Babylonian captivity
Babylonian captivity, or
Babylonian exile, is the name generally given to the deportation and exile of the
Jews of the ancient
Kingdom of Judah to
Babylon by
NebuchadnezzarThree separate occasions are mentioned (
Jeremiah 52:28-30). The first was in the time of
Jehoiachin in
597 BCE, when the
temple of Jerusalem was partially despoiled, and a number of the leading citizens were removed. After eleven years (in the reign of
Zedekiah) a fresh rising of the Judaeans occurred; the city was razed to the ground, and a further deportation ensued. Finally, five years later, Jeremiah records a third captivity. After the overthrow of Babylonia by the
Persians,
Cyrus gave the Jews permission to return to their native land (
537 BCE), and more than forty thousand are said to have availed themselves of the privilege. (See
Jehoiakim;
Ezra;
Nehemiah and
Jews.) Previously, the
northern tribes had been taken captive by
Assyria and never returned; survivors of the Babylonian exile were all that remained of the Children of Israel. The Persians had a different political philosophy of managing conquered territories than the Babylonians or Assyrians. Under the Persians, local personages were put into power to govern the local populace.
When the Israelites returned home however, they found a mixture of peoples practicing a religion very similar to their own, but not identical to it. Hostility grew up between the returning Jews and the
Samaritans, the mixed-blood people of the region, which has continued to the present day. According to the Bible, the Samaritans were foreign peoples, settled into the area by the kings of
Assyria, who had partially adopted the Israelite religion; although there are actually many other conflicting theories about the Samaritans origins, many of them may have simply been Israelites who had remained behind, and thus had had no part in the sweeping changes of the Israelite religion brought about among the captives. Or perhaps, alternatively; the fierce purity of the Jewish religion and cultural identity of the Babylonian Jews returning from exile, seventy years after their deportation, completely eclipsed the partial fate of the mixed group of Israelite survivors, who had practised paganism for hundreds of years in Israel (including the worship of a golden bull), and who had inter-married with the peoples sent into the territory by the Assyrians (and which was strictly forbidden by Mosaic Torah 'law', and punished by Nehemiah). The hatred and disgust of the Hebrew Judeans for the Samaritans prompted
Jesus of Nazareth to later propound the parable of the "
good Samaritan".
The Babylonian Captivity and the subsequent return from captivity (back to Israel), was seen as one of the great pivotal acts in the drama between God and His people, Israel. Just as they had been predestined for, and saved from, slavery in
Egypt; now the Israelites were predestined to be punished by God through the Babylonians, and then saved once more. This experience has had a number of serious effects upon Judaism and the Jewish culture. The current
Hebrew script was adopted at this time, replacing the very different Israelite script.
This period saw the last high-point of
Biblical prophecy in the person of
Ezekiel, followed by the emergence of the central role of the
Torah in Jewish life; according to many
historical-critical scholars, it was edited and redacted during this time; and saw the beginning of the
canonization of the Bible, which provided a central text for Jews. This process coincided with the emergence of scribes and sages as Jewish leaders (see
Ezra and the
Pharisees). Prior to exile, the people of Israel had been organized according to tribe; afterwards they were organized by clans, only the tribe of
Levi continuing in its 'special role'. After this time, there were always sizable numbers of Jews living outside
Eretz Israel; thus, it also marks the beginning of the "
Jewish diaspora" (unless you consider the
Assyrian Captivity of Israel to have been the beginning).
The above section incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, and may be adapted from the original.In
Rabbinic literature, Babylon is a metaphor for the current Jewish diaspora.
Babylonian Captivity is also used to refer to other historical events, including:
*The
Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy, or of the Church, which refers to the
Papacy's sojourn in
Avignon,
France between
1309 and
1378, when the Popes were seen by some as "captives" of the French Kings. See
Avignon Papacy.
*
Babylonian Slavery Egyptian Slavery was also used by the workforce working in the
Stalin era and in
Nazi concentration camps, deported from central Europe following the
German-Soviet pact of 1939. Some groups were freed, like the
Poles in 1942, thanks to
Wladyslaw Sikorski's agreement with Stalin, and led by
Wladyslaw Anders to Persia. Anders was later referred to as the Polish
Moses. Most of the people had to wait until the 1945 repatriation agreement, or the 1956
Khrushchev amnesty.
* Yohanan Aharoni & Michael Avi-Yonah, "The MacMillan Bible Atlas", Revised Edition, pp. 96-106 (1968 & 1977 by Carta Ltd.).
