journal 32 (2000): 21–31.

Hurowitz, Victor. I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian and Northwest Semitic Writings. JSOT Supplement 115. Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1992.

Idestrom, Rebecca G.S. “Echoes of the Book of Exodus in Ezekiel.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 33 (2009): 489-510.

141 Japhet, Sara. “Composition and Chronology in the Book of Ezra-Nehemiah.” In Temple and Community in the Persian Period, edited by Tamara C. Eskenazi and Kent H. Richards, 189-216. Vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies. JSOT Supplement 175. Shef- field: JSOT Press, 1994.

---. From the Rivers of Babylon to the Highlands of Judah: Collected Studies on the Res- toration Period. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006.

Jonker, Louis C. “Who Constitutes Society? Yehud’s Self-Understanding in the Late Per- sian Era as Reflected in the Books of Chronicles.” Journal of Biblical Literature 127 (2008): 703–24.

Jewish Publication Society. Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures. Philadelphia: Jewish Publica- tion Society, 1985.

Kaminsky, Joel S. “Did Election Imply the Mistreatment of Non-Israelites?” Harvard Theological Review 96 (2003): 397–425.

Kaufmann, Yehezkel. The Babylonian Captivity and Deutero-Isaiah. Translated by C.W. Efroymson. Vol. 4 of History of the Religion of Israel. New York: Union of Amer- ican Hebrew Congregations, 1970.

Kelly, Brian E. “‘Retribution’ Revisited: Covenant, Grace and Restoration.” In The Chronicler as Theologian: Essays in Honor of Ralph W. Klein, edited by M. Pat- rick Graham, Steven L. McKenzie, and Gary N. Knoppers, 206-227. London: T&T Clark International, 2003.

Klein, Anja. “Hymn and History in Ex 15: Observations on the Relationship between Temple Theology and Exodus Narrative in the Song of the Sea.” Zeitschrift Für Die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 124 (2012): 516–27.

Knibb, Michael A. Essays on the Book of Enoch and Other Early Jewish Texts and Tradi- tions. Leiden: Brill, 2009.

Knoppers, Gary N. “The Construction of Judean Diasporic Identity in Ezra-Nehemiah.” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 15 (2015): 1-29.

---. “Exile, Return and Diaspora: Expatriates and Repatriates in Late Biblical Literature.” In Texts, Contexts and Readings in Postexilic Literature: Explorations into Histo- riography and Identity Negotiation in Hebrew Bible and Related Texts, edited by Louis C. Jonker, 29-61. Tubingen: Mohr-Seibeck, 2011.

---. “‘YHWH Is Not with Israel’: Alliances as a Topos in Chronicles.” The Catholic Bibli- cal Quarterly 58 (1996): 601-626.

Knowles, Melody D. “Pilgrimage Imagery in the Returns in Ezra.” Journal of Biblical Literature 123 (2004): 57-74.

Koch, Klaus. “Ezra and the Origins of Judaism.” Journal of Semitic Studies 19 (1974): 173-97.

---. “The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic.” Studies in Biblical Theology 22. London: SCM Press, 1972. Reprint of “Ratlos ver der Apokalyptik.” Translated by Margaret Kohl. Gtersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, Gtersloh, 1970.

142

Koehler, Ludwig, Walter Baumgartner, M. E. J. Richardson, and Johann Jakob Stamm. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Leiden: Brill, 1994– 2000.

Koole, Jan L. Isaiah: Part III. Translated by Anthony P. Runia. Vol. 3 of Historical Com- mentary on the Old Testament. Peeters: Leuven, 2001.

Lampe, Peter. “La littérature apocalyptique: un Dieu violent et un ethos orienté vers la violence?” In Dieu est-il violent?: la violence dans les représentations de Dieu, edited by Matthieu Arnold and Jean-Marc Prieur, 31-48. Strasbourg: Presses universitaires de Strasbourg, 2005.

Lind, Millard. Yahweh is a Warrior: The Theology of Warfare in Ancient Israel. Scots- dale: Herald Press, 1980.

Linville, James R. “Myth of the Exilic Return: Myth Theory and the Exile as an Eternal Reality in the Prophets.” In The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and its Histori- cal Contexts, edited by Ehud Ben Zvi and Christoph Levin, 295-308. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010.

Loewenstamm, Samuel E. The Evolution of the Exodus Tradition. Translated by Baruch J. Schwartz. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1992.

Lynch, Matthew J. “Zion’s Warrior and the Nations: Isaiah 59:15b-63:6 in Isaiah’s Zion Traditions.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 70 (2008): 244-263.

MacDonald, Nathan. “The Spirit of YHWH: An Overlooked Conceptualization of Divine Presence in the Persian Period.” In Divine Presence and Absence in Exilic and Post-Exilic Judaism, edited by Nathan MacDonald and Izaak J. De Hulster, 95- 119. Vol. 2 of Studies of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on Early Jewish Monotheism. Tubigen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013.

Marinkovic, Peter. “What Does Zechariah 1-8 Tell us about the Second Temple?” In Tem- ple and Community in the Persian Period, edited by Tamara C. Eskenazi, and Kent H. Richards, 88-105. Vol. 2 of Second Temple Studies. JSOT Supplement 175. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994.

McCarthy, Dennis J. “Covenant and Law in Chronicles-Nehemiah.” The Catholic Bibli- cal Quarterly 44 (1982): 25-44.

McEntire, Mark. “Sacrifice in II Chronicles 34 – Ezra 6.” Proceedings: Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies 12 (1992): 31-46.

Meyers, Eric. “Exile and Restoration in Light of Recent Archaeological Studies.” In Exile and Restoration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, edited by Gary N. Knoppers and Lester L. Grabbe with Derdre N. Fulton, 166-173. London: T & T Clark, 2009.

Middlemas, J.A. “Going Beyond the Myth of the Empty Land: A Reassessment of the Early Persian Period.” In Exile and Restoration Revisited: Essays on the Babylo- nian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, edited by Gary N. Knoppers and Lester L. Grabbe with Derdre N. Fulton, 174-194. London: T & T Clark, 2009.

143 ---. The Troubles of Templeless Judah. New York: Oxford UP, 2005.

Miller, Patrick D. The Divine Warrior in Early Israel. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1973.

Monroe, Lauren A S. “Israelite, Moabite and Sabaean War-Ḥērem Traditions and the Forging of National Identity: Reconsidering the Sabaean Text RES 3945 in Light of Biblical and Moabite Evidence.” Vetus Testamentum 57 (2007): 318–41.

Murphy, Frederick J. Apocalypticism in the Bible and Its World: A Comprehensive Intro- duction. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012.

Niehr, Herbert. “Religio-Historical Aspects of the ‘Early Post-Exilic’ Period.” In The Cri- sis of Israelite Religion: Transformation of Religious Tradition in Exile and Post- Exilic Times, edited by Bob Becking and Marjo C.A. Korpel, 228-244. Leiden: Brill, 1999.

Niccacci, Alviero. “The Exodus Tradition in the Psalms, Isaiah and Ezekiel.” Liber Annus 61 (2011): 9-35.

Niditch, Susan. War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence. New York: Oxford UP, 1993.

---. “War in the Hebrew Bible and Contemporary Parallels.” Word & World 15 (1995): 402-411.

Noth, Martin. The Chronicler’s History. Translated by H.G.M. Williamson. JSOT Supple- ment 50. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987.

---. The Deuteronomistic History. Translated by J.A. Clines et al. JSOT Supplement 15. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981.

O’Connor, Kathleen M. “Reclaiming Jeremiah’s Violence.” In The Aesthetics of Violence in the Prophets, edited by Julia M. O’Brien and Chris Franke, 37-49. New York: T&T Clark, 2010.

Oded, B. “Where Is the “Myth of the Empty Land” To Be Found? History versus Myth.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blenkinsopp, 55-74. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003.

Pakkala, Juha. “The Exile and the Exiles in the Ezra Tradition.” In The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and its Historical Contexts, edited by Ehud Ben Zvi and Chris- toph Levin, 91-102. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010.

Piani, Roberto. “The Return from the Exile in Ezra-Nehemiah: A Second Exodus, a Re- Conquest or a Re-Establishment of the Status Quo Ante?” Paper presented at the international meeting for the Society of Biblical Literature, Amsterdam, 24, 2012.

Pitkänen, Pekka. “Ethnicity, Assimilation and the Israelite Settlement.” Tyndale Bulletin 55 (2004): 161–82.

Prior, John Mansford. “‘Power’ and ‘the Other’ in Joshua: The Brutal Birthing of a Group Identity.” Mission Studies 23 (2006): 27–43.

Rodd, Cyril S. Glimpses of a Strange Land. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001.

144

Rollston, Chris A. “The Rise of Monotheism in Ancient Israel: Biblical and Epigraphic Evidence.” Stone-Campbell Journal 6 (2003): 95–115.

Rom-Shiloni, Dalit. Exclusive Inclusivity. Bloomsbury: New York, 2013.

Sabaean Inscriptions. Translated by A.F.L. Beeston. Oxford, 1937.

Scalise, Pamela J. “The End of the Old Testament: Reading Exile in the Hebrew Bible.” Perspectives in Religious Studies 35 (2008): 163–78.

Smith, Daniel L. “The Politics of Ezra: Sociological Indicators of Postexilic Judaean So- ciety.” In Persian Period, edited by Philip R. Davies, 73-97. Vol. 1 of Second Temple Studies. JSOT Supplement 117. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991.

Southwood, Katherine E. “‘And They Could Not Understand Jewish Speech’: Language, Ethnicity, and Nehemiah’s Intermarriage Crisis.” The Journal of Theological Studies 62 (2011): 1-19.

Stern, Philip D. The Biblical Ḥerem: A Window on Israel’s Religious Experience. Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1991.

Strine, C.A. and C.L. Crouch. “YHWH’s Battle against Chaos in Ezekiel: The Transfor- mation of Judahite Mythology for a New Situation.” Journal of Biblical Literature 132 (2013): 883-903.

Stromberg, Jacob. “Deutero-Isaiah’s Restoration Reconfigured.” In Continuity and Dis- continuity: Chronological and Thematic Development in Isaiah 40-66, edited by Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer and Hans M. Barstad, 195-218. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014.

Sweeney, Marvin A. “Ezekiel’s Conceptualization of the Exile in Intertextual Perspec- tive.” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 1 (2012): 154-172.

Tooman, William A. “Covenant and Presence in the Composition and Theology of Eze- kiel.” In Divine Presence and Absence in Exilic and Post-Exilic Judaism, edited by Nathan MacDonald and Izaak J. De Hulster, 151-182. Vol. 2 of Studies of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on Early Jewish Monotheism. Tubigen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013. van Grol, Harm. “‘Indeed Servants We Are’: Ezra 9, Nehemiah 9 and 2 Chronicles 12 Compared.” In The Crisis of Israelite Religion: Transformation of Religious Tra- dition in Exile and Post-Exilic Times, edited by Bob Becking and Marjo C.A. Korpel, 209-227. Leiden: Brill, 1999.

Van Houten, Christiana de Groot. “Remember that You Were Aliens: A Traditio-Historical Study.” In Priests, Prophets and Scribes: Essays on the Formation and Heritage of Second Temple Judaism in Honour of Joseph Blenkinsopp, edited by Eugene Ulrich, John W. Wright, Robert P. Carroll, and Philip R. Davies, 224-240. JSOT Supplement 149. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992.

Venter, P.M. “Reviewing History in Apocalyptic Literature as Ideological Strategy.” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 60 (2004): 703-723.

145 von Rad, Gerhard. Holy War in Ancient Israel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991. Trans- lated by Marva J. Dawn. Reprint. 3rd ed. 1958.

-of Proverbs 1-9 and Post-Ex (אשׁה זרה/נכריה) Washington, Harold C. The Strange Woman ilic Judaean Society. In Second Temple Studies 2: Temple Community in the Persian Period, edited by Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Kent Harold Richards, 217- 239. JSOT Supplement 175. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994.

Watts, James W. “Song and the Ancient Reader.” Perspectives in Religious Studies 22 (1995): 135–47.

Watts, Rikk E. “Echoes from the Past: Israel’s Ancient Traditions and the Destiny of the Nations in Isaiah 40-55.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 28 (2004): 481-508.

Weitzman, Steven. “Warring against Terror: The War Scroll and the Mobilization of Emo- tion.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 40 (2009): 213-241.

Wilson, Ian Douglas. “Joseph, Jehoiachin, and Cyrus: On Book Endings, Exoduses and Exiles, and Yehudite/Judean Social Remembering.” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 126 (2014): 521-534.

---. “The Song of the Sea and Isaiah: Exodus 15 in Post-monarchic Prophetic Discourse.” In Thinking of Water in the Early Second Temple Period, edited by Ehud Ben Zvi and Christoph Levin, 123-147. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014.

Wilson, Robert R. “From Prophecy to Apocalyptic: Shape of Israelite Religion.” Semeia 21 (1981): 79-95.

Wright, Jacob L. Rebuilding Identity: The Nehemiah-Memoir and its Earliest Readers. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004.

---. “The Commemoration of Defeat and the Formation of a Nation in the Hebrew Bible.” Prooftexts 29 (2009): 433-473.

Younger, K. Lawson Jr. Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing. JSOT Supplement 98. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990.

Zakovitch, Yair. “And You Shall Tell Your Son...” The Concept of the Exodus in the Bible. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1991.

Zenger, Erich. A God of Vengeance? Understanding the Psalms of Divine Wrath. Trans- lated by Linda M. Maloney. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994.

Zevit, Ziony. “The Search for Violence in Israelite Culture and in the Bible.” In Religion and Violence: The Biblical Heritage, edited by David A. Bernat, Jonathan Kla- wans, 16-37. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007.

146