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 (2) Open Promises In the prophetical scriptures, there are not only promises about Yhwh’s return to the temple, but also about the return of the people from exile. Even the hope for the return of the Northern Kingdom had not been given up, as phrased in Amos 9:13-15, Nah 2:2 and Jer 31:16-22. Isaiah 27:13 foretells how the “great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship Yhwh on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.” Ezekiel foresees the restoration of a reunited kingdom under the Davidic dynasty and gathered around Yhwh’s sanctuary (Ezek 37:15-28). In Ezek 48:30-35 the names of the twelve (!) tribes are inscribed on the twelve gates of a new Jerusalem. Jeremiah 31:31 describes Yhwh’s new covenant with Israel and Judah. Ezekiel 37:1-14 envisages the resurrection of Israel. There will be a new king David (Ezek 37:24) and a new prophet Elijah (Mai 3:23). Prophecies about the return from exile perhaps reach their apex in announcing that also other nations, the goyim, will turn to Yhwh (Amos 9:12; Isa 2:1-4; 49:6; Zech 8:20-23). (3) Personal Devotion Written down personal prayers give a look into how their authors viewed the return from exile. The prayer in Ezra 9:6-15 describes the people who returned from the Babylonian exile as only a ‘remnant’. Nehemiah 9:36-37 states that the returnees are still slaves. “[A] 11 that ended’ was Neo-Babylonian hegemony, to be replaced by that of the Persians.”64 Personal devotion, thus, demonstrates that the exile was not perceived as having finished with the return of some of the exiles from Babylon. (4) Apocalyptic Views In Dan 9:24-27, the period of the exile receives an enormous prolongation. The angels explains to Daniel that the period of 70 years has to be understood as a period of 70 x 7 = 490 years, that is, as “seventy weeks of years”.65 The explanation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Dan 2:36-45 similarly illustrates that a number of empires will succeed each other before “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed (Dan 2:44), thus prolonging the period of exile and being under foreign sovereignty.66 It can, therefore, be concluded that a general belief of an extended exile’ is present already in the ‘post-exilic’ period described in the Old Testament. In apocalyptic literature, it was explained that the 70 years of exile about which Jeremiah had prophesied, had to be understood as a longer period. Prophecies about a restoration of whole Israel, about the return of Yhwh and about the ‘coming in’ 64 Smith-Christopher, "Impact of the Babylonian Exile," 22. 65 According to Halvorson-Taylor, Enduring Exile, 9, probably to be explained as a statement that the exile would end during the crisis under Antiochus IV Epiphanes. 66 Cf. Albertz, Israel in Exile, 41 -44. Sárospataki Füzetek 17. évfolyam [ 2014 | 1 39
