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From Exile to Overthrow

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From Exile to Overthrow r . FROM C<?™* c&frrrr EXILE TO OVERTHROW: A HISTORY OF THE JEWS FROM THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SECOND TEMPLE, by t;he Rev. JOHN W: MEARS, D.D., AUTHOR OF "HEROES OF BOHEMIA," "BEGGARS OF HOLLAND,' "STORY OK MADAGASCAR," ETC., ETC. PHILADELPHIA: PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, No. VXH Chestnut Street. COPYRIGHT, 1881, BY THE TRUSTEES OF THE PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. Westcott & Thomson, Stereotype™ and Eleetroti/pers, Philada. 1 F.,t,mtrt,t Apriatnl forth, /•,(," * ■"* ~" ..'. n,irarcd Apr. FROM EXILE TO OVERTHROW. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGB Capture of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans 0 CHAPTER IL Jeremiah and the Remnant in Judea 16 CHAPTER III. The Exiles in Chaldea 28 CHAPTER IV. Influence of the Exile upon the Jewish Mind.... 40 CHAPTER V. The Fall of Babylon 45 CHAPTER VI. The Return from the Exile 54 CHAPTER VH. The Second Temple 61 5 6 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. PAGE Ezra and Nehemiah 67 CHAPTER IX. The Dispersion 80 CHAPTER X. The Jews in Palestine 99 CHAPTER XI. The Abomination of Desolation Ill CHAPTER XII. The Maccabees' First Campaign 122 CHAPTER XIII. The Recovery op Jerusalem 133 CHAPTER XIV. Victories of the Maccabees 139 CHAPTER XV. The Iron Kingdom 146 CHAPTER XVI. The Asmoneans 158 CONTENTS. 7 CHAPTER XVII. PAGE The Herodian Family 177 CHAPTER XVm. Herod the King.., 188 CHAPTER XIX. Herod as a Builder 206 CHAPTER XX. The Closing Years of Herod 226 CHAPTER XXI. The New King of the Jews 237 CHAPTER XXII. The Successors of Herod 248 CHAPTER XXIII. Presages of the Final Struggle 266 CHAPTER XXIV. Opening Scenes of the War 282 CHAPTER XXV. Open Hostilities 291 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXVI. PAGE The Roman Power tested 308 CHAPTER XXVII. The Campaign in Galilee 317 CHAPTER XXVIII. Capture or Jotopata 336 CHAPTER XXIX. Conquest of Galilee completed 355 CHAPTER XXX. Internal Condition of Jerusalem 373 CHAPTER XXXI. Titus Before Jerusalem 400 CHAPTER XXXII. The Sieue Begun 415 CHAPTER XXXIII. The First Wall assailed 426 CHAPTER XXXIV. The Capture of Jerusalem 443 CHAPTER XXXV. Conclusion 459 Index 469 From Exile to Overthrow. CHAPTER I. CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM BY THE CHALDEANS. It was at midnight on the ninth day of July, 586 years before Christ, that the besieging army of the Chaldeans forced their way within the walls of Jerusalem. For eighteen months they had beleaguered the Holy City, casting up gi gantic mounds and forts overtopping the walls. They had swept away all the pleasant country homes and rural retreats in the neighborhood of the city. A Babylonian chief had planted his throne in view of each of the city-gates. All the horrors usually attendant upon a siege were suffered by the population cooped within the walls. Famine was followed by pestilence. The once beautiful countenances of the nobles became ghastly with starvation. The richly-clad ladies of Jerusalem sat down in despair upon dunghills, or sought from these foul heaps the morsels by which they eked out their supply of food. Little children with parched tongues fainted in the streets v 10 FROM EXILE TO OVERTHROW. with hunger or even became food for their starving parents. The one road which still remained open toward Jericho was infested with wild Arab tribes, Edomites, who rejoiced to aid in rendering the downfall of the city and the nation complete. ASSYRIAN REPRESENTATION OF SIEGE-OPERATIONS. Led by six princes of the king of Babylon, the Chaldean guards broke through the walls on the north, overpowered the night-watch, and, probably without occasioning any alarm, made their way to the middle gateway in front of the brazen altar of the temple. Here doubtless they encountered those who had fled to the temple as their last place of refuge, those who fondly hoped that the divine protection would make the holy house impregnable, and those whose office made it their duty to defend it with their lives. Indignant that the heathen should set foot within the sacred precincts, they FLIGHT OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. 11 threw themselves with a last mighty effort upon the invaders, and perished in the vain attempt. The noise of this conflict doubtless was borne to the ears of the king in his palace, whither the invaders had not yet come. Gathering together his family and his body-guard while yet the sum mer morning had not dawned, Zedekiah stealthily glided among dark and crooked streets to a passage way or opening between two walls at the south eastern corner of the city, which was not guarded as were the gates. Down past the royal pleasure- gardens, sad reminders of joys now for ever gone, the broken-hearted fugitives made their way. They descended the steep and rugged defiles through which the higher country breaks down into the deep chasm of the Jordan; they reached the plains of Jericho breathless and fatigued with their rapid flight over such a road. Could they have crossed the Jordan, they would, like David in his flight from Absalom, have felt themselves safe. But the Chaldean soldiers were upon their track. Jeremiah says they were swifter than the eagles of heaven. Overtaken by their pursuers in the plains of Jericho, the wornout and dispirited guards for sook their king and scattered in every direction. He and his family became an easy prey to the Chaldeans. In chains they were carried northward to Riblah, the head-quarters of Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldean king. The fate of Zedekiah exactly fulfilled two 12 FROM EXILE TO OVERTHROW. prophecies which, like some other Scripture pas sages, appear to a careless reader quite contradictory. Jeremiah * carried a prophetic message from God to the king in these words : " Thine eyes shall be hold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon." Ezekiel,f on the other hand, says : " I will bring him to Babylon, to the land of the Chaldeans, yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there." At Riblah, Zedekiah beheld Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonish king. He also FROM AN ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE. was compelled to witness the slaughter of his sons and his courtiers who had attended him in his flight ; and then, before he was carried to Babylon, his own eyes were put out. He spent his life there, and worked, like a slave, in a mill, but Babylon he never saw. * Ch. xxxiv. 3. t Ch. xii. 13. THE NATION FALLS— THE OHUBCH LIVES. 13 With the fall of Zedekiah ended for ever the Jewish monarchy. Since the anointing of Saul it had lasted five hundred years. With the monarchy fell also the state. The history of the Jews as an independent nation was virtually finished. It had lasted from the crossing of the Red Sea, 1491 years before Christ, just nine centuries. Many, indeed, and fierce were the struggles by which the Jews endeavored to regain their national existence, but brief successes were gained only to be followed by more complete overthrow. They fell and perished as a nation ; their mon archy was overthrown ; their land became the pos session of strangers ; they were exiled and scattered over the known world, as a final and deserved retri bution for obstinate rebellion, idolatry and unfaith fulness. They became the most marked example among all nations of the fact that God governs the world, and that he will deal with nations according to their deserts. Having given express laws to the Jews, and having accompanied them with distinct promises and threatenings, it was needful that he should keep his word before all the world in their overthrow. But while the nation fell, the Jewish people and the Jewish Church were preserved. In the darkest times there always remained a faithful few who kept up the ceremonies, who tried humbly to obey the Law and who clung to the hope of the Messiah. When the temple was destroyed and the chiefs of 14 FROM EXILE TO OVERTHROW. the people perished in battle or were carried into exile, they were at first overwhelmed with despair and anguish, but the remembrance of God's prom ises soon restored their souls. Lifting their heads above the fearful wreck of their city and nation, they clung with unbroken tenacity to the hopes and prospects of a glorious destiny for the chosen people still preserved for them in the providence of God. In fact, the great calamity which had befallen them exerted a purifying influence upon the whole people. Now, when their temple was utterly de stroyed and the service could no longer be per formed, and when multitudes were driven into exile and surrounded by idolaters, they abandoned idol atry as a people, and never again fell into it. Away from Judea they were more thoroughly Jewish than ever. Though all their external advantages were destroyed, they had a keener sense of their exalted position and privileges as a people than ever. No amount of suffering and degradation could here after suffice to crush these convictions, these aspira tions and these hopes. Other conquered peoples have become extinct or have blended indistinguishably with their conquer ors. In early days England was conquered and reconquered half a dozen times, but the population of modern England is the result of the mingling together of conquerors and conquered into one people; and so completely has this work been done that no lines of separation can be traced PUNISHED, BUT NOT DESTROYED. 15 among them. Other nations when conquered by Rome submitted to her yoke, received her laws and language and became provinces of the empire.
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