the tindog coffeehouse

Welcome to summer! I’m officially 9 months into my year-long commitment to read through the Bible, and perhaps more importantly, I’m officially done with the historical and prophetic books of the Old Testament. After falling behind in Jeremiah, I moved on and came back as soon as I had the chance, and now I’m happy to report I’m fully back on schedule. Which means that after five months of being in the Old Testament, I can finally get back to the New Testament starting this week. I’m really looking forward these last few months as the remaining books are probably the most applicable to day-to-day life. (Not that I don’t love books like Habakkuk and Obadiah, of course.)

But before I jump back into the New Testament, I wanted to look back at the Old one for a moment. Prior to starting this adventure, I had a rough idea of Israel’s history, but I didn’t fully understand it. Nine months later, I still don’t fully understand it, but I do have a little bit better grasp of it.

Essentially, the Old Testament tracks the history of Israel from the birth of mankind to about 400 BC. In that time, you see the origins of Israel’s twelve tribes, how they came to be enslaved in Egypt, were led out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, formed a united kingdom which later split into two separate kingdoms, how each of those kingdoms was conquered, and how God restored the southern kingdom of Judah in preparation for the Messiah. And one particularly prominent theme throughout that history is that of exile, specifically Judah’s exile in Babylon.

The story of the exile begins about 930 BC, when the kingdom of Israel splits into Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Each one is ruled by a bunch of different kings, some good but most of them bad (and some really bad) until 722 BC, when the northern kingdom is conquered and taken into captivity by the Assyrians, at which point they pretty much disappear forever. Judah, however, remains until 586 BC, at which point they are conquered by the Babylonians (who had previously conquered their northern enemy Assyria). Jerusalem falls to Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC, and the Jews are exiled to Babylon for 70 years before being released by the Persian king Cyrus, who had led a successful conquest of Babylonia.

Pretty straightforward, right?

From a narrative standpoint, everything makes sense. God punishes Israel for its extreme chronic disobedience by letting it be wiped out by Assyria. Then He punishes Judah for its disobedience by letting it be conquered by Babylon. But God remains faithful to His people and eventually frees them, honoring His promise to not completely destroy His chosen people. It’s a great story of a loving but gracious God punishing His children but giving them another chance.

Except, well, the Babylonian exile wasn’t exactly that much of a punishment. Yes, a lot of people died during 2½-year siege of Jerusalem and subsequent military conquest. Yes, it was a violent campaign that destroyed entire towns. But once the Jews were finally led off to Babylon, they didn’t seem to mind it. Why?

According to JewishHistory.org:

Eleven years before the destruction of the Temple, King Nebuchadnezzar had taken some 10,000 of the elite among the Jews and transplanted them to Babylon in an attempt to weaken Judea and prevent it from rebelling. In so doing, he unwittingly set up the next 2,500 years of Jewish history. In little more than a decade, those 10,000 Jews — which included prophets and sages like Ezekiel, Daniel and Ezra, as well as the entire Sanhedrin – created the foundation of the Jewish future. …

When the Temple was destroyed and throngs of bedraggled Jewish survivors were forcibly exiled to Babylon they did not come to a completely non-Jewish country. The new exiles arrived to a community that already had synagogues, Torah academies and other institutions teeming with prophets, scholars and leaders. …

Babylon became such a home-away-from-home that the Talmud (Kesubos 111a) went so far as to say that one who lives in Babylon is as though he lives in the Land of Israel, and will be spared the “birth pangs of the Messiah,” the terrible sufferings that will herald his coming. There is even an opinion in the Talmud that Jews were forbidden from leaving Babylon until God would come and redeem them. They should not go back to the Land of Israel on their own. Even though that was not the accepted opinion in Jewish law, and it was not accepted in practice, nevertheless it was an idea that was floated about. Such an idea could gain currency only if there was a hospitable climate.

In other words, instead of Babylonian exile being a merciless punishment inflicted upon the disobedient Jews, it was more like a parent sending their rebellious toddler to his room for a time out. Certainly, it got their attention, but it wasn’t nearly as drastic or as permanent as what happened to the ten tribes of the northern kingdom. In fact, when Cyrus finally did release the Jews in 538 BC, only a handful headed back home. More would migrate back to Judah over the next hundred years, but some actually never left. And even after a revival led by Ezra and the reconstruction of the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem, by the time of the last Old Testament prophet Malachi in 430 BC, the Jews had fallen back into their old pre-exile ways.

I suppose this kinder, gentler version of the exile still fits the Old Testament narrative of disobedience, punishment, and grace. But I have to admit that it caught me off guard. I guess I was expecting more wailing and gnashing of teeth, especially considering the dire warnings of so many prophets. Nevertheless, exile is exile and God fulfilled the prophecies just as He said He would, just as He also fulfilled His promise of a Messiah 400 years later.

Previously:
Bible reading: Jeremiah is a bullfrog
Bible reading: At the halfway mark
Thoughts on Genesis
Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy