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

In the Southern Kingdom of Judah the atrocities of king Manasseh made Yhwh decide to send Jerusalem into exile (2 Kgs 21:10-16). Even Josiahs reformation only could postpone but not prevent this decision (2 Kgs 22:14-20; 23:26-27). Only at the very end of the book, there is a glimpse of hope in the amnesty given to king Jehoiachin by Evil-merodach in the 37th year of the exile (2 Kgs 25:27- 30).58

The third line of thought, as found in 2 Chron 36:21, describes the exile as the land finally receiving the Sabbath rest it lacked for so many years.59 60 The exile is, thus, assessed theologically, based on the prescriptions in Lev 25:1-7 about the Sabbaths year every seventh year. The wording of 2 Chron 36:21 echoes that of Lev 26:34-35.43,60 where it is announced that if the Israelites will not obey Yhwh, they will go into exile, so that the land will, after all, receive its Sabbaths. By consequence, the exile is seen as a limited period, lasting until the establishment of the Persian empire, when Cyrus commanded to rebuild the Jerusalem temple (2 Chron 36:20.22-23). 2 Chronicles 36:21, apparently, gives the impression that everybody was deported and that the land remained without inhabitants.61 It appears that this view became the dominant meta-narrative about the past, even if the facts - Judah and especially Benjamin had inhabitants during the Babylonian exile - were more complex.62

The above-mentioned three lines of thought may well put different accents, but in their main thrust they concur: 1) the exile is a punishment for disobedience, meted out by Yhwh, and 2) the exile will be a limited period. Probably Michael A. Knibb was the first who signaled that within majority of the literature

58 Interestingly, Jehoiachin's name is mentioned in a ration list, dating to 592, which was found in Nebuchadnezzar's palace in Babylon: la-'-ú-kin sar mat ia-a-hu-du "Jehoiachin, king of the land of Judah", see B. Oded, "Observations on the Israelite/Judaean Exiles in Mesopotamia during the Eighth-Sixth Centuries bce," in Immigration and Emigration within the Ancient Near East: Festschrift E. Lipihsky (eds. K. van Lerberghe and A. Schoors; Leuven: Peeters, 1995), 210.

59 Cf. Albertz, Israel in Exile, 12-15. See also Louis Jonker,"The Exile as Sabbath Rest" OTE 20 no. 3 (2007): 703-719.

60 Lev 26 is generally viewed as having received its final form in the exilic or postexilic period, and as having been influenced in its wording by the experience of the exile. However, a comparison of Lev 26 with curses phrased in ancient Near Eastern treaties from the 9th to the 7th century bce reveals both that the curse of an exile was not foreign to pre-exilic thinking and that exile was considered to be more than only a geographical displacement. See Martién A. Halvorson-Taylor, Enduring Exile: The Metaphorization of Exile in the Hebrew Bible (VTSup 141; Leiden: Brill, 2011), 16. For examples of curses in treaties, see "The Inscriptions of Bar-Ga'yah and Mati'el from Sefire," translated by Joseph A. Fitzmeyer (COS 2.82:213-217). Cf. Hittite treaties, dating from the 14th-13th century bce, "TheTreaties between Hatti and Amurru," translated by Itamar Singer (COS 2.17:93-105).

61 Cf. also Zech 7:14.

62 Cf. Ehud Ben Zvi,"Total Exile, Empty Land and the General Intellectual Discourse in Yehud,"in The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and its Historical Contexts (eds. Ehud Ben Zvi and Christoph Levin; BZAW404; Berlin: DeGruyter, 2010), 155-168. Cf. also Becking,“We All Returned as One!" 7.

Sárospataki Füzetek 17. évfolyam

2014 I 1

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