Sárospataki Füzetek 18. (2014)

2014 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Jacob J. T. Doedens: The Return of YHWH and the End of the Exile

Jacob J.T. Doedens

them: part of them became refugees, some of their relatives and compatriots had been killed,42 others had been deported, houses had been burned down, Jerusalem and the temple had been destroyed systematically.43

Little is known about the daily life of the ones who went into exile. However, texts from Nebukadnezzar II about deportees from all kind of countries refer to forced labour:44

I forced them to work on the building of Etemenanki45 - I imposed on them the brick basket.46

It, thus, can be concluded that from the 8th till the 6th century bce, traumatic events - recurring devastation of the country, victims of war, plundering of resources, becoming refugees, and deportations into exile by the Neo-Assyrian and subsequently by the Neo-Babylonian empire - were a part of Israels and Judah’s history. Viewed sociologically, this kind of disasters etch deeply into the collective memory of a people.47 It can also be concluded that, apart from groups which were deported into exile, a part of the population stayed in its country. To this overall-picture can be added that displacement of Jewish population did not cease to be applied after the 6th century bce; during the period of the Diadochi, the

42 Cf. Middlemas, "Beyond the Myth of the Empty Land,"175: "The traditional view fails to capture the wide varieties of disasters that struck the nation. In addition to'exile', the people were subject to a lengthy siege and military engagement that led to injury, death, starvation, sickness and sexual abuse."

43 Jer 52:12-23 relates how the destruction of the city and the temple were not merely collateral damage of the war but a systematically planned operation by Nebuzaradan.

44 Smith-Christopher, "Impact of the Babylonian Exile," 25, quotes the article J. M. Wilkie, "Na- bonidus and the Later Jewish Exiles," Journal of Theological Studies 2 (1951): 34-44. Wilkie suggests that the language in Isa 52:13-53:12 about the Suffering Servant is not metaphorical but an actual representation of what forced labourers had to suffer in the exile. For examples of relative freedom in the exile, see Sklba, "Reflections on the Role of the Spirit in the Exile," 7-8.

45 "Building which is the foundation of heaven and earth", the ziggurat in Babylon dedicated to Marduk, cf. D. J. Wiseman, Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon: The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1983 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 68-71.

46 Quoted from F. H. Weissbach, Das Hauptheiligtum des Marduk in Babylon (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1938), 46-47 by Smith-Christopher, "Impact of the Babylonian Exile," 24. It is apparently not by chance that 2Kgs 24:14.16 mentions the "craftsmen and smiths" as a large group of the exiles. In using forced labour to rebuild his capital, Nebuchadnezzar followed the practices of the Assyrians, cf. Wiseman, Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon, 76. Smith-Christopher, "Impact of the Babylonian Eile," 28-33, refers also to the language of the Old Testament describing the exiles as being 'in chains', which probably is more than only metaphoric (see also Jer 40:1), and to the prophetic mention of the vengeance meted out to the Babylonians, which probably reflects how they treated the Judeans, see Psalm 137:8-9: "Hail him who pays you back your retaliation for how you treated us; hail him who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock." (Cf. Nah 3:10).

47 Cf. Smith-Christopher, “Impact of the Babylonian Exile," 19, who proposes to understand Ezekiel's'non-rational'behaviour as a form of post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Sárospataki Füzetek 17. évfolyam | 2014 | 1