Chapter 22

UNDYING HOPES OF THE JEWS

As the Jewish exiles were led away to Babylon they asked themselves over and over again, "Is this the end of our nation?" It seemed like the end. Their capital city lay in ruins. Their king was blinded and in chains. All the most intelligent people in the country were being led to a distant land, from which most of them would probably never return. The iron rule of the Babylonians was everywhere supreme.

There are other nations and races whose people might not have cared so much even if this had been the end of their national existence. But the Hebrews from the beginning were proud of their race and ambitious for its glory. They believed that it had been promised to Abraham, their ancestor, that they should become a great nation in their land of Canaan. This hope had grown stronger and stronger. Stories of the greatness of King David were handed down from fathers to their children. To the best men and women among them the great teachings of such prophets as Amos and Isaiah were even more worthy of pride. "We have a knowledge of the true God," they said, "such as no other nation has. Surely there is a great future before us." And now all these hopes seemed lost forever.

=The discouragement of the poor people in Canaan.=--Those who had been left behind in Canaan when the Babylonians conquered the land were even more hopeless and wretched. The exiles soon made a place for themselves in the busy, prosperous land of Babylonia. They earned money and lived in comfort. But the farmers on the stony hills of Judæa suffered untold hardships. Not only were they poor; they were also harassed by bands of robbers. The city of Jerusalem, which had protected them, lay in ashes. The Babylonian governor did not help them. He was there only to collect taxes and tribute. So the old enemies, the robber tribes from the desert, came in and burned and murdered and stole as they pleased. It is not strange that many of these poor people felt that all was over for the Hebrew or Jewish nation. Many of them ceased to worship Jehovah and became heathen, like the other tribes around Canaan.

VOICES OF COMFORT AND HOPE

It was not easy, however, to crush the courage of the Jews. Out of the darkness of those days we hear a whole chorus of voices, all of them saying: "This is _not_ the end of everything for us. Jehovah has not forgotten his promises to our ancestors. He will bring back the exiles from Babylon, and from other distant lands whither they have escaped, and will rebuild Jerusalem in all its beauty, and will restore the glory of our nation in the land of Canaan."

=The prophecies in Isaiah.=--Many of these voices are found in short passages scattered through the writings of the older prophets. Two of them are in Isaiah 9 and 11.

="The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: ... the rod of his oppressor thou hast broken.... For all the armor of the armed man in the tumult, and the garments rolled in blood, shall even be for burning, for fuel of fire. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."=

"In other words," he reasoned, "Jehovah will free us from the tyrannical Babylonians, give us an ideal king, who shall be wise and just and faithful, and under whose rule we shall see no more of the horror and cruelty of war."

=Ezekiel's prophecies of hope.=--Away off in Babylonia itself Ezekiel helped to keep alive the hopes of the exiles. Even though the nation is dead, he told them, Jehovah can bring it to life. It will be as though the dry and bleaching bones in some valley where a battle was long ago fought should suddenly come together as human skeletons, and warm living flesh should grow upon them once more. Ezekiel worked out a kind of constitution for the new nation and the temple when these should be restored.

All these brave leaders helped the Jews to believe in themselves as a people. They listened to these men as they spoke in their synagogues in Judæa and in Babylonia. They handed from one to another the rolls on which their words were written. And ever the children heard from their mothers these hopes which kept them from being completely discouraged: "We are Jews. The Jewish nation is not going to be destroyed. Some day the exiles in Babylon will return to the old country. We will have a king of our own. And we will build the great nation which Jehovah promised Abraham."

THE BEGINNINGS OF A RESTORED JUDAH

In the year B.C. 538, the Babylonian empire was conquered by Cyrus, the Persian. There was scarcely any resistance on the part of the Babylonians. And one of his first acts in the conquered city was to issue a proclamation that captives and exiles from other lands might return if they wished. It was the chance for which the Jews for forty years had been hoping. Now at last they could go back over that thousand-mile journey, up the Euphrates, across to the coast land, and down to Canaan. But alas! too many years had passed. Most of those who had come to Babylon as grown people and who remembered Canaan as home were now dead. Most of the living Jews had grown up in Babylon and were comfortably settled there. Yet some did return, and from time to time others kept returning. These men who thought enough of their nation to go back to the home land and help it in its weakness and poverty almost always became leaders.

=The new temple.=--It may have been a group of these leaders returned from Babylon who started the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem in the year B.C. 520, just sixty years after the old temple of Solomon was burned by the soldiers of Nebuchadrezzar. There were two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, who did much to stir up the people to this work. Some of their words are preserved in the Old Testament books which bear their names. These men may have been returned exiles. The new building was erected on the same old foundation and was finished in four years. It was dedicated amidst the shouts of the people, while old men and women, who as children had seen the former temple before it was destroyed, wept for joy that at last a house had been rebuilt for Jehovah. It seemed like the beginning of better times for their nation.

THE GREATEST OF THE PROPHETS OF HOPE

Yet the years that followed the building of the new temple were sad and disappointing. The better days did not seem to come. The walls of Jerusalem still lay in ruins. The robber tribes still made their cruel raids. The poor people suffered most, for they were oppressed and plundered by the richer men even of their own people. "What has become of Jehovah?" men asked. "Where are his promises to Abraham? Why does he allow even his most faithful servants to be oppressed--those who do not oppress others; who obey his just laws, and who are merciful to their brothers?"

=The great unknown.=--About this time there came to the people of Israel a new message from one of the greatest prophets of all those whom God has raised up in any nation. He is sometimes called the "Great Unknown," because we to-day know nothing about his personal life, not even his name. His great messages to his fellow Jews are found in the latter part of the book of Isaiah, beginning with chapter 40. The first verse of this chapter strikes the keynote of comfort which runs through all the chapters to follow.

="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; that she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins."=

With words that sing like a beautiful instrument of music he tells the people that God has not forgotten them; that the scattered exiles will be brought back to the home land; that the ruined city, Jerusalem, will be rebuilt and made more lovely than before; that a rule of justice will be established; and that the blessings of peace and happiness will come to all.

=The greatness of service.=--Even better than these promises of happiness, our unknown prophet helped the people to understand more clearly what it means to _be_ a great nation. He did not believe that the God of heaven and earth would make a favorite of any one nation. Instead he taught that Jehovah had chosen Israel to be a servant nation for him, to serve all other nations by teaching them about the true God.

="I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation to the end of the earth."=

He explained in this way even the undeserved suffering which many of the best people of Israel were enduring. Israel thus became a type of Him who was "despised and rejected of men." To be chastised and afflicted and oppressed is not so hard to bear if it is all a part of Jehovah's plan for men. The ideal in the Old Testament becomes a reality in the New.

So for the first time the idea came into the world that Abraham's dreams of a greater and nobler nation and God's promises to Abraham, Moses, David and the rest were not for the Hebrew people only, but for all men; that beginning with this little nation God was making a better world; a world of love, instead of selfishness and hate; of happy work and play, instead of misery and hopelessness and war.

Of course very few of the prophet's hearers understood him. But more and more the Jews were filled with the thought that somehow God had a great future for them. Boys and girls, as they grew up, wondered if they might not become leaders, a new Moses, a second David, or Elijah, to play some part in bringing the great future which God had promised.

STUDY TOPICS

1. Read Isaiah 40 or 49 for a taste of the writing of the "Great Unknown."

2. Read Ezekiel 2. 1-7, or 14, for a similar taste of this prophet's message and style.

3. Which of these two prophets do you consider the greater?

4. Is there evidence to-day that the Jews still believe in a restored nation?