THEY WOULD NOT LISTEN: THE BABYLONIAN EXILE IN CONTEXT In the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, an official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He set fire to the temple of the LORD, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down. The whole Babylonian army, under the commander of the imperial guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guard, carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the rest of the populace and those who had gone over to the king of Babylon. But the commander left behind some of the poorest people of the land to work the vineyards and fields. The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars, the movable stands and the bronze Sea that were at the temple of the LORD and they carried the bronze to Babylon. They also took away the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, dishes and all the bronze articles used in the temple service. The commander of the imperial guard took away the censers and sprinkling bowls—all that were made of pure gold or silver. The bronze from the two pillars, the Sea and the movable stands, which Solomon had made for the temple of the LORD, was more than could be weighed. Each pillar was twenty-seven feet high. The bronze capital on top of one pillar was four and a half feet high and was decorated with a network and pomegranates of bronze all around. The other pillar, with its network, was similar. The commander of the guard took as prisoners Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank and the three doorkeepers. Of those still in the city, he took the officer in charge of the fighting men and five royal advisers. He also took the secretary who was chief officer in charge of conscripting the people of the land and sixty of his men who were found in the city. Nebuzaradan the commander took them all and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. There at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king had them executed. So Judah went into captivity, away from her land. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to be over the people he had left behind in Judah. When all the army officers and their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah—Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, Jaazaniah the son of the Maacathite, and their men. Gedaliah took an oath to reassure them and their men. “Do not be afraid of the Babylonian officials,” he said. “Settle down in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well with you.” (2 Kings 25:8-24, NIV) They Would Not Listen: The Babylonian exile in Context OVERVIEW OF THE BABYLONIAN EXILE .......................................................................... 9 THE HUMAN CONTEXT OF THE BABYLONIAN EXILE ..................................................... 12 IMPACTS OF THE EXILES’ CULTURE ON SCRIPTURE ..................................................... 30 DEUTERONOMY PROVIDED THE FOUNDATION ............................................................. 39 FOR A LONG TIME, THE PROPHETS FORETOLD DESTRUCTION .................................... 46 JEREMIAH CONTINUED THE WARNINGS OF THE PROPHETS ........................................ 59 UNCONDITIONAL SERVITUDE TO BABYLON .................................................................. 70 “WITHOUT INHABITANT” BUT NOT “WITHOUT PEOPLE” ................................................. 76 THE UNNECESSARY DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM .................................................... 81 THE END OF THE “70 YEARS” ........................................................................................ 91 DANIEL’S CONCERN OVER THE CONDITION OF JERUSALEM........................................ 96 DECREE OR NOT? ........................................................................................................ 106 JEWS RETURN TO YEHUD ........................................................................................... 121 CHRONICLES: THE LAND ENJOYED SEVENTY YEARS OF SABBATH REST .................. 131 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SEVENTY YEARS FOR THE GOVERNING BODY ........................ 139 THE GB CANNOT DETERMINE WHEN THE JEWS RETURNED ...................................... 143 THE ENDING OF THE “70 YEARS” ACCORDING TO THE “BABYLON” BOOK ................. 147 APPENDIX A: RELATION OF DEUTERONOMY TO THE BABYLONIAN EXILES ................ 149 APPENDIX B: ADDITIONAL MATERIAL ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL ................................ 157 APPENDIX C: JER. 29:10 IN THE SWEDISH NWT .......................................................... 160 APPENDIX D: JER. 29:10 IN THE DANISH NWT ............................................................ 162 Reading 1: Evidence provided by archaeology: “Those Who Remained” ........................... 164 Reading 2: Ezekiel and the Ethics of the Exile, Andrew Mein .......................................... 167 Reading 3: Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel, Paula McNutt ........................... 173 Reading 4: History and Historiography .......................................................................... 175 Reading 5: The Text of the Old Testament ...................................................................... 179 Reading 6: Periodization: Between History and Ideology: The Neo-Babylonian Period in Biblical Historiography .................................................................................................. 181 Reading 7: The chronicler’s Perspective ......................................................................... 183 Reading 8: Text of Zephaniah ........................................................................................ 185 Detailed Contents ......................................................................................................... 187 Figure 1: Babylonian Chronicle ....................................................................................... 16 Figure 2: Gedaliah's Seal ................................................................................................. 22 Figure 3: The Nabonidus Chronicle described the fall of Babylon ...................................... 25 Figure 4: Moses Sees the Promised Land from Afar, as in Numbers 27:12, James Tissot ... 40 Figure 5: The Babylonian Exiles’ Deuteronomistic “chain” ................................................ 41 Figure 6: Outline of Deuteronomy ................................................................................... 42 Figure 7: Written records warning Judah of its threatened destruction ............................. 47 Figure 8: The Dating of Jeremiah’s Prophecies ................................................................. 62 Figure 9: Jeremiah wore a yoke to symbolise the decreed servitude to Babylon ................. 71 Figure 10: The Cyrus Cylinder is the world’s first charter of rights of nations ................. 121 Figure 11: The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses (2009) ........................................ 139 Figure 12: Chart from The Watchtower December 15, 1971, page 749 ............................ 140 Figure 13: GB’s “Bible Chronology” to derive the date of Jerusalem’s destruction............ 140 Figure 14: Criticisms of the GB’s “Bible Chronology” ...................................................... 141 Figure 15: Cyrus’ First Year if Daniel used Tishri reckoning ........................................... 144 Figure 16: The GB needs the Jews to return on October 1, 537 BCE .............................. 144 Figure 17: The GB insists Darius ruled by himself for at least a year .............................. 146 Figure 18: The GB’s dates means that Jews did not return in 537 BCE .......................... 146 Bibliography Baldwin, Daniel Daniel: Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, Joyce G. Baldwin, IVP, Barstad After the “Myth of the Empty Land”, Hans M. Barstad, in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, ed. by Lipschits and Blenkinsopp Bergsma The Jubilee from Leviticus to Qumran: A History of Interpretation, John Sietze Bergsma, Brill, 2007 Botterweck and Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, Volume 1, edited by Ringgren Botterweck and Ringgren, translated by John T. Willis, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1977 Brettler How to Read the Jewish Bible, Marc Zvi Brettler, Oxford University Press, 2005, 2007 Cambridge The Cambridge Ancient History: VI The Fourth Century B.C. DOTHB Dictionary of the Old Testament: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship, Arnold & Williamson, Intervarsity Press, 2005 Eerdmans Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, Dunn and Rogerson Commentary Finkelstein and The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Silberman Original of its Ancient Texts, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. Fried Conquest and Restoration in the Ancient Near East, Lisbeth S. Fried, in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, ed. by Lipschits and Blenkinsopp G., K., The Strongest NIV Exhaustive Concordance, Goodrick, Kohlenberger. Concordance Jeremiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations: New International Biblical Commentary, Tremper Longman Longman III, Hendrickson Publishers & Paternoster Press, 2008 Mazar Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, art. “Jerusalem, history of”, by B. Mazar Mein Ezekiel and the Ethics of Exile, Andrew Mein, Oxford Theological Monographs Mounce Mounce’s Complete