Hope for the Future - Part 2

Note: This post is a continuation of Hope for the Future - Part 1


The purpose of the use of the word “comfort” in the message of Deutero-Isaiah was to turn the lamentation of the people into a hope for the future. The coming of Yahweh to liberate his people was a source of hope. It was also the beginning of his intervention in the events of history to redeem his people, as he had done in Egypt, in order to bring them back to their land.

Deutero-Isaiah’s message of hope and the assurance that God would deliver his people was spoken with authority because the invitation to the people to find comfort in Yahweh was accompanied by an exhortation to prepare the way for the Lord (Isaiah 40:3).

Deutero-Isaiah was called and sent to proclaim two great messages of hope to the people in exile. The first message was that the physical hardship imposed upon Israel and enforced by the exile was now coming to an end. The second message was that the iniquity of the nation had been pardoned. To the prophet, the change in Israel’s fortune and the restoration of the nation was based on divine forgiveness.

It is here that Israel could see once again God’s commitment to his people. It was God’s hesed, his faithful love, a love based on a covenantal relationship that moved God to forgive his rebellious people. It was because of that unfailing love that Israel’s time of servitude to alien masters had come to an end.

The expression “my people” in Isaiah 40:1 is significant in the context of the exile. When Israel was rebellious and serving other gods, God said that Israel was “not my people (Hosea 1:9). When God was angry because Israel’s heart was hardened, Israel was “this people” (Isaiah 6:9). Now that God has forgiven Israel, they are again “my people.”

The expression “my people” comes out of covenant language: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33). At Sinai, Israel became God’s special people united with God by a covenant of grace. Thus, the words “my people” express God’s desire that the covenant relationship that once bound Israel to God be restored.

The exile came because of Israel’s violation of the covenant, and as a result, Israel had to suffer under the heavy hands of the Babylonians. Now, Deutero-Isaiah’s message of hope and comfort revealed that, not withstanding the overwhelming tragedy that fell upon the nation, Israel was still God’s people and they were still the object of his love and part of his redemptive purpose for the nations.

The prophet was commanded to speak tenderly to the heart of Jerusalem. This expression is used to identify God’s love for Israel as a husband speaks tenderly (“speaks to the heart”) to his wife (Judges 19:3). This metaphor appears again in Isaiah 54:4-8:

Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband-- the LORD Almighty is his name-- the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. The LORD will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit-- a wife who married young, only to be rejected, says your God. For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you, says the LORD your Redeemer.

Several themes that appeared in the book of Lamentations, in the cry of distress of the lonely widow, appear again in this text of Deutero-Isaiah which is part of the message of hope and restoration that the prophet was preaching to Israel.

Israel had suffered shame, had been disgraced and humiliated. The prophet now proclaims that Israel would forget the shame it suffered, would remember no more the reproach of its widowhood, for Yahweh was her husband, the one calling back the abandoned wife who was deserted, distressed in spirit, and rejected. But that rejection was only for a brief moment: “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back” (v. 7).

Deutero-Isaiah’s message to Israel was that her “time of service” was over. This message of hope proclaimed by the prophet to a group of people who had lost their hope, reminded them of the time when their ancestors served as slaves in Egypt. In Babylon, most people were not put to forced labor as they had labored in Egypt, but Israel’s hard service in Babylon may be a reference to the humiliations the people suffered in exile. Israel’s time of service may be also a symbolic reference to the more than fifty years the people lived in the land of alien gods.

The message of comfort proclaimed by Deutero-Isaiah was a summons to a people who had lost hope for the future. The community’s crisis of faith and loss of hope was expressed in Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones. When the Lord explained to Ezekiel the meaning of the dry bones, the Lord said: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone’” (Ezekiel 37:11).

The crisis of faith was also expressed in the complaints of the people in which they expressed their doubt in God’s power to save them:

“Why do you say, Jacob, Why do you say, Israel, ‘The LORD is not aware of what is happening to me, My God is not concerned with my vindication’” (Isaiah 40:27 NET).

“Zion said, ‘The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me’” (Isaiah 49:14).

To counteract the despondency of the people and their hopelessness, the prophet announced that God had forgiven the nation and that announcement became a great source of hope for Israel. The people would soon return to their native land because Israel was still the object of God’s great love.

So far, in this and in my previous post, I have described the message of hope proclaimed by Deutero-Isaiah. In my next post I will focus on the messenger of hope and explain how Deutero-Isaiah’s theology provided a new understanding of Israel’s mission in the world and how his view of the transformative power of God’s word became the catalyst for the Lord’s action in history.


Other Posts on the Exile:

The Babylonian Exile

The Lonely Widow

The Tenacity of Israel’s Faith

Hope for the Future - Part 1


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Deutero-Isaiah, Exile, Lamentations, Restoration

Hope for the Future - Part 1

In a previous post, I discussed the unprecedented suffering the people of Judah experienced as the result of the destruction of the temple and of the city of Jerusalem. The book of Lamentations portrays Jerusalem as a lonely widow appealing for sympathy and comfort from anyone, especially from God.

The writer of Lamentations vividly emphasized the horrors of the devastation caused by the Babylonians and the helplessness of the population of Judah by speaking on behalf of the people and lamenting that there was no comforter for the people and the nation.

According to the writer, this lack of a comforter was evidence that God did not care for his people:

“She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her” (Lamentations 1:2).

“Her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her future; her downfall was appalling, with none to comfort her” (Lamentations 1:9).

“For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me” (Lamentations 1:16).

“Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her” (Lamentations 1:17).

“They heard how I was groaning, with no one to comfort me” (Lamentations 1:21).

“What can I say for you, to what compare you, O daughter Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter Zion?” (Lamentations 2:13).

It is clear that the use of the word “comforter” in the first two chapters of Lamentations means a helper, either human or divine. In Lamentations 2:13 a voice addresses the personified city and laments his inability to help the hurt of Jerusalem and wonders who can heal her wound, a wound that is “as deep as the sea” (v. 13).

The absence of a comforter for the wounded city and the belief that God had abandoned and forsaken his people heightened the sense of hopelessness, more so as the prayers of the people went unanswered. At the time when Israel was agonizing the most, at the moment of the people’s deepest despair, two significant events took place that changed the despair of the people into a hope for the future.

The first event was the release of Jehoiachin, the former king of Judah, from a Babylonian prison, thirty-seven years after his deportation. According to the conclusion of the book of Kings (2 Kings 25:27-30), in the thirty-seventh year of his exile (560 B.C.), Jehoiachin was set free by Evil-merodach, King of Babylon, and was given preference and a position of honor above the other kings who were vassals and captives in Babylon. The news that their anointed one, their Messiah, was alive and out of prison brought great joy to the people in exile. This event gave the exiles the assurance that there was hope for the future.

The second event was the call of a prophet to announce to the people that the exile was over:

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins” (Isaiah 40:1-2).

This unnamed prophet, popularly known as Deutero-Isaiah, came preaching a message of comfort. The message that was to bring comfort to Israel was a message of hope, a message that God had come to bring an end to the people’s suffering because he had forgiven their sins and now would deliver them from their exile.

The prophet’s use of the word “comfort” was a direct response to the cry of the people in the book of Lamentations. In Lamentations 2:13, the writer asked who could help, heal, and comfort the suffering people. Now, the prophet proclaims that the Lord was the comforter of his people:

“Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones” (Isaiah 49:13).

The Bible pictures Yahweh as the one who comforts Israel (Psalm 86:17; Isaiah 12). Deutero-Isaiah used the imagery of Yahweh as the comforter of Israel to emphasize that God has heard Israel’s appeal for a comforter and to bring the good news that their exile was coming to an end:

“For the LORD will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places” (Isaiah 51:3).

“Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the LORD has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem” (Isaiah 52:9).

The texts in Deutero-Isaiah where the word “comfort” is used have two things in common. First, the one who comforts is God and the one who is comforted is Israel. Second, the prophet uses the word “comfort” to express God’s action in helping the people and restoring them to their homeland.

Thus, the use of the word “comfort” in Deutero-Isaiah is a response to the lack of comfort in the book of Lamentations. The double use of the word “comfort” in Isaiah 40:1 expresses God’s urgency in liberating the people from their oppression. God’s urgency in delivering the exiles reflects his concern for the spiritual well-being of his people. After more than five decades in exile, many people were turning away from God and little by little they allowed their faith to grow cold, gradually accepting the culture and the religion of their captors. Thus, this threat to Israel’s faith led to the urgency of the prophet’s message. God’s urgency may also reflect his desire to renew Israel’s mission in the world, a theme that will be the subject of a future post.

Other Posts on the Exile:

The Babylonian Exile

The Lonely Widow

The Tenacity of Israel’s Faith

Hope for the Future - Part 1 (Present post)

Hope for the Future - Part 2 (Forthcoming)


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Deutero-Isaiah, Exile, Lamentations, Restoration

The Tenacity of Israel’s Faith

In my last post on the exile, I described the devastation of Judah caused by the Babylonian invasion and the anger and despair of the people as expressed in the book of Lamentations. When one considers the devastation caused by the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and the deportation of the people to Babylon, one would expect that such a comprehensive devastation of a nation might bring about the end of their religious life. However, it did not.

The history of Israel during the Babylonian exile is very sketchy. Since the biblical sources do not provide enough information about Israel’s life in Babylon, it is difficult to recreate the conditions of the people in exile. The book of Kings ends with the destruction of Jerusalem to which an appendix was added to announce the release of Jehoiakim in 560 B.C., after thirty-seven years in prison, by Evil-merodach, the son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 25:27-30).

A sketchy history of the exile can be developed by compiling information from several different sources. The book of Chronicles ends with the fall of Jerusalem, although some of the narratives dealing with the temple and its cultic functionaries may reflect a post-exilic situation. An appendix to the book of Chronicles describes Cyrus’s proclamation giving liberty to the exiles (2 Chronicles 36:22-23). The writings of Ezekiel and Deutero-Isaiah also give a snapshot of life during the exile. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah deal with events that happened at the end of the exile, primarily the return of the Jewish people from Babylon and the rebuilding of the temple.

The people of Judah not only adapted to their circumstances, but they emerged from exile with a renewed sense of mission and with a new form of religious faith that developed through the adversity of life in Babylon. In fact, it was the suffering and affliction of the exile that forced the leaders of the nation to reevaluate their religious experience in Babylon, an act that eventually gave birth to Judaism.

There is no denial that many Judeans lost their faith in Yahweh, since they were unable to understand how the devastation of their nation fit into the faith they had come to embrace, a faith which declared that Yahweh was their protector and the one who fought for them. Many people were unable to reconcile the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple by the Babylonian army with their view of the inviolability of Zion in a way that could preserve their faith.

The vast majority of Judeans, however, emerged from the ordeal of the exile with the belief that Yahweh had brought about the events that led to the destruction of the nation because of the disobedience of the people. They concluded that Yahweh had evoked the curses stipulated by the covenant and had exacted judgment and punishment on his people for their violation of the demands of the covenant. Although many Judeans were indignant with the initial devastation, a feeling expressed in the book of Lamentations, the people came to accept God’s judgment upon the nation. It was in the midst of the paroxysms of hopelessness that the people’s faith matured and they learned to accept the affliction they had suffered at the sovereign hand of their God.

The people who were deported to Babylon were deprived of the moorings that gave them their identity as the people of God. They were uprooted from their native land and taken to a pagan environment. They were removed from their cultural environment, from their place of worship, and from their ancestral land and forced to sing the songs of Zion in a foreign land (Psalm 137:4). Many of those who were forcibly taken to Babylon, died there and never again saw their homeland.

As a result of the exile, many changes took place in the religious and social life of Israel. There was a challenge for the people to change and to innovate if they were to survive as a people and as a nation. As a result of the exile, there were three main areas where changes precipitated radical results.

First, the monarchy had ceased to exist, and kingship was never reconstituted. The end of kingship challenged the divine promise that David’s dynasty would continue forever. The possible end of the Davidic dynasty created a crisis of credibility: Would God honor his promises to David?

Second, the temple was in ruins and the rituals carried on there were no more. The destruction of the temple was devastating to the religious faithful because they thought that the temple was inviolable. The destruction of the temple by the Babylonians shattered that theology. The destruction of the temple created a crisis of faith: How could God be worshiped without a temple?

Third, the land, which was considered holy, had been a unifying factor in the religious formation of the nation. However, as the result of the exile, Yahwism had been torn from its nation, cult, and land. As a result of the loss of the land, an important change took place in the people’s understanding of their God. The people understood that Yahweh was not a God localized within the boundaries of the land, but that he was a universal God, a God who also could be worshiped in Babylon.

Other changes took place in exile that would forever change the character and the nature of the people of Judah. The new generation of Judeans who were born in Babylon forgot their native language, Hebrew, and adopted Aramaic, the language of their conquerors, as their new language.

The exile revealed the tenacity of Israel’s faith. Deprived of the temple and of a holy city, the exile brought about the need for personal religious response. Religion became individualized and Jerusalem ceased to be the only place where the worship of God was possible.

The exile brought about the need for an agonizing reappraisal and refinement of their religious traditions. When the people were taken to Babylon, they took with them many records and documents that later were used to preserve their legal, historical, and religious traditions.

In exile a greater emphasis was placed on preserving their religious and cultural heritage in writing. The preservation of the ancient heritage of the nation included many of the traditions that were transmitted orally from generation to generation, the preaching of the prophets, the rituals of the temple, and the teachings of the priests. Canonical activity quickened in Babylon as holy books began to replace the holy temple. In exile, Israel became the people of the book.

Although the synagogues probably existed before the destruction of the temple, in exile the synagogue became a place for prayer, study, and local worship and it served as a temporary replacement for the temple in Jerusalem. The synagogue “contributed to the continuity of the Jewish people by maintaining a unique identity and a portable way of worship despite the destruction of the Temple.”

Finally, the exile brought about the need for a theological response to the events leading up to the exile. The people understood that Israel had been unable to keep the covenant. All three major prophets of the exile declared the need for a new kind of covenant, a new saving act of God. In exile there was the development of the idea of monotheism, remnant theology, and the concept of the suffering servant, an idea that grew out of the remnant concept.

Although living in a strange land, the people never forgot the heritage they left behind and Jerusalem remained in their thoughts and their hearts. The longing of the people for their native land was expressed by the words of the psalmist: “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy” (Psalm 137:5-6).

In exile, many of the people maintained their distinctiveness as a people and it was this tenacity that saved the religious traditions of the nation and gave birth to Judaism. Also living in a foreign land, the exiles retained the belief that the land of Canaan was theirs. The people never abandoned the desire and the hope to return to the land that was given to them by God as their eternal inheritance.

The exile had a deep impact on the religious and cultural life of the people of Judah. The exile destroyed the belief in the inviolability of the temple. The exile produced the view of the universality of God and that he would be with his people even in a pagan land. The exile forced the people to reevaluate the view of the uniqueness of God and reject polytheism, the worship of images, and other pagan practices. In exile, faithful observance of the Sabbath, circumcision, and strict adherence to the Law became the signs of loyalty to God.

The exile produced reactions ranging from anger and despair to acceptance and hope. In an upcoming post, I will address the message of hope proclaimed by the exilic prophet known as Deutero-Isaiah.

Other Posts on the Exile:

The Babylonian Exile

The Lonely Widow


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Babylon, Exile, Judaism

The Lonely Widow

In my previous post, I gave a brief introduction to the events that led to the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and the exile of Judah to Babylon. In this post I will describe the horrors experienced by the covenant community in the aftermath of the siege of Jerusalem. The despair of the people and the intense agony that followed the destruction of Jerusalem was poignantly expressed by the author of the book of Lamentations.

The readers of Lamentations are given a vivid picture of the pain and the suffering faced by the covenant community during and after the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem. The writer gives the reason for the incomprehensible tragedy that befell the nation: “The LORD gave full vent to his wrath; he poured out his hot anger, and he kindled a fire in Zion that consumed its foundations” (Lamentations 4:11).

The book opens with of portrayal of the city of Jerusalem as a widow that has been shamed, rejected, and abandoned: “How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave” (Lamentations 1:1).

The book of Lamentations portrays the city of Jerusalem as a woman in the deepest state of desolation. The city now is left desolate, a city that once was full of people. Jerusalem is portrayed as a widow suffering and mourning for her children. The city that once was a great city receiving the homage of the nations is now but a vassal, paying tribute to its overlord.

The portrayal of Jerusalem as a widow conveys the idea of mourning and abandonment, and it is meant to evoke pity from the reader. Pity is what Israel desires to receive from God, but the writer welcomes pity from anyone who will hear the people’s cry: “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the LORD inflicted on the day of his fierce anger” (Lamentations 1:12).

The image of the city as a widow is also meant to evoke a sense of desolation and loneliness, of pain and suffering, of horror and outrage. The outrage of the women of Judah was to watch the death of their own children: “Should women eat their offspring, the children they have borne?” (Lamentations 2:20). The reason for this outrage is because without children, there is no future.

The graphic picture of Jerusalem as a lonely widow provides a small glimpse of the great devastation that came upon the nation. Kings and people had built an impregnable city hoping to find protection behind its walls, trying to escape the judgment and the death proclaimed by the prophets, but not knowing that those mighty walls of protection were no protection at all against the God who had brought in the Babylonians as his instrument of divine justice. No city is so impregnable that it might become immune to God’s righteous judgment.

Before disaster fell on Jerusalem, optimistic prophets proclaimed that the temple of God in Jerusalem would guarantee that the city would never become a desolation. But now the ruins of the city have become a striking reminder that those prophets were wrong: “Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen oracles for you that are false and misleading” (Lamentations 2:14). It was because the people believed the message of the optimistic prophets that they neglected their duties to God and failed to heed the call to repentance.

The ruins of the city and of the temple were also vivid reminders to the people who took a low view of human life. Jeremiah had warned the people: “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever” (Jeremiah 7:5-7).

The devastation of Judah was a visible demonstration of the great moral failure of the people who refused to respect the dignity of the poor and the other weak members of their society. The tears shed by the lonely widow were the tears of remorse for the people’s violation of the covenant. Judah did not go into exile because of their faithfulness to God. Rather, the nation was driven into exile and hard servitude because of the people’s disobedience to their God.

The desperate situation of Judah after the destruction of Jerusalem is forcefully expressed in Lamentations 1:2: “She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.”

Judah’s friends and allies not only abandoned her but they also dealt treacherously with her. Faced with the possibility of reprisal for supporting Judah, her allies not only assumed an attitude of indifference but they also became hostile to her situation. Left alone to confront the powerful Babylonian army, Judah’s army was no match against the invading forces.

With the destruction of the temple, the roads leading to Jerusalem were empty, people did not come to the city to worship and celebrate, for the gates of the city were desolate and the temple servants had been taken away to Babylon (Lamentations 1:4).

The pathetic picture of a community mourning the destruction of its religious life reflects the pain and devastation caused by the Babylonian army. The city now remains desolate. The people, with their eyes full of tears, express their bitterness over the destruction of their beloved city and temple. As in the days of old, the people were crying: “Ichabod, the glory has departed” (1 Samuel 4:21).

The devastation of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple took place because the people had forgotten the Lord. The people of Judah abandoned the covenant, they had trusted in themselves, and had put all their hopes on deceptive words, words that could not deliver them from the appointed hour of judgment.

How could such a judgment of unbelievable proportion afflict Judah? How could so much sorrow, and so much pain come upon the city of God, upon his holy mountain, a city beautiful in elevation, the city of the great king (Psalm 48:1-2)?

The writer again gives the reason for the catastrophe that came upon Jerusalem: “Because the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions” As a result, Jerusalem’s children have gone away, captives before her enemies. Because of her rebellion, Zion’s majesty has departed, her princes fled without strength before the pursuer ((Lamentations 1:5-6). These words are very descriptive of the reason for Judah’s exile. The punishment was from above, but the cause was from within.

Israel had rebelled against their God. They had gone after other gods and now they are experiencing the consequences of that disobedience. Now, in their distress they cry out to God. Their lament is a cry for help and a plea for mercy, which they cannot find. It is for this reason that the people acknowledged that God has brought this devastation: “It was for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in the midst of her” (Lamentations 4:13). With the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the people, the threat of the covenant curse had been invoked (Deuteronomy 28:47-57), and the righteousness of Yahweh had been vindicated.

The cry of the lonely widow is the voice of a woman who was alive, but a woman in pain, broken by her suffering. The nation was taken by force from her heritage. The exile of Judah raised questions about the destiny of the nation. Although the exile had diminished the hope of the people, they were still the people of God, even though they were in a strange land.

The people of Judah still had a hope for a future because their relationship with Yahweh was based on hesed, on covenantal love, a love that is faithful, a love that forgives and redeems. In the midst of the hurt and suffering experienced by the community, the writer of Lamentations appeals to Yahweh’s faithfulness: “Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored; renew our days as of old – unless you have utterly rejected us, and are angry with us beyond measure” (Lamentations 5:21-22).

But, the Lord had not utterly rejected his people. To the contrary, the exile served as an opportunity for Yahweh to renew Israel’s mission in the world, as we shall see in an upcoming post.

Posts in the Series:

The Babylonian Exile


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Exile, Lamentations, Widow

The Babylonian Exile

The fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and the deportation of the people of Judah to exile in Babylon did not come suddenly, without a warning. Prophets like Jeremiah, Ezekiel and others had been warning the people of Judah that unless they repented and turned to God, the curses of the covenant would be invoked upon the nation and the people would be removed from the land which they had received as their inheritance.

The exile of Judah began when Nebuchadnezzar and his army arrived in Jerusalem. In 598 B.C. Babylon advanced against Judah. Egypt’s promised military help did not materialize because they were unable to circumvent the mighty Babylonian army: “And the king of Egypt did not come again out of his land, for the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the Brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates” (2 Kings 24:7).

Nebuchadnezzar’s army came up to Jerusalem and besieged the city. During the siege Jehoiakim, king of Judah died. Jeremiah 22:18-19 and 36:30 suggest that Jehoiakim was probably assassinated. Jehoiachin (his name appears as Jeconiah in 1 Chronicles 3:16 and Coniah in Jeremiah 22:24), the son of Jehoiakim, was installed as king of Judah at the age of 18 (2 Kings 24:8).

According to the Biblical text, Nebuchadnezzar himself came to Jerusalem while his servants were besieging the city (2 Kings 24:11). According to the Babylonian Chronicle, Nebuchadnezzar entered Jerusalem on March 16, 597 B.C. Jehoiachin, along with his mother and members of the royal family, his officers, advisors, and other government leaders surrendered to the king of Babylon.

At that time, the first deportation of Judah took place. According to 2 Kings 24:12-16, 10,000 people were taken into exile, including the royal family, their servants, and the palace officials. In addition, another 8,000 professional people were also taken to Babylon. However, according to Jeremiah 52:58, only 3023 people were taken captive in the 7th year of Nebuchadnezzar (597 B.C.).

The second deportation of Judah took place in 587 B.C. during the reign of Zedekiah, the last King of Judah. Zedekiah was a weak ruler who was unable to stand up against the anti-Babylonian forces in Judah and who was afraid of popular opinion. Probably incited by the prophets who were taken to Babylon and by the nobles who formed part of the anti-Babylonian forces in Judah, Zedekiah rebelled against Babylon.

In 588 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah and Jerusalem was blockaded: “In the ninth year of his [Zedekiah’s] reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem and laid siege to it. And they built siegeworks all around it. So the city was besieged till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah” (2 Kings 25:1-2).

In 587 B.C. Jerusalem was captured and Zedekiah fled from the city, but was he captured, blinded, and deported to Babylon (2 Kings 25:5-7).

After the deportation of Zedekiah, Nebuzaradan, an army official of the Babylonian king, burned down the Temple, the royal palace, all the great houses of Jerusalem, and all the important buildings in the city. He also took into exile the people who remained in the city, including the people who had earlier deserted to the king of Babylon.

The exile of Judah brought drastic changes to the fabric of Judahite society. As a result of the exile, the history of Israel took a different turn. The political and religious structures that existed in Judah prior to the exile were no more and the lives of those who went to Babylon changed radically. Life in exile changed the people so much that they would never be quite the same again.

From a human perspective, the transformation of the political and religious life of Judah could have been considered the end of the political and religious existence of Judah. And yet, the vitality of Israel’s faith and the presence of God with his oppressed people give evidence that the history of Judah did not come to an end with the destruction of the temple and the burning of Jerusalem, nor with the murder of men, women, and children, and not even with the removal of the people from their ancestral land.

Instead, the exile can be seen as the dawn of a new beginning for Israel. Although the exile caused the end of the monarchy and the cessation of religious life in the Temple, the exile also became a time of purification, a time when Israel paid “double for all her sins” (Isaiah 40:2). But the exile was also a time when Israel would once again recognize Yahweh’s faithfulness to his people and experience the great deliverance Yahweh would again reveal to Israel.

The exile had a broad impact on the religious and social life of Israel. It was during Israel’s exile in Babylon that the nation’s vitality was supremely tested. The people of Judah were rooted out of their homeland, separated from their cultural values, dispossessed of their religious moorings, taken into captivity and yet, they were able to maintain their religious and ethnic identity.

However, the transition was not easy. At the beginning of their exile, there was a re-evaluation of the nation’s identity. The destruction of the temple and the deportation of the people forced the nation to look again at their relationship with Yahweh. There was a crisis of credibility in Israel’s God. Many people questioned Yahweh’s commitment to his people and his power to deliver the nation from the hands of Babylon.

This feeling of desperation and anguish is reflected in the words of the Psalmist:

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!" How shall we sing the LORD's song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy! (Psalm 137:1-6).

This psalm contains the words of an individual whose faith in God was affected by the events of the exile. With the destruction of Jerusalem, their holy city, the people of Judah were wondering about their future, whether their God had been defeated by the Babylonian god, or whether the mighty saving acts of God in the past had become irrelevant in the present.

Thus, the words of Psalm 137 is a genuine expression of what the people were thinking and feeling. These words express the confusion and despair of a people who believed that their sins had alienated them from God, so much so that some people believed that they had been summarily rejected by God.

In upcoming posts, I will continue to study the impact of the exile on the life of Israel.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Deportation, Exile, Jeremiah, Nebuchadnezzar, Zedekiah