The End Of Yerusalem
Ninth Day Of The Fourth Month (June-July 587)
With their efficient engines of war the Chaldaeans succeeded in opening a breach in the ramparts. The Chaldaean troops burst into the city (YermeYah 39:2; 52:5-7); 2 Melechim 25:2-4). The king of Babylon's officers, Nergalsharezer, prince of Sin-magin, and the high official Nebushazban established their quarters at the Middle Gate.
Under cover of darkness, Zedekiah and a small group of warriors attempted flight. They hoped to be able to get to Egypt or Ammon by skirting the Dead Sea. They left the city by way of the king's garden to the south of the ramparts; but a Chaldaean patrol was on their heels and came up with them very quickly on the way to Jericho. Zedekiah was captured.
He was taken at once to Riblah, Nebuchadnezzar's headquarters, on whose orders Zedekiah's sons were put to death in their father's presence. This was the last thing seen by the unfortunate king, for directly after this his eyes were put out. He was then sent to Babylon in chains.
Yerusalem was given over to the soldiers; they searched and plundered the houses, they killed the old, the adult men and the youths; they raped the women Echah-(Lamentations) 5:11.
A month after the sacking of Yerusalem, Nebuzaradan, commander of the royal guard, received orders to carry out a final act of vengeance for the Judaean rebellion. Seventy men of importance -kohens and notables -were taken to Riblah where they were put to death. In addition, in the Tabernacle Court great numbers of executions were carried out. The Tabernacle itself was savagely desecrated. A band of Babylonians was ordered to seize the golden, silver and bronze vessels used for worship. YermeYah gives a long list of them: ash containers, scoops, knives, the sprinkling bowls, the incense boats. the large vessels like the Sea of Bronze, the bronze pillars of Jachin and Boaz. These were all broken up and the pieces carefully packed and sent off to Babylon. After these depravations the Tabernacle and the royal palace were burned to the ground. The same was done for the finest of the private houses. The ramparts were also torn down, stone by stone. Only the houses in the poorer districts still stood. For thirty days the Babylonians burned what they could not carry off with them to the banks of the Euphrates.
Thus were fulfilled the prophecies of YermeYah who in YAHWEH's name had declared:
'I will make Yerusalem
a heap of stones a haunt of jackals A desert
with none to live there.
(YermeYah 10:10)
Mount Zion is desolate; jackals roam to and fro on it.'
(Echah 5:18)
FALL OF Yerusalem (587 B.C.) END OF THE KINGDOM OF Yahudah
In the fourth year of his reign Zedekiah, king of Yerusalem, allowed himself to be dragged into a plot by Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon against Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon (604-562). YermeYah opposed the signature of this pact which, he foretold, would cause great misfortunes. The Babylonian armies came to besiege the City of David Nebuchadnezzar raised the siege temporarily to go out against the Egyptian army which had come to the help of the beleaguered city.
Cut in pieces, the Egyptians were obliged to return to the Delta. When the food in the capital was exhausted Zedekiah attempted to leave the city in secret together with a group of his soldiers. He was caught near Jericho and taken prison He was put in chains and taken to Riblah. There his sons were put to death in t presence; his eyes were put out and he was then taken to Babylon. Yerusalem fell into the power of Nebuchadnezzar.
Second Deportation (587)
The first deportation to Babylon, ordered by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 in the time of Jehoiachin had taken 10,000 men from Yerusalem.
The second deportation, with which we are now concerned, numbered according to YermeYah (and this is the only figure given in the Scripture) 832 persons from Yerusalem. Scriptural scholars regard this number as rather too small to be taken seriously.
Nebuchadnezzar allowed YermeYah, whom the conquerors had freed from prison, to choose his own place of residence; he was free, if he liked, to follow the exiles into Babylon or he could stay in Yerusalem. In reply he said that he would stay in Yahudah. He had in fact determined to work for the material and especially the spiritual restoration of the country.
It should not be thought that the whole country had been entirely laid waste. Here and there some rural centres remained and a few farms which slowly returned to life. And although in Yerusalem the wealthy parts of the city had been burned down, the poor quarters which held no interest for the soldiers in their desire for plunder emerged almost unscathed from the trial. Thus amid all the ruin there was a nucleus of a city which began to take shape once more.
There can be little doubt about the moral condition of this small human group, bewildered, disconcerted and leaderless; they were ripe, it is obvious, to seek the consolations of the most primitive religion. It appears that even the memory of YAHWEH would shortly disappear from what had been called the 'Promised Land'.
YermeYah, now an old man, took his place beside Gedaliah, a faithful Yahwist whom Nebuchadnezzar had appointed governor of what remained of the kingdom of Yahudah. With his habitual fervour he desired to devote himself enthusiastically to the pacification and spiritual restoration of the country. The new administrative centre had been established not in Yerusalem but at Mizpah, a short distance from the city. And there we find YermeYah working hard, devoting himself body and soul to the material and moral restoration of his unfortunate coreligionists.
There were still some centres of resistance. Ammon and Moab did their best to stir up the political passions of those Judaeans thirsting for revenge. In great secrecy an assassination was plotted. Gedaliah, after scarcely two months in power, was murdered by these fanatics.
The whole country was at once seized with panic. The consequences of this crime could easily be foreseen, for Nebuchadnezzer would certainly repress without mercy this attempt against his sovereign rights; once more terrible punishments could be expected. As a last resort, it might be better, the people were beginning to think, to flee from the anger of Nebuchadnezzer and seek refuge in Egypt, in a quieter region where a new life could be started. YermeYah, consulted on the matter, was against leaving the country. YAHWEH, he said, required the Judaeans to remain in the land of their fathers; very soon, he explained, the Chosen People would again take root in this land which had been solemnly given to Abraham; after so many misfortunes Yisrael would experience, in Yahudah, times of unequalled prosperity and YAHWEH would heap blessings on the sons of Yacob. But the headstrong people would not believe the prophet's revelations; YermeYah was accused of falsifying YAHWEH's messages. They were determined to leave the country. A sizable body of Judaeans hurriedly set out for Egypt. One of the groups took the prophet YermeYah with them by force. In the circumstances his vociferous protests can be imagined.
A party of these voluntary exiles settled at Tahpanhes in the Nile Delta near Pelusium. Shortly afterwards another was established at Migdol, a little to the east. Others pushed on to Memphis (which the Scripture calls Noph) in lower Egypt. A fourth contingent went as far as the land of Pathros in Upper Egypt (Jer. 44:1).
In his new residence at Tahpanhes YermeYah experienced great grief in seeing his fellow-countrymen worship various idols, particularly the Queen of Heaven, a goddess whom the Judaeans regarded as the female equivalent of YAHWEH. They had gone too far. The unhappy prophet foretold the imminent punishment of the idolaters. In this very place, one day Nebuchadnezzar would appear and punish the apostates severely (the prediction referred to the lightning-like campaign of 568-567 in the time of Pharaoh Amasis).
There is a tradition, which seems by no means unlikely, and is mentioned by Tertullian and St Jerome that, infuriated by YermeYah's threats and reproaches, the Judaeans stoned him to death.
Thus disappeared this attractive personality who since Josiah's time had always been a prominent figure. At first sight it might be thought that YermeYah had been defeated in the immense effort that he made to save Yerusalem from destruction. He had denounced all the internal and external dangers threatening Yahudah; he had warned his fellow-countrymen in clear terms, against their spiritual errors and political mistakes which, since Josiah's death had been very numerous. Faced with their continued obstinacy he had foretold the unprecedented punishment which would fall upon the kingdom.
His failure was only apparent. It is true that he had been unable to bring Yisrael back to the pure worship of YAHWEH; he had not succeeded in persuading the rulers to adopt the strict policy of neutrality that was then necessary. It remains true, nonetheless, that the spiritual influence of his preaching on centuries to come was of the first importance. This prophet who seems so hard, so vehement, was, as we know from what he tells us, a timid and affectionate person. Throughout his life, on YAHWEH's orders, YermeYah never married; and so he had no child to comfort him in his old age. YAHWEH had forbidden him to take part in public rejoicing and he suffered very much at being accused of loving neither his native land nor YAHWEH; he cried out his discouragement to YAHWEH and felt at every moment that he must give up his mission, but in the end he obeyed the commanding voice which brought him back to his duty, to the thick of the fight.
And then, when all seemed lost, he foretold the wonderful future awaiting Yisrael. From an earthly point of view all had collapsed. But the prophet had understood that the kingdom of YAHWEH is not realized here below by territorial conquests. All empires fall to pieces, one after the other, in the clash of arms. But the aim of the faithful Yahwist is not the pursuit of the wealth of this world but the attempt to live in close fellowship with YAHWEH.
That is the enduring spiritual message of the great prophet. And we shall find it taken to heart more thoroughly still by the Babylonian Exiles.
The Third And Last Deportation To Babylon (582)
After the murder of Gedaliah, and while YermeYah was spending the last of his days so unhappily in Egypt, the dreaded reaction came quickly enough. The unfortunate Judaeans who had remained in the land of their fathers were to pay once again, and severely, for the criminal blunders of their politicians. On this occasion the repression was undertaken by Nebuzaradan, the Chaldaean commander whom we have already encountered. According to a short note of YermeYah's, 745 people were deported to Babylon this time.
Yahudah had been bled white. All its people, willingly or unwillingly, but most under threat of violence, had left the Promised Land. Yerusalem was no more than a semi wilderness, occupied by a few hovels on a corner of the rock. What had become of the times of David the glorious or Solomon the magnificent? In the desolate countryside there were still a few hamlets, decimated by the passing of armies and the merciless commandeering of manpower, which eked out a precarious existence. Logically, the early and complete disappearance of this remnant of Yahudah could be predicted. In addition, the immediate neighbours, the Edomites and Ammonites, invaded these almost uninhabited territories.
But the course of the history of the People of YAHWEH is entirely unlike that of other civilizations. When it had reached the very depths, the 'remnant of Yisrael' was able at last to see clearly within itself. From this Babylonian Exile which in all logic should have been its downfall, its complete destruction, it was to emerge regenerated, stronger, more living, more luminous than ever.
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