[586 B.C.]

to aliens. We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows. But thou, O Lord, remainest for ever, thy throne from generation to generation. Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us for so long time."

At the same time the exiled, in the remembrance of their country, gave vent to accents of a depth which even Dante has never surpassed, and in which the hope of vengeance was displayed with a fierce energy.

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"By the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth: if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy."

That which has given life to the Jewish people is the feeling of patriotism carried to the extreme, the hatred for the stranger. The native land is not alone the corner of the earth in which one is born, it is the moral link uniting the members of a society in common thought so as to form one family. This small nation, surrounded and then subjugated by more numerous and stronger neighbours, from which it differed neither in race nor language, was distinguished from them by religion. This religion is the ideal form of patriotism; it dominates and fills its history. If they regret Jerusalem, it is on account of the temple. The intolerant fanaticism of the prophets, the narrow formalism of the priests, raised around the people of the Lord an invisible rampart, more insurmountable than the great wall of China. the same time, when national independence was giving way to strength, the resolute energy of the theocratical party was preparing its revival. This is one of the greatest marvels of history, and all the miracles with which this nation filled its legends are not worth those which they themselves performed by the sole power of their faith.b

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. - Isaiah xl. 1-5.

Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law.

Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.-Isaiah xlii. 24-25.

But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.

For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.

Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west;

I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth. -Isaiah xliii. 1, 3, 5, 6.

Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself;

That frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish.

That confirmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel of his messengers; that saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited; and to the cities of Judah, Ye shall be built, and I will raise up the decayed places thereof:

That saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers:

That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. Isaiah xliv. 24-28.

Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;

I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron. -Isaiah xlv. 1-2.

[586-536 B.C.]

Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle; your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a burden to the weary beast.

They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity. Isaiah xlvi. 1-2.

Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. - Isaiah xlvii. 1.

Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms.

I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.

And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it.

Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:

But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments.- Isaiah xlvii. 5–9.

Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee.

Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it.

Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter; none shall save thee. Isaiah xlvii. 13-15.

Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel. — Isaiah xlviii. 1.

AFTER hearing this sonorous prophecy of Isaiah, in which, at worst, the wish was father to the thought, we may hear what so critical a student of Jewish history as Ernest Renan had to say of the prophets in general.

"As much as half a century before the capture of Samaria," he says, “almost all the activity of the Hebrew genius had been concentrated in Judah. Prophetism had arrived at its main conclusions—namely, monotheism, God (or Jehovah) being the sole cause of the phenomena of the universe; the justice of Jehovah and the necessity that that justice should be carried into effect on earth and for each individual within the limits of his own existence; a democratic puritanism in manners, hatred of luxury, of secular civilisation, of the obligations resulting from complicated civil organisation; absolute trust in Jehovah; the worship of Jehovah, consisting above all in purity of heart. The immensity of such a revolution astounds us, and when we reflect on it we find that the moment when the creation took place is the most fertile in the whole history of religion. Even the initial movement of Christianity in the first century of our era, gives place to this extraordinary movement of Jewish prophetism in the eighth century before Christ. All of Jesus is contained in Isaiah. The humanitarian destiny of Israel is as clearly written towards 720 as that of Greece will be two hundred years later.

"Down to the time of Elijah and Elisha, Israel is not essentially distinguished from the neighbouring peoples; there is no mark on her forehead. From the moment now reached, her vocation is absolutely laid down for her. After a very favourable reign (that of Hezekiah), prophetism will traverse

[586-536 B.C.] a long period of trial (the reigns of Manasseh and Amon), and will then completely triumph under Josiah. The history of Judah will henceforth be the history of a religion, first confined during long centuries to her own limits, then mingling by the victory of Christianity in the general movement of mankind. The ancient prophets' cry of justice will not be stifled. Greece will lay the foundations of lay society, free in the sense in which the economists understand it, without heeding the sufferings of the weak which result from the greatness of the social work. Prophetism will accentuate the just claims of the poor; it will undermine the position of the army and of royalty in Israel; but it will found the synagogue, the Church, societies for the poor, which, from the time of Theodosius, will become all powerful and will govern the world. During the Middle Ages the thundering voice of the prophets, interpreted by Saint Jerome, will awe the rich and powerful, and, for the benefit of the poor, or those who pretend to be such, will prevent every sort of industrial, scientific, or worldly progress.

"Germanic laicism repulsed the thrusts of this oppressive ebionism. The warrior, Frank, Lombard, Saxon, Frisian, took his revenge on the man of God. The warrior of the Middle Ages was so simple-minded that his credulity soon brought him again under the yoke of theocracy, but the Renaissance and Protestantism emancipated him; the Church could not recover her hold on her prey. In fact, the barbarian, the most brutal of lay princes, was a deliverer compared with the Christian priest with the secular arm at his disposal. The hardest oppression is that exercised in the name of a spiritual principle; lay tyranny contents itself with the homage of the body; the community which has the power to enforce its opinions is the worst of scourges.

"The work of the prophets has thus remained one of the essential elements of the world. The motion of the world is the resultant of the parallelogram of two forces-liberalism on the one side, and socialism on the other; liberalism of Greek origin, socialism of Hebrew origin; liberalism making for the greatest human development, socialism paying attention first of all to justice, understood in a strict sense, and to the happiness of the greatest number in practice, so often sacrificed to the needs of civilisation and the state. The socialist of our time who declaims against the abuses inevitable in a great organised state, greatly resembles Amos, representing as monstrous the most obvious necessities of society, such as the payment of debts, loans on security, and taxes.

"Before venturing to say which of these two opposing tendencies is the right one, we must know what is the goal of humanity. Is it the well-being of the individuals who compose it, or is it the attainment of certain abstract, objective aims, as they are called, which require hecatombs of individuals as sacrifices? Each will answer according to his moral temperament, and that is enough. The universe, which never ceases to make revelations, reaches its end by an infinite variety of ways. What Jehovah wills always comes to pass. Let us be calm; if we are of those who are mistaken, who work against the tide of the supreme will, it is of little consequence. Humanity is one of the innumerable ant-hills where reason gains her experience in space; if we miss our part, others will gain it.'

Accepting the prophets and prophecy, then, in whatsoever spirit one individually will, it is interesting to note in what manner and to what degree the prophecy is fulfilled, for the Jews return to rebuild the temple and the walls, only to remain obscure, and helplessly to pass from master to

master, a

[586-536 B.C.]

THE CONDITION OF THE EXILES

The history of the Hebrews is divided into two distinct periods. The first, purely legendary until the time of Samuel, only becomes a true history under the kings; it ceases abruptly for Israel at the siege of Samaria by Shalmaneser IV [and Sargon II] and for Judah about a century later at the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar.

The ruin of Israel was complete; the tribes, transported to the other side of the Euphrates, by degrees forgot their former recollections, customs, language, even their religion, and became confounded with the nations of Higher Asia. When and how, it is not known. Colonists brought into Canaan by Esarhaddon, replaced them by mingling themselves with the remains of the Israelite population. Such was not the case with the Judeans taken to Babylon; although not so numerous, they kept to their national life during exile. When the occasion arose, they returned to their own country, surrounded themselves by the rural population left by the conqueror to cultivate the land, and became the centre of a new nation.

The Jews transported by Nebuchadrezzar had been established in different provinces of the Chaldean Empire, in which they dwelt together. Their condition was infinitely better than that of political exiles in Siberia, Cayenne, or Numea at the present time. Jeremiah advised his compatriots to cultivate and build, which proves that they were given land and that they formed colonies.

They were governed by their elders who judged without appeal even in extreme cases, as is seen by the story of Susanna in the addition to the Book of Daniel. Nothing prevented them from carrying on their religion freely. It is true that as sacrifices could be offered regularly only at Jerusalem, the sacrificers had no employment but the prophets maintained their influence, and Ezekiel speaks several times of the visits paid to them so as to consult the Lord. M. Munk says: "There were probably meetings where prayer was offered up in common, and perhaps the origin of synagogues dates back to this time. A tradition referred to in the Talmud of Babylon, Meghilla, fol. 28, a, attributes the foundation of a synagogue built of stones from the Holy Land, to the exiles who had accompanied Jehoiakim."

The legends of Daniel in the lions' den, and of the three men in the furnace, do not suffice to make one believe in a religious persecution, which the contemporary prophets would not fail to have mentioned; all that can be concluded from these popular traditions, gathered very much later, is that some Jews, doubtless eunuchs or diviners, were able to play a part at the court of the Babylonian kings. The natural wrath of the Jews against the destroyer of Jerusalem, gave rise to a legend according to which, Nebuchadrezzar, in punishment of his arrogance, was driven from amongst men for seven years and reduced to being a beast. "And he did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers and his nails like birds' claws." It is probable that the Jewish captives in Babylon took the large winged bulls with human heads at the gates of the Assyrian palaces, for images of the kings. The historical books of the Bible do not mention this legend, which is only quoted in the Book of Daniel, written in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. A song of triumph on the death of Nebuchadrezzar is written in the Book of Isaiah.