Chapter IV: Part IV: Israel (2)

Turning to the southern kingdom, we notice that it was some time before the Davidic king made an effort to obtain foreign protection. In Jeroboam’s time, indeed, it would have been useless. In Rehoboam’s fifth year the king of Mizrim proved his regard for Jeroboam and for his own selfish advantage by invading the Jewish dominion. Resistance was hopeless; Jerusalem itself was taken, and the departure of Cushi (the name is corrupted in our own texts into Shishak) was only purchased at a great price. It was the third king, Asa, who, finding himself in danger of becoming the vassal of Baasha, became virtually the vassal of the king of Cusham; the story of his having defeated an army of Cushite invaders (at Zephath, or Zarephath?) must surely be apocryphal. Asa and his son Jehoshaphat are both praised for their fidelity to Yahveh. The latter king, however, managed to exchange a Cushite for an Israelite suzerain, and according to the (late) Chronicler gained a victory over the (southern) Aramites or Jerahmeelites in the Negeb (the text of 2 Chronicles xx. has suffered, as regards the geographical setting).

In the war against Moab, Jehoshaphat did a vassal’s service to Ahab, and we may suppose that there was a Judahite contingent in the force of ten thousand men sent by Ahab to the battle of Qarqar. We are also told that he sought to open once more direct communication by sea with the gold-country Ophir. His son Jehoram continued loyal to the northern Israelitish king. Asa had found it impossible to oppose a marriage between the crown-prince and Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel. So, officially at any rate, there was religious as well as political union between northern and southern Israel; Jehoram, we are told, “walked in the way (_i.e._, practised the cultus) of the house of Ahab.”

The revolt of the Edomites, who had hitherto recognised the supremacy of Judah, marks the reign of Jehoram. His son Ahaziah continued his policy, and just after he had performed a vassal’s duty before Ramoth in the southern Gilead (still fought for by the Aramites), he fell a victim with his uncle and suzerain, Jehoram of Israel, to the machinations of the ambitious general, Jehu. The name of Jehu (as it seems, an Israelite of the Negeb) is attached to a revolution which had different results from those which had been contemplated. We have only the account of it which was given by the prophetic school of narrators. According to this, the revolution was planned by a prophet named Elisha, and received the sanction of the sheikh of a subdivision of the Kenites, called Rechabites. Certainly it is probable enough that the prophets of the Negeb interfered with politics, and that that portion of the Kenites which had not adopted a settled mode of life was greatly agitated by the continuance of that sensuous form of cultus which was favoured by the house of Omri.

JEHU AND FOLLOWING KINGS

Jehu, too, may have been widely known as an energetic and unscrupulous man whose ambition could be used in the interests of religious reformation. At any rate the Baal-worship of the court, which, as we are assured, had become aggressive, was violently put down by Jehu, and this bold adventurer now began to scheme for a united kingdom of Israel, like David’s of old. With this object, he massacred not only Jehoram of Israel, but Ahaziah of Judah, though, as the event proved, he reckoned without his host, for Athaliah, the queen-mother in Judah, on her side, massacred all the children of the other wives of Jehoram of Judah, and, in intention, also the son of Ahaziah (he escaped, however), and usurped the throne. The consequence was that north and south Israel, for the present, went each its own way.

In 842 B.C. Jehu found it expedient to send rich presents to Shalmaneser II, which this king denominated “tribute.” Here we are painfully conscious of the meagreness of our information. What was the policy of the queen of Judah during the six years of her reign? Did she intrigue with Cusham against northern Israel? We know that Hazael, the Cushamite king, renewed the war in the Negeb with double fury. Next, what was the policy of the other Hazael--the king of Damascus--towards northern Israel? The editor of Kings seems to have thought that this Hazael was an opponent of Jehu. This might account for the “present” sent by Jehu to Shalmaneser, who waged war with Hazael. On the other hand, Jehu does not appear to have sent any gifts in 839 B.C., when Shalmaneser had his second encounter with Hazael, and Tyre, Sidon, and Gebal again sent tribute. Had Jehu in the interval been obliged to become a vassal of the king of Damascus, who was still able to withstand the repeated attacks of the Assyrians?

The furious onslaught of Hazael of Cusham continued after Jehu’s death. So large a part of the Negeb was taken either by Hazael or by his successor Ben-Hadad, _i.e._, Bir-dadda, and so many of its Israelite inhabitants had been either slain in battle or carried away into slavery, that the most valued jewel in the crown of Israel’s kings seemed to have been lost. A turn for the better in Israel’s fortunes took place under Joash. Probably this was mainly due to the victories of the Assyrian king, Adad-nirari III, who claims to have received tribute from Tyre, Sidon, Khumri (Israel), Edom, and Philistia, and who humbled, though he did not destroy, Mari, the brave king of Damascus. If, as one may plausibly suppose, the latter king punished Jehoahaz for his father’s Assyrian proclivities, we can understand that when Damascus ceased to be dangerous, the son of Jehoahaz, stimulated by prophets like Elisha, might make a supreme, successful effort against invaders of the Negeb.

The work of liberation, however, had still to be completed; this was the achievement of Jeroboam II. It was he who reconquered the venerable city of Cusham-jerahmeel, and recovered the region of Maacath (or Jerahmeel) for Israel. This period, as criticism is able to show, receives vivid illustration from the work of Amos, the account of whose conflict with Amaziah, the priest of the southern Bethel, refers to Jeroboam by name. The war was still going on, however, when this prophet of evil tidings wrote. It is probable that for some part of the reigns of Joash and Jeroboam the king of Judah was once more in vassalage to the king of Israel.

DECLINE AND FALL OF SAMARIA

The death of Jeroboam was the beginning of the end for the northern realm. Murders and revolutions succeeded each other with fearful rapidity. Of Zechariah and Shallum there is nothing to be said. Menahem’s reign, however, marks an epoch. Tiglathpileser III states in his Annals that he received tribute from Kushtashpi of Kummukh, Rasunnu of Damascus and Minihimi of Samirina. It is plausible to identify the third king with Menahem of Samaria. The identification, however, is not certain; some other city may perhaps have been meant. Moreover, the Hebrew record speaks of an invasion of the northern kingdom, and calls the invader Pul (a Greek reading is Paloch) king of Asshur. Now there is good evidence in the Book of Hosea that the Israelites at this period were suing for the favour of the North Arabian kings of Mizrim and of Asshur. Mizrim we know to be the land otherwise called Muzri; Asshur (Ashkhur) we may suspect to be the land called by the Assyrians Melukhkha. Probably, therefore, it is the king of Melukhkha, the greatest of the North Arabian kings, who invaded Menahem’s realm, and exacted tribute from Menahem. In this case it was not central Palestine which he invaded, but the Negeb. In the next reign but one--that of Pekah--the same king of Asshur (called this time, not Pul, but by the equally inaccurate name Tiglath pileser or Tilgath pilneser) returned to the Negeb, a part of which he conquered, deporting its Israelite inhabitants into northern Arabia.

ASSYRIAN OPPRESSION

Probably he was displeased because the impoverished kingdom of Israel could not pay its tribute. The North Arabian king, however, must have had some additional reason for his activity. The true Assyrian Tiglathpileser tells us of the queen of Aribi and of the minor Arabian sheikhs who paid him tribute, and we may well suppose that, knowing the ambitious projects and the intrigues of Assyria, the greatest North Arabian potentate sought to strengthen the North Arabian border by introducing colonists on whom he could depend. Shortly afterwards he treated Cusham in a similar manner, deporting its inhabitants to Kir. Again we must regret the paucity of external information illustrating this period. The Hebrew text as it stands speaks of Pekah of Israel as joining the king of the northern Aram in an invasion of Judah. This, as we shall see, is highly doubtful. There is also much besides in the traditional history of this period which is liable to revision. The confusion between the two Shimrons and the two Asshurs is as troublesome as the confusion between the two Arams and the two Muzurs. But, have the Assyrian inscriptions no facts to communicate? On the contrary, they mention both Pekah and Hoshea. The former they present to us as a member of the anti-Assyrian party which existed in Samaria, as elsewhere, and we gather from the Annals that, as a punishment for this, the inhabitants of a large part of Bit-Khumri (Samaria) were deported by the Assyrians, and that when Pekah had been assassinated, Tiglathpileser ratified the appointment of Hoshea as king of the scanty remnant of North Israel (733 B.C.).

From the same source we learn that early in Sargon’s reign (722 B.C.?) that king besieged and captured Samirina (Samaria), carried away 27,290 of its inhabitants, reserved fifty of their chariots, placed a governor over the remnant of the people, and imposed upon them the tribute of the former king. This is all that we know about the doings of the Assyrians; for those of the Asshurites we must turn to the prophet Hosea and to the second Book of Kings. The former, writing probably when the doom of the southern Shimron was already sealed, prophesies not only that it will be taken, but that the king of Israel will meet his death through Asshur. He also probably gives the name of the Asshurite king who succeeded Pul or Paloch as Shalman (Hosea xi. 14), referring to some typical barbarities of which this king had been guilty.

Shalman appears incorrectly in 2 Kings as Shalmaneser. We learn that for some years Hoshea paid tribute to Shalman (eser), but that after this, relying upon the help of the king of Mizrim, he withheld it; the Asshurite king therefore cast him into prison. If the letter of 2 Kings xvii. 4, 5, is correct, this preceded an Asshurite invasion of the land (_i.e._, the Negeb), which ended with a siege of Shimron. The siege lasted three years, at the end of which the king of Asshur took Shimron, and deported a large part of the remaining Israelite population of the Negeb into his own land, filling their place in the Negeb with North Arabian colonists. These new Shimronites are the people who caused the Jews so much trouble in the days of Nehemiah.

Thus the two sections of that large part of Israel which had rejected the Davidic Dynasty were all but annihilated, for history can take no further account of the remnants which survived both in northern Israel and in the Negeb, remnants which, though they retained the divine name Yahveh, in their cultus, were in no essential respect different from the non-Israelites with whom they mingled. We do, indeed, gather from 2 Kings xvii. 25-33 that the North Arabian colonists in the Negeb combined the ritual worship of Yahveh with that of their own gods, and we may assume that they learned the “manner” or ceremonial prescriptions of Yahveh, not from a single priest--the sole representative of Israel in the wide land of the Negeb--but from a scanty remnant of Israelites left by the conqueror (compare 2 Kings xxiii. 20). But of what value or significance for the history of Israel or of Israel’s history, is this poor and uninteresting fact? Henceforth the world-historical mission of Israel was confined to that portion of the people which was loyal to the Davidic Dynasty, and in which, thanks to prophets largely drawn from the Negeb (a land of opposites in religion), the elements of progress were still active in spite of great hindrances.

LATER FORTUNES OF JUDAH

We return to Athaliah, and her bold attempt to naturalise more fully the sensuous religious developments of North Arabia in Judah. After six years, both she and her movement came to a sudden end. The only surviving male representative of David was set upon the throne. The priest Jehoiada won over the “prætorian guard” on which Athaliah had relied; the usurper was slain and the house of Baal broken down. The new king Jehoash conformed to the directions of the priests. This did not, however, avert a serious calamity. A Cushamite invasion took place, and the retirement of Hazael had to be bought at a high price. Jehoash was succeeded by his foolhardy son Amaziah, who seems to have had a dream of throwing off the suzerainty of North Israel. As the first step to this, he tried his martial prowess on the Jerahmeelites, whom he encountered in a valley in the Negeb, but when Joash of Israel, who had no mind to let Judah become predominant in that region, came down upon him with his army, the result was disastrous for Judah. Jerusalem was taken, so that the suzerainty of northern Israel was secured, and the king, Amaziah, met with a violent death. His son and successor, Azariah (or Uzziah), is to some extent a mystery; we have two narratives respecting him, one of which surprises us as much by its brevity as the other (2 Chronicles xxvi.) by its particularity. The probability, however, is that the account in 2 Kings xv. 1-7 omits all detailed reference to Azariah’s wars in the south because of a great humiliation which he received in the course of them. That heavy blow was probably nothing less than captivity in Mizrim, from the record of which, accidentally or deliberately, the later tradition extracted the statement that Azariah was smitten with leprosy. During his father’s enforced absence, Jotham acted as regent. We can hardly believe that the period of these two reigns was in any sense a prosperous one for Judah. No special misfortune, indeed, is put down to Jotham, but we are informed that the king of Aram or Cusham began those incursions into Judah which became such a serious danger in the next reign. Whether either Azariah or Jotham succeeded in becoming independent of Israel, we cannot say.

AHAZ AND ISAIAH

It was Ahaz, so well known to us from the prophet Isaiah, who succeeded Jotham. The editors of the Books of Kings and of Isaiah believed that the “Aram,” which became so troublesome to Ahaz, was the North Aramæan kingdom of Damascus, and that the ruler of this state in conjunction with Pekah, king of Israel, fearing the aggressions of Assyria, sought to force Judah into alliance with them. It was notorious that Ahaz favoured a different policy, but the allies thought themselves strong enough to capture Jerusalem and to place a nominee of their own upon the throne of Judah.

It is probable, however, that here, as elsewhere, the editors have adjusted the narratives and prophecies to historical and geographical ideas which were not those of the narrators. In reality, it was the king of Aram (_i.e._, Cusham) and the king of Ishmael (_i.e._, some other North Arabian principality) who sought the humiliation of Judah. The object, as the experience of the past had shown, was not unattainable, but since the time when the king of Mizrim humiliated Rehoboam, the suzerain of all the smaller kings--the great “Arabian king” (Asshur)--had become more jealous of the ambitious activity of his lieges. Hence, as soon as Ahaz sent an importunate message to the king wrongly called Tiglathpileser, deliverance came to him, and ruin to Cusham through an Asshurite intervention. The prophet Isaiah, however, took a different position. According to him, trust in the true Yahveh and obedience to his righteous law (of which Isaiah and those like him were the exponents) was the sure, the only sure, defence against human foes, while for Ahaz to send for the Asshurite king was to put his head into the mouth of a lion. But how could such trust and obedience be expected of Judah? Ever since Solomon’s time this little country had hankered after a worldly prosperity which was inconsistent, as the most high-minded prophets believed, with the worship of the true Yahveh. Consequently both Isaiah and Micah, like Amos and Hosea, saw nothing for their people to expect but ruin.

In the next reign it appeared as if this prophecy were about to be fulfilled. Two invasions took place--one of the Assyrians, the other of the Asshurites of northern Arabia--which have been confounded by the editors who brought the Books of Kings and of Isaiah into their present form. The difficulties which have been found in reconciling the Hebrew narratives with the inscription of Sennacherib are partly due to this confusion. We may suppose that the Asshurite invasion, which ended in the hurried departure of the invaders, came first; it is this which is referred to in the prophetic utterances of Isaiah. Whether or no Isaiah lived to see the second invasion (which took place in 701) is a problem for critics. The prophet has at any rate given us a vivid picture of the alarm of Judah and the neighbouring countries in the Asshurite crisis, and we can venture to supplement this to some extent with facts from the late narratives in 2 Kings xviii. 13; xix. 37 (Isaiah xxxvi. 1-xxxvii. 38), provided that a methodical criticism has first been applied to the text.

INVASION OF SENNACHERIB

From Sennacherib himself we have particulars respecting his operations in Judah. He asserts that he took 46 towns and carried off 200,150 persons; that he shut up Hezekiah like a cage-bird in Jerusalem, made him deliver up a captive Ekronite king, imposed a heavy fine upon him and curtailed his territory. We can easily believe that Judah was not in a position to resist a second invasion, even though the first was not quite so calamitous as it might have been. It is also plausible to suppose that the misfortune arising from Sennacherib’s invasion may have led Hezekiah to put himself under the tuition of the priests of Jerusalem, and begin a movement for the centralisation of the cultus. If so, his son and successor Manasseh revised his policy, and initiated a reaction in the direction of North Arabian heathenism. Worshippers of the true Yahveh found in the king’s subsequent career a divine judgment upon such wickedness. The generals of the king of the North Arabian Asshur (such is the most tenable explanation of 2 Chronicles xxxiii. 11) brought him as captive to the capital of that country, but he was afterwards restored. It must be confessed, however, that we do not know to what North Arabian people the Hebrew compiler applies the old name of Asshur; the kingdom of Melukhkha appears not to have recovered from the blow dealt to it by the Arabian invasion of Esarhaddon. One thing is certain from the Assyrian inscriptions--that Manasseh gave no cause of complaint to the northern Asshur. Among the vassals who paid them homage, both Esarhaddon and Asshurbanapal mention Manasseh king of Judah.

JOSIAH; HIS RELATIONS TO NORTH ARABIA

Manasseh’s son Amon continued to promote the religious reaction. After two years he was murdered, but the “people of the land,” who appear to have sympathised with Amon’s views, punished the murderers. This was about 636 B.C., noteworthy as the date of the accession of the young Josiah. Assyria was still powerful, and few could have foreseen its impending decline and fall. But it was not Assyria to which the prophet Jeremiah pointed as the executor of Yahveh’s judgment, nor yet (as many have supposed) the hordes of Scythian nomads, but a people or peoples of northern Arabia. Josiah, however, did not lose his composure. He had thrown himself into the arms of the priests, and the priests and prophets (not Jeremiah) combined to produce a law-book (our Deuteronomy has grown out of it), obedience to which might be expected to insure prosperity.

The reform of the cultus, and the prohibition of more than the one sanctuary, were far-reaching measures which affected the daily life of every Israelite. We are even told (2 Kings xxiii. 15-20) that the reformation extended to Beth-el and the cities of Shimron, _i.e._, to the Negeb. This view of the narrator’s meaning is a solid result of criticism, and certainly the detail has no slight verisimilitude. The realm of Judah needed expansion, and what region could Josiah more reasonably covet than the Negeb, so dear to Israelite tradition? Events proved, however, that a greater potentate also had designs upon it, viz., the king of Mizrim. We do not know what race predominated at this time in the ancient Muzri, but we can hardly doubt the fact that the king of a territory adjoining the Negeb, who was at any rate more powerful than Josiah, went upon an expedition against Kidsham (_i.e._, Kadesh), or perhaps Cusham (_i.e._, Cusham-jerahmeel), and found his passage barred by Josiah. A battle took place in Maacath-migdol (if we rightly read the name), and the king of Judah was mortally wounded. All Judah mourned. The people had lost a king, and were in danger of losing a faith. For the religious law book promising prosperity to the obedient, which they had accepted in deference to the king and the priests, seemed to have been proved a delusion and a snare.

JOSIAH’S SUCCESSORS AND THE KING OF MIZRAIM

Thus the power most dreaded by Judah is once more the North Arabian Mizrim, though the race which now predominated in Mizrim had, perhaps, only lately arrived there. The late editor of Kings, however, confounded Mizrim with Mizraim (Egypt), and represented the king whom Josiah encountered as Neku of Egypt; he also confounded the place-name Migdol with Megiddo. It is not impossible that the enterprising Neku of Egypt really did interfere with the affairs of Syria, but, if so, it was hardly Josiah whom he had to deal with. It appears to be clear from the Hebrew narratives, critically interpreted, that it was first the Mizrites and then the Babelites or Jerahmeelites (_i.e._, the peoples to which the Hebrew writers, archaising, apply these names) who interfered with southern Palestine. The Mizrite king is said to have deposed Josiah’s successor, Jehoahaz, after a reign of three months, and nominated a brother of Jehoahaz named Eliakim or Jehoiakim, as king (608 or 607 B.C.?). It was a short-lived suzerainty; another king, miscalled by the later editor the king of Babel (the name should be “Jerahmeel”), appeared, and asserted his claim to the Negeb. Jehoiakim became his vassal, but after three years rebelled, preferring the old vassalage to the new. Apparently he died before a fresh invasion took place; it was his son Jehoiachin who, yielding to necessity, surrendered to the Jerahmeelite army, and together with the principal citizens of Jerusalem, including the prophet Ezekiel, was deported. A third son of Josiah, named Mattaniah or Zedekiah, was appointed king by the conqueror. The early part of his reign was quiet, but the unenlightened war party, which trusted in the oracles of its own prophets and in the promises of the king of Mizrim, forced the king to revolt, thus involving his people in the fate long foreseen by the prophet Jeremiah. The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and a second captivity, followed. The sons of Zedekiah were slain; he himself was blinded.

OPERATIONS OF NEBUCHADREZZAR

It is true, the possibility must be allowed for, that the Arabians were but the helpers of the (true) Babylonians in their destructive operations, and that captives were carried away, partly to Babylon, partly into northern Arabia. It is at any rate difficult to believe that no captives of Judah at all went to Babylon. It is stated by the late Babylonian historian Berosus (if we may trust Josephus) that Nebuchadrezzar, who succeeded his father Nabopolassar after the destruction of Nineveh, conquered Egypt, Syria, Phœnicia and Arabia, from which countries he carried away captives. Egypt, however, Nebuchadrezzar cannot, apparently, be shown to have conquered, and the statement made by Berosus in another quotation of Josephus relative to the destruction of Jerusalem may not contain the whole truth. Inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar are urgently wanted. At any rate, so far as we can learn from the evidence producible by criticism from the Hebrew writings, the bulk of the captives went into northern Arabia, and the oppression of the Jews in Judah, wherever this is referred to, appears to have proceeded from Arabians.

FALL OF JUDAH; RISE OF A NEW JEWISH PEOPLE

The events of the following period, however, are only known in a legendary form. The disciples of Jeremiah appear to have remembered that a Judahite was the first governor set up in the land of Judah, by which is probably meant the cities occupied by Judahites in the Negeb. Also that numerous fugitives escaped for a time into the land still known as Mizrim. Ezekiel was hardly in Babylonia, but in a northern Arabian territory; the text of Ezekiel which refers to “the land of Chaldea” has been manipulated. This prophet was one of the heroes of the monotheistic movement, but he did not confine himself, like Jeremiah, to denouncing the corrupt popular religion; he saw that only by a strict organisation of the ritual could the people be trained to a pure worship of the one true God. His successors, nameless but influential men, carried on his work, the description of which, however, belongs rather to a history of the literature of Judaism than to a history of the Jews.

The facts relating to the revival of the Jewish people in their own land are difficult to ascertain. Our most trustworthy records are the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah (i.-viii.). From these we learn that Zerubbabel (this form of the name is hardly original), the civil head of the Judahite community, laid the foundation of the temple, and with him we hear of the high priest Jeshua as stirring up the people to the work of rebuilding. There are also traces of ambitious hopes of the recovery of the national independence through Zerubbabel. Whether the chronological statements of these books in their present forms can be relied upon is more doubtful, while to restore to some extent the original forms of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah requires a keen criticism such as has only lately been begun. So much, however, is plain that our ideas of this period require not a little reconstruction. The chief opponents of the Jews in Judah were not “Samaritans,” but Shimronites (_i.e._, the mixed population of the Negeb) and Arabians, and there is reason to suspect that the historical and geographical framework of both books was originally such as we should expect from the prominence of the northern Arabians in the destruction of Jerusalem.

CYRUS; AND THE LIBERATION

That the liberator of the Jewish captives was Cyrus, is at first sight plausible, but no mention occurs in the extant inscriptions of Cyrus of any restoration of exiles to their native land, nor do the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah appear to presuppose any such restoration on a large scale. It is very possible, however, that some Jewish exiles had returned from northern Arabia before the surrender of Babylon to Cyrus, and, indeed, that Haggai and Zechariah exercised their ministry before that event. Ezekiel (vi. 4) expects the captivity of Judah to last only forty years, and part of his book is occupied by a kind of programme for the restored theocracy. There is also a tradition (2 Kings xxv. 27) that a Babelite (Jerahmeelite) king signalised his accession by releasing Jehoiachin from prison in the thirty-seventh year of his captivity.

That by degrees more and more Babylonian Jews returned, is also a probable conjecture, and even those who stayed behind were doubtless serviceable both by pecuniary and by intellectual contributions. The intellectual help of the Jews of Babylon must, indeed, have been considerable; the highly developed literary and religious cultus of Babylon cannot have been altogether lost upon them, nor must we underrate the religious influence of Persia. It would seem, however, that though Judah doubtless became part of the Persian empire, it continued to groan under Arabian oppression. The expansion of the northern Arabian races was irresistible, and the Persian rulers do not seem to have interfered in behalf of the Jews. As time went on, these rulers themselves appear to have altered for the worse.

THE PTOLEMIES AND SELEUCIDÆ AS LORDS OF PALESTINE; THE MACCABEES

Hence, like other nations, the Jews were ready to welcome Alexander the Great as a God-sent deliverer. Long before his arrival a more developed law-book, carrying out Ezekiel’s ideas, had been introduced at Jerusalem, in spite of considerable opposition. It is said to have been brought by the scribe Ezra from Babel, but whether Babylon or the land of Jerahmeel was originally meant, is disputed.

For the following period we are mainly dependent on Josephus and on the Book of Maccabees. The former is not very trustworthy; the first, and, to some extent, the second Book of Maccabees, however, repay the student. Under the first three Ptolemies (306-221) the Jews were well off, but during the struggle between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ, they became not disinclined for a change of masters. From 198-197 B.C. onwards Judea formed part of the Syrian kingdom, and in this period we meet with a movement among the Jews towards Greek culture. This was favoured by the ruling power; the Seleucidæ were favourable, as the Ptolemies now were, to a Hellenising of the subject nationalities. Antiochus Epiphanes went further than his predecessors, and dreamed of a universal adoption of Greek culture and of the recognition by all races of the Olympian Zeus as supreme God. Other Syrian peoples complied with his demands. If the Jews refused, it was obstinacy which deserved punishment.

The priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem brought themselves to yield; Yahveh and Zeus could be regarded as identical. But there were Jews who saw the inherent weakness of compromise, and valued their ideals more than life, so successful had been the movement towards strict legal orthodoxy, connected with the name of Ezra. It was a country priest named Mattathias, who, with his sons, set an example of heroic resistance. The supreme command of the revolters was taken by the third of the brothers, Judas Maccabæus (166 B.C.), and such was his success that exactly three years after the temple had been profaned, the signs of heathenism were removed and the legal cultus restored. This was the main object of the struggle. Judas, however, was not content with the concession, which was offered to the Jews, of religious liberty. We need not deny that earthly ambition had to do with his refusal, but, no doubt, he also thought that without political independence the freedom of the pious community was insecure. And it so happened that the disputes between the various claimants of the Syrian throne made it easy for Jonathan--a diplomatist not less than a general--to gain more and more advantages. In 143-142 B.C., Jonathan’s successor, Simon, concluded formal peace with Demetrius II, and in the following year the Syrian garrison evacuated the Acra at Jerusalem. Simon himself was, by a popular decree, made hereditary high priest and ethnarch. He was succeeded by his son, John Hyrcanus, who extended his comparatively narrow territory by conquest; Shechem, Samaria and Edom became Jewish.

JUDAS ARISTOBULUS; END OF THE ASMONÆAN MONARCHY

Of Judas Aristobulus, according to Josephus, not much good can be said (105-104 B.C.). All considerations of piety were sacrificed to political expediency. Strabo, however, in the name of Timagenes, speaks favourably of him. As a Sadducee and a “philhellen” it is possible that he was calumniously misrepresented by the Pharisees. He was the first of his family to assume the title of king. The eldest of his three brothers, Alexander Jannæus (104-78 B.C.), came to the throne by the favour of Alexandra, or Salome, his deceased brother’s widow, who also gave him her hand. His aim was to extend the limits of his kingdom, so that he was almost always conducting military operations. At home his struggle with the Pharisees and their friends (inevitable in the first instance, no doubt) was carried on with a cruelty worthy of a heathen. On one occasion six hundred Jews were massacred for insulting him while he was discharging his priestly office. He was succeeded by his widow, Alexandra, who nominated her eldest son, Hyrcanus II, high priest. By the advice, it is said, of Jannæus, she made peace with the Pharisees; indeed, as the same authority (Josephus) assures us, “she had indeed the name of royalty, but the Pharisees had the power.” In fact, there was a Pharisean reaction, and the Talmud represents the age of Simon ben Shetach (a celebrated Pharisee) and Queen Salome as a golden age, in which even the grains of corn attained a miraculous size. Externally, the queen showed both energy and prudence. A serious danger from Tigranes of Armenia was arrested, partly by bribes, partly by a diversion caused by the Romans under Lucullus (69 B.C.).

No sooner was the queen dead than a war broke out between the brothers, Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II, the one able and daring, the other easy-going and indolent, which was destined to close with the extinction of Jewish liberty. Hyrcanus, being the eldest son, had the right of succession, but ill success in war induced him to abdicate the royal and high-priestly dignities in favour of Aristobulus, on condition that he was left in the enjoyment of his property. But this arrangement did not last long. The younger Antipater, governor of Idumæa, and himself an Idumæan, saw clearly that he could do better for himself under the weakling Hyrcanus than under the warlike Aristobulus. Taking Hyrcanus’ side, he persuaded him that his life was in danger, and that he must flee to the Nabatæan prince Aretas III. This he did, and Aretas took the field against Jerusalem to redress his wrongs. Aristobulus defended himself in the temple, and the siege promised to be a long one, when Pompey, who was then in Asia, sent his legate Scaurus into Syria (65 B.C.), who at first decided for Aristobulus. In the spring of 63 B.C. Pompey himself appeared, and finally decided for Hyrcanus, who was therefore again installed as high priest. Aristobulus was arrested; his adherents defended themselves in the temple, which was at length captured by the Romans. The Asmonæan monarchy was at an end. All the succeeding high priests were vassals of the Romans.

ROMAN RULE; DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM

Judea now became a subdivision of the Roman province of Syria. The religious institutions, however, which antedated the Maccabæan rising still continued; liberty of worship was guaranteed by Pompey. But so strong was the attachment of the people to the Asmonæan family that a succession of revolts broke out. Meantime, the power of Antipater went on increasing; Hyrcanus was too weak to oppose him; from Rome, too, he received signal marks of favour, being even made governor of Judea. A rival, however, gained over the cupbearer of Hyrcanus, who put Antipater to death by poison as he was one day dining with Hyrcanus (43 B.C.).

Thus Antipater had fallen, but the power of his family was not diminished thereby. One of his sons, Herod, had already shown his energy as governor of Galilee; he now displayed his craft in adapting himself to the vicissitudes of the supreme Roman power. A closing struggle between Herod and Antigonus--the last representative of the Asmonæan family--terminated in Herod’s favour. Antigonus was beheaded at Antioch by order of Mark Antony, “supposing he could in no other way bend the minds of the Jews so as to receive Herod whom he had made king in his stead” (Josephus).

On the news of the battle of Actium (31 B.C.), Herod lost no time in passing over to the winning side. Though aware of his loyalty to Antony, Octavian confirmed him in his kingship. It is an eternal blot upon Herod’s character that he swept away the last representatives of the Asmonæan family. It is true, he considered this indispensable to the security of his throne. By princely gifts he kept the Romans on his side, though the concessions of Cæsar and the senate were sufficiently justified by the proof of his capacity as a governor. He put down Arabian robbers, created magnificent cities, and helped his people in times of famine. Yet the Jews were never drawn to his person; he was after all only an Edomite, and he curried favour with a heathen power. Herod died 4 B.C. Mommsen, the historian of the Roman Empire, has said that there is no royal house of any age in which such bloody domestic quarrels raged.

His dominions were apportioned among his sons Archelaus, Antipas and Philip. Archelaus became ethnarch of Idumæa, Judea, and Samaria, with the exception of certain cities; Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peræa; Philip, tetrarch of Trachonitis, Batanæa, Gaulanitis and Paneas. This arrangement soon came to an end, so far as the government of Archelaus was concerned. He was deposed by Augustus, and his dominions were incorporated in the province of Syria, but specially entrusted to a procurator. The vicissitudes of the other governments we cannot here follow. Herod Agrippa had for a time the realm of his grandfather, but after his death (44 A.D.) the whole of Palestine came under the direct authority of Rome, and was ruled by procurators (Pontius Pilate, 26-36 A.D.) under the supervision of the governor of Syria.

The Jews had wished this, but the oppressiveness of the new rule was powerfully felt. Discontent became rife. At length Gessius Florus disregarded justice to such an extent that war became inevitable. In Jerusalem the war party obtained the predominance. Preparation was made for the defence of the country, which was mapped out into districts, each with its own commander. The man responsible for Galilee was Josephus, a Pharisee, but destined to become a friend of the Romans, and the historian of the war. Nero, when informed of the threatening state of affairs, summoned the general, Vespasian, and entrusted him with the conduct of the war against the revolters. Vespasian’s son, Titus, brought two legions from Alexandria; he himself proceeded to Antioch, and took command of another legion together with auxiliary troops. The scene of war was at first in Galilee.

The Jews met with great misfortunes, but this only intensified the fanatical excitement of the party of zealots, which obtained the upper hand in Jerusalem. Vespasian adopted a waiting attitude, and was at length precluded from taking a decisive step by grave news from Rome. Vitellius had followed Otho as emperor, but the legions in the East disapproved, and in July, 67, Vespasian was acclaimed emperor. He hastened to Rome, leaving the siege of Jerusalem to his son Titus. For two years party strife had raged in the city. The priestly aristocrats were accused of treachery; the zealots were too obviously careful for nothing but the intoxication of an otherworldly enthusiasm.

Many false prophets arose and led many astray, as an apocalyptic passage in the Gospel says; Josephus asserts that they were suborned by the tyrants (_i.e._ by the dominant faction) to keep the people from deserting. At length the end came. The city and temple were destroyed. The golden altar of incense, the golden candlestick and the Book of the Law were taken to Rome and exhibited to the populace in the triumph of Vespasian and Titus.

Still, though the temple was destroyed, the Jewish religion remained, and the wonder is that the Pharisees and teachers of the Law should have been able so skilfully to adjust the religious and social systems to the altered circumstances. Could the Jews have put aside the hope of a sudden divine intervention, and devoted themselves to the task of witnessing for righteousness within the wide limits of the Roman world, the Jewish people would yet have recovered from even such a great humiliation. But the transcendentalism which pervades so much of the later Jewish literature was too deeply seated to be expelled from the national mind. And the command of the emperor Hadrian that Jerusalem should be rebuilt as a Roman colony, was the spark which rekindled the flame of revolt.

Again the Jews in Palestine flew to arms with the sympathy of the entire Jewish world. Their leader was a certain Simon, surnamed Bar Kosiba, or Bar Kocheba, who claimed to be the Messiah, and was recognised as such even by Rabbi Alciba. His coins bear the legend “Simon, Prince of Israel.” He actually succeeded in “liberating” Jerusalem; the sacrificial system, too, was probably restored. Julius Severus had to be brought from Britain to crush the rebellion. The closing struggle took place at Bether, now Bittir, to the southwest of Jerusalem. After a heroic resistance the fortress was taken, Bar Kocheba having been already slain. The war had probably lasted three and a half years (132-135 A.D.).

The history of the expansion of Judaism from a national to a universal religion has too many lacunæ for us to attempt it here. We have but given the outward history of the people which was the appointed bearer of the monotheistic idea. These facts are themselves highly significant. They show the wonderful receptivity of the Jewish race; they also show that there was, at least, in certain heroes of the race, a moral enthusiasm which converted all experiences, as well as all intellectual acquisitions, into the basis of an ever higher and nobler faith in God. The evolution, however, of pure spiritual religion was far from complete when the old Jerusalem passed away forever, and the name of Israel had become little more than a rhetorical archaism.

HEBREW HISTORY IN OUTLINE

A PRELIMINARY SURVEY COMPRISING A CURSORY VIEW OF THE SOURCES OF HEBREW HISTORY, THE SWEEP OF EVENTS, AND A TABLE OF CHRONOLOGY

The modern historian knows as little of the origin of the Hebrews as he knows of the beginnings of the racial history of any other nation. The Hebrew traditions, according to which the race originated in Chaldea, and migrated thence under Father Abraham, are familiar to every one through the Bible records. There is no reason to doubt that here, as elsewhere, the national tradition represents at least a general outline of the historical truth. But the scientific historian of to-day looks askance at all unverified traditions of antiquity, and it is becoming more and more common to begin the history of Israel with the Egyptian sojourn, or at least to treat the prior history of the race as merely traditional.

There are ethnologists, indeed, who regard the Hebrews as primarily of Egyptian origin; but such a theory is only tenable on the assumption that the entire Semitic race came originally from the valley of the Nile. For it is not at all in question that the Hebrews were closely related ethnically to the Semitic races of Mesopotamia. Whatever the ultimate origin of the Semites, it need not be doubted that the Hebrews were the offshoot of that portion of the race which had settled at an early day in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. It must be admitted, however, that the present day historian has no such tangible records of the pre-Egyptian history of the Hebrews as have been discovered for the early period of Babylonian history.

Even as regards the Egyptian sojourn of the Hebrews, our records are by no means so secure as could be wished. Despite patient searching, the monuments of Egypt fail to reveal any traces of the Jewish captivity. A few years ago it was thought that a monument discovered by Professor Flinders Petrie, in the tomb of Meneptah at Thebes, had at last furnished the long looked for mention of the people of Israel. As Meneptah, the son and successor of Ramses II, was believed to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus, this inscription naturally excited the widest curiosity and the most eager expectations. But when fully elucidated, the record was found to contain merely a somewhat doubtful reference to the Hebrews as a people existing at the time of Meneptah, throwing no light whatever on the vexed question of the Exodus. No other reference to the people of Israel has been found in the Egyptian records. Of course, such a record may exist as yet undiscovered; but as the task of searching the Egyptian monuments goes on, this becomes increasingly improbable. It would appear that national egoism, which is the birthright of every people, gave to the Egyptian sojourn an importance in the eyes of the Hebrews themselves, which it did not possess for their captors. There is little reason, therefore, to suppose that the Hebrews made any important impression on the course of Egyptian history.

It is quite otherwise, however, when we consider the probable influence of the Egyptian residence upon the Hebrews themselves. What they may have been, before going to Egypt, is only inferential; but there is no reason to suppose that they were other than an uncultivated, partially civilised, nomadic race. The contact with the high civilisation of the Egyptians may have had upon them some such effect as the contact with the Romans had in later times upon the barbaric German hordes. In any event it is notable that the Hebrews after their migration, and throughout the period of their subsequent history, were firmly imbued with some essentially Egyptian ideas. They alone, of ancient people other than the Egyptians, practised a circumcision. It is at least an open question whether the Hebrew belief in the immortality of the soul was not gained through contact with the people of the Nile. This entire subject, however, is too new and too deeply hedged in by prejudice and preconception, to be susceptible of full and satisfactory handling at the present time. Fortunately, the main facts of Hebrew political history may be discussed with greater certitude.

After leaving Egypt, the Hebrews settled in the region of the Jordan, and entered upon a localised national existence. But for several centuries they made too small a mark to be remembered otherwise than by vague tradition; and even at their best, they cut no very large figure in the scheme of political news in the ancient world. There was but one period when they attempted, with any measure of success, to rival their powerful neighbours. This was the brief period when David and his son Solomon occupied the throne. The wars of David, if not so extensive as those of some of his contemporaries, have left no less sanguinary records of pillage and plunder than the records of other oriental conquests; and Solomon, under whose government the kingdom reached its apex of political glory, so far succeeded in vying with other kings, that his name became a byword of magnificence to later generations, though it probably did not dazzle his contemporaries. If the national tendency toward exaggeration has not played false to the facts, Solomon established a record, in one regard at least, that has not been equalled to this day: his harem of a thousand wives and concubines has no historical counterpart.

Yet after all the Hebrew monarchy, in its golden age, must have seemed a petty state as viewed from the contemporary standpoint of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and, perhaps, even the Hittites. The absence of contemporary references is sufficient evidence of this fact. And after the death of Solomon almost every vestige of world-historical importance vanished from the divided Hebrew nation. The weak and senescent people, whose whole time of glory had compassed but two brief generations, was from this time on to struggle for national existence, with no thought of conquest; it asked only that it might be allowed to live. And this boon was vouchsafed, despite vicissitudes of fortune that would have pressed out the very life of almost any other nation.

The Assyrians and the Babylonians repeatedly put the Israelites to the sword; yet that conquered people maintained its integrity long after these persecutors had ceased to have national existence. In one sense, this time of decline had greater importance than any other period that preceded it, because its vicissitudes gave rise to that impassioned poetry of denunciation which remained, and will always remain, the chief glory of Hebrew history. Thanks largely to this poetry, the Hebrews first began to have a truly world-historical importance some centuries after the Romans effected their final dispersion. All through their life as an autonomist nation they vainly strove to vie with their neighbours in royal power, looking out upon other peoples jealously, and accepting their own insignificance with angry protest. Yet by a strange irony of fortune the despised Hebrew was to be chiefly responsible for preserving the memory of his more glorious contemporaries. For two thousand years the swords of the Assyrians and Babylonians were remembered chiefly because the stylus of the Hebrew scribe had told of their prowess.

OUR SOURCES

A little over half a century ago James Ferguson, the historian of architecture, commented on the lack of Hebrew records as follows:

“It is one of the peculiarities of the Jewish history, and certainly not one of the least singular, that all we know of them is derived from their written books. Not one monument, not one sculptured stone, not one letter of an inscription, not even a potsherd, remains to witness by a material fact the existence of the Jewish kingdom. No museum ever possessed a Jewish antiquity, while Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and all the surrounding countries teem with material evidence of former greatness, and of the people that once inhabited them.”

Half a century of investigation has altered somewhat the aspect of Hebrew archæology. It is no longer quite true that there are no Hebrew antiquities in any museum. But the number of these antiquities is so small, and their importance so slight from an historical standpoint, that Ferguson’s criticism remains true in spirit if not in letter. The most patient researches in Palestine, beginning with the famous tour of Ernest Renan, have failed to bring to light more than two or three Hebrew inscriptions, as against the tens of thousands of records from Mesopotamia. Nor is it at all probable that any startling finds will ever be excavated. In all probability the ancient records of the Hebrews have almost utterly perished, whereas in Mesopotamia there are doubtless myriads of inscribed tablets to reward the future searcher. In Palestine it is almost certain there are no such stores of buried treasure undiscovered. Nor is the reason for this paucity of antiquities hard to find. The explanation is found in the seemingly paradoxical fact that the cities of the Israelites were not destroyed in ancient times, and continued to be inhabited far into the Middle Ages, or, as in the case of Jerusalem, until the present day. It will be recalled that the Babylonian and Assyrian tablets were preserved beneath the ruins of destroyed cities, and the most important collections have come from Nineveh, the city that was overthrown in the most cataclysmic manner. It requires but a moment’s consideration to make it clear that all of the tablets that were preserved beneath the ruins of Nineveh would long since have been scattered or broken had they continued to be accessible to successive generations of that destructive animal, man. Making the application to the case of the Hebrews it is clear that their antiquities were in fact scattered and destroyed in the course of time as those of Nineveh would have been under those circumstances.

It should be added, however, that it is doubtful whether the Hebrews produced inscriptions on relatively imperishable materials in such relative abundance as did the Mesopotamians. The Hebrews came upon the historical field at a comparatively late day. It has been doubted whether any of their records were written much before the eighth or ninth century B.C.; and it is probable that they largely employed such perishable materials as the papyrus and animal skins to receive their writings. Doubtless the clay tablet of Babylonia was well known to them; indeed, they cannot have failed to be familiar with this document through the experiences of the Babylonian captivity. But it does not follow that they largely adopted the customs of their Mesopotamian cousins. There is, then, perhaps, a double reason for the paucity of ancient Hebrew inscriptions: the destructive agency of time acting upon a supply which was relatively meagre in the beginning.