Sárospataki Füzetek 18. (2014)
2014 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Jacob J. T. Doedens: The Return of YHWH and the End of the Exile
The Return ofYHWH and the End of the Exile The Southern Kingdom of Judah survived during the Neo-Assyrian empire. However, Sennacherib claimed that, during his campaign against king Hezekiah of Judah in 701 b.c.e., he took 46 fortified cities and deported “200,150 people, young and old, male and female”19 from Judah. This number may be exaggerated for propagandistic reasons, but a large-scale deportation may well have an historical reality, as results of archaeology demonstrate: a large number of settlements, in the Shephelah, in Benjamin, around Jerusalem, and in the south of Judah were destroyed in the 7th century bce and remained uninhabited for decennia or even for hundreds of years.20 Juda must have been thoroughly weakened by Sennacherib’s campaign. In 609 bce, king Josiah died in the attempt to stop the army of Pharaoh Necho, who hastened towards Assyria in order to re-conquer Haran for the Assyrians.21 Judah became a vassal-state of Egypt but only for some years. Around 605, Je- hoiakim, whom Pharaoh Necho had put to the throne in Jerusalem, became a vassal of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of the Neo-Babylonian empire. However, when a campaign of Nebuchadnezzar against Egypt appeared to end in failure, Jehoiakim refrained from paying tribute to Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar was unable to react immediately, apparently he first sent troops from the neighbouring countries to Jerusalem,22 only to appear himself before Jerusalem in 597 bce,23 in the seventh year of his reign. Jehoiakim either died before or during this siege (2 Kgs 24:6), or was deported to Babylon (2 Chron 36:6). His son and successor Jehoiachin surrenders to the Babylonians.24 By surrendering, Jerusalem escaped devastation. However, Jehoiachin was taken to Babylonia, together with the treasures of the 19 "Sennacherib's Siege of Jerusalem," translated by Mordechai Cogan (COS 2:119B:303); 2 Kgs 18:13 makes no mention of deportees but only that Sennacherib "came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them." Interestingly, the number of 185,000 Assyrian soldiers who were, according to 2 Kgs 19:35, killed by the angel of Yhwh, comes relatively close to the number of deportees mentioned by Sennacherib. 20 Cf. Na'aman, Ancient Israel and Its Neighbors, 210-211, who argues that the number of 200,150 deportees may come closer to historical reality than scholars earlier suggested. 21 Cf. Jagersma, Geschiedenis van Israel, 235. With his help Necho probably intended to maintain a weakened Assyrian buffer state between Egypt and the upcoming Neo-Babylonian empire, cf. D. L. Smith-Christopher, "Reassessing the Historical and Sociological Impact of the Babylonian Exile (597/587-539 bce)," in Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions (ed. James M. Scott; JSJSup 56; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 13. Similarly argues Oded Lipschits, The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 19-20. 22 See 2 Kgs 24:2. 23 Based on the Babylonian Chronicle, the first deportation can be dated unambiguously, cf. Rainer Albertz, Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the Sixth Century B.C.E. (Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 78. 24 For a brief historical overview, see Peter R. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration: A Study of Hebrew Thought of the Sixth Century BC (London: SCM Press, 1968), 17-20; H. Jagersma, Geschiedenis van Israel in het oudtestamentisch tijdvak (Kämpen: Kok, 1984) 243-249. Sárospataki Füzetek 17. évfolyam 2014I1 31
