Sárospataki Füzetek 18. (2014)
2014 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Jacob J. T. Doedens: The Return of YHWH and the End of the Exile
The Return of YHWH and the End of the Exile do that by first looking to the data: what is known from the sources about the exile and the return? After that, I will turn to the Old Testament assessment of exile and return and to the view of Second Temple literature on the subject. Subsequently, New Testament passages will be discussed, which may imply that the exile was seen as enduring, also after the return. The article will end with a brief evaluation. It is with much pleasure that I offer this article to Prof. Dr. József Börzsönyi, one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the restoration of the Sárospatak Reformed Theological Academy, whom I first got to know when I was still studying theology in The Netherlands, not knowing that we once would meet as colleagues in Hungary. The Data: Literary and Archaeological Sources There exists hardly one date to which the beginning of the exile can be assigned; actually multiple deportations took place during two ages of Israels history. Already during the Syro-Ephraimitic war, Tiglath-pileser III conquered “Ijon, Abel- beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, Galilee, all the land of Naphtali and deported its inhabitants to Assyria,” in his campaigns from 734-732 bce.”8 Tiglath-pileser s inscriptions mention this deportation as follows: I carried of [to] Assyria the land of BIt-Humria (Israel), [... its] “auxiliary [army”,] [...] all of its people, [...] [I/they killed] Pekah, their king, and I installed Hoseah [as king] over them.9 Not so much later, the rest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel went into Assyrian exile, when, in 722 bce, Samaria was conquered. In 2 Kgs 17:3-6; 18:9-12 and in the Babylonian Chronicle, the conquest of Samaria is attributed to Shalmaneser V,10 while, in his inscriptions, Sargon II claims this siege and deportation as his own.11 2 Kings 17 gives the impression that all the people of Israel were deport8 2Kgs 15:29. See also Nadav Na'aman, Ancient Israel and Its Neighbors: Interaction and Counteraction: Collected Essays Volume I (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 60-64. 9 "Summary Inscription 4," translated by K. Lawson Younger, Jr. (COS 2.117C:288). See also the rather fragmentary passage about Israel in Tiglath-pileser's Calah Annals, referring to a total of 13,520 captives, "The Calah Annals," translated by K. Lawson Younger, Jr. (COS 2.117A: 286); cf. Na'aman, Ancient Israel and Its Neighbors, 60-61. 10 The Babylonian Chronicle 1,28 mentions about Shalmaneser (V): u,uSá-ma/ba-ra- '-in ih-te-pi "he ravaged Samaria", A. K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2000), 73. 11 According to the 'two-conquest model', Shalmaneser V died shortly after the conquest of Samaria in 722 and his successor Sargon II finished this conquest in 720, after he had secured his throne in Assyria. Another reconstruction is provided by Sung Jin Park, "A New Historical Reconstruction of the Fall of Samaria," Bib 93 (2012): 98-106. Park argues that Sargon II was not the legitimate heir to the throne. As possibly the son of Tiglath-pileser III and half-brother of Shalmaneser V, he most probably was the general who conquered Samaria, still under the Sárospataki Füzetek 17. évfolyam 201411 29
