The Oxford History of the Biblical World (70 page)

According to the theology of the exiles, bluntly expressed in Ezekiel 11, Yahweh had deserted Judah and joined the people in exile. According to Ezekiel, God has no patience with “inhabitants of Jerusalem”—in other words, nonexiled Jews who make the counterclaim that the land is theirs because God was punishing the exiles. Ezekiel speaks for his constituency and promises that once the returnees have cleansed the land of the supposedly syncretistic religious practices of the indigenous Judahites, Yahweh will restore their lands to the true people of Israel—the exiles—whether those remaining liked it or not. In Ezekiel’s chronology the syncretistic horrors described in Ezekiel 8 occur before the destruction of the Temple, but the passage may be a polemical accusation composed by the Babylonian exiles in a long-distance contest with the nonexiled population over the authentic worship of Yahweh.

From the Persians’ standpoint, the Temple in Jerusalem, like temples elsewhere, contributed various forms of tribute to the state—revenues, goods, and services.
Persia’s Judean proxies in control of the Temple were responsible for raising this tribute from a local population already struggling to pay the tithe and annual levy they owed the Persians (Neh. 5). High-priestly families also administered the material and fiscal resources that accrued to the Temple as part of the sacrificial system. Thus, whoever controlled the Jerusalem Temple also participated significantly in the economic activity of the land and enjoyed high social and economic status. As the social elite, the Temple community could dictate the terms by which an outsider could qualify for membership in their group and thereby share its privileges.

Three episodes of local conflict are described in Ezra 4–6. According to Ezra 4.6–23, the “people of the land” and Persian officials in league with foreigners resettled in Samaria and elsewhere in the Trans-Euphrates satrapy wrote a letter to the king protesting against the Temple builders in the reigns of Xerxes I (Hebrew Ahasuerus, 486–465; Ezra 4.6) or Artaxerxes I (465–424; Ezra 4.11). There are serious textual and chronological difficulties with this notice. The episode has been associated with the unrest right after Xerxes’ assassination in 465, or with the activities of Ezra or Nehemiah. Whatever the opposition, they successfully put a stop to some sort of building activity in Jerusalem by informing the king that the Jews were “rebuilding that wicked and rebellious city.”

The wording of Ezra 4 suggests that the shadowy “people of the land” and the “foreigners” of Samaria and elsewhere in the satrapy are spitefully subverting pious Jews intent on restoring their city and Temple. Samarians may have feared that restoration of the Jerusalem Temple would result not in religious rivalry, but rather in a latent claim by Jerusalem for political hegemony over the northern tribal territories of the Davidic/Solomonic and Josianic monarchies. But the historical, social, and political dynamics behind the episode(s) remain obscure. From a literary point of view, the story acts as a foil for the successes of Nehemiah, the exilic Jew who rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem in the face of similar opponents with similar accusations.

Ezra 5.1–6.15 tells of an investigation by Tattenai, governor of Abar Nahara (mentioned also in a tablet dated to 502), and by Shethar-bozenai into the authority by which the Jews under Zerubbabel (ca. 520) are rebuilding the Temple. The Temple builders invoked the eighteen-year-old decree of Cyrus, for which Tattenai requested verification by letter from Darius. Work on the Temple proceeded while Tattenai’s questions were processed through the royal chancelleries, and a confirming copy of the decree was finally run to ground in far-off Ecbatana, the Persian capital. Tattenai may have been stirred to ask his questions by rivals of Zerubbabel’s party in a neighboring province or provinces, possibly Samaria. In Ezra 4.1–3, “adversaries of Judah and Benjamin” attempt to join in Zerubbabel’s rebuilding project; their offer is rejected. Although they worship “the same God,” they are supposedly descendants of peoples resettled in Samaria by the Assyrians, and hence as foreigners they are ethnically disqualified. Because Ezra-Nehemiah shows an intense interest in separating legitimate from illegitimate Israelites, this passage may be tendentious in presenting the “adversaries” as foreigners. Perhaps over two centuries the distinction between foreign and native Israelite had broken down. Perhaps the Yahweh worship of the adversaries was syncretistic, but, conversely, perhaps they had become exclusive Yahwists. Perhaps they were not foreign at all; Jeremiah 41 hints that northerners devoted
to the Jerusalem Temple, possibly the same group whose help was turned down by Zerubbabel’s followers, continued to make pilgrimages there even after its destruction.

In Ezra 4.4, the “people of the land,” who may be the same as Zerubbabel’s “adversaries” in 4.1 or an entirely different group, impede the rebuilding by bribing officials to cause trouble. The first-century
CE
Jewish historian Josephus’s identification of the rival group(s) of Ezra 4.1–5 as “Samaritans” is anachronistic; Josephus’s assumptions about Persian-period Samarians arise from the extreme alienation of Jews and Samaritans in his own time. The decisive break by sectarian Samaritans from Judaism occurred only in the second century
BCE
. According to various hypotheses, the enigmatic “people of the land” here could be residents of Judah of foreign, mixed, or doubtful lineage, or they could be “ethnically pure” Jews who had remained in the land during the exile, or they could be a combination of such groups.

Behind these troubles lie power struggles over control of the Temple, early manifestations of a key element in Second Temple period sectarianism. If the Jerusalem Temple enjoyed Persian support, then whoever controlled the Temple stood to accrue collateral financial and political benefits. In theological terms, a conscientiously ad-ministered Temple ensured the prosperity of the land by honoring the demands of the Temple’s chief inhabitant, Yahweh. The exiles could claim with Ezekiel that knowledge of proper ritual practice belonged to the exiled priestly elite, of whom Ezekiel was one, not to the humbler levels of Judean society who had been beneath the notice of socially discriminating Babylonian deporters. On a more pragmatic level, a well-run sacrificial ritual collected and redistributed the land’s produce and, ideally, fostered prosperity and political stability.

The concern of Haggai and Zechariah for the proper maintenance of worship is typical of postexilic prophecy and marks a change in emphasis from earlier prophecy, which had often been critical of ritual. Prophetic speech more and more follows liturgical forms used in public worship. The postexilic age did have charismatic prophets, but their activities and words were often suppressed in theocratic circles as the work of renegades. Moreover, postexilic prophetic authors writing in both the theocratic and the charismatic vein pseudonymously clothed themselves in the garb of eminent classical forebears, giving a new text validity by embedding it in the words of a venerated ancient prophet.

In addition to specific, if obscure, biblical references to sociopolitical opposition to the Temple rebuilders, there are in Isaiah 56–66 (Third Isaiah), Ezekiel 38–39, Isaiah 24–27, and Zechariah 9–14 (Second Zechariah) allusions to additional internal Jewish protest against the ruling establishment. Such protests come from a group or groups who reject Zadokite priestly claims and propose an alternative religious program in which direct vindication from God of the aggrieved party is a central element. But, as will become increasingly the case with postexilic Jewish writing, these texts assiduously avoid chronological notices and authentic autographs. If they do criticize those in power, the source of the disagreements remains vague, in part because ancient Judaism, like all other ancient religions (except, perhaps, Christianity) was not based on a doctrinal creed whose tenets were under fire from opponents outside the
faith. By the Hellenistic period, inter-Jewish dissent was seldom if ever expressed in theological terms, turning instead on matters of religious practice.

The interest group behind “Third Isaiah” remains shadowy. Perhaps its composition stems from disfranchised Levites who viewed the political accommodations of the dominant Zadokite priesthood as compromising “pure” Yahwism. Without specific dates in the text, attempts to associate this visionary group with particular rivals of Joshua and the Zadokites mentioned in Ezra-Nehemiah founder. Passages in Isaiah 57, 65, and 66 do repudiate Haggai’s and Zechariah’s call for Temple restoration. Nevertheless, this is not a repudiation of Temple ideology. Rather, it is a rejection of the current Temple authorities in favor of a now-marginalized group with claims of superior priestly qualifications. The intent of the hybrid “salvation-judgment” oracles of Isaiah 59 and 65 to condemn wicked Judeans, but to affirm eschatological salvation for the righteous few, provides a good indication of the rifts in postexilic Judean society.

Protoapocalyptic visions of Ezekiel 38–39 may also belong to the circle of Third Isaiah, as eager as their Zadokite rivals to co-opt the great exilic prophet for their own ends. These chapters suggest that the Babylonian destruction was nothing compared to the future horrors intended for a still-wicked Israel, presumably those Jews in control of the Temple. Only divine intervention would enable the restoration program of Ezekiel 40–48 to proceed.

People harboring visionary expectations of vindication by cataclysmic divine irruptions into history are, or at least feel, disfranchised, and they occupy the margins of mainstream society. But without a secure sociohistorical matrix we must be careful not to create a rigid theoretical framework for such protoapocalyptic passages as Isaiah 56–66, Ezekiel 38–39, Isaiah 24–27, and Zechariah 9–14. They cannot all be attributed to the same period, much less to the same ideological groups. Even the well-entrenched Zadokites could have fostered a visionary or two.

What these texts do illustrate is a movement away from classical prophecy, which located God’s judgment firmly in history. Instead, these visionaries saw punishment and redemption in terms of otherworldly categories, which ultimately became central in fully formed apocalyptic thought. The timescale for God’s judgment begins to expand, as does the sphere of divine judgment, which now includes all the nations, a more universalist view of God’s interest, perhaps, than that of Ezra-Nehemiah. Some expect God to personally intervene in history (Zech. 14); dreams and visions abound, often populated by angelic interpreters, a form of assistance that earlier prophets seldom required. The roots of Jewish apocalyptic do not lie in Zoroastrian (Persian) dualism, with its vision of a climactic war between the cosmic forces of good and evil. The symbolism and rhetoric of early Second Temple protoapocalypticism has an unquestionable Israelite pedigree, even to the extent of reviving such ancient mythic motifs as Yahweh the divine warrior and Yahweh’s battle with the chaos dragon. The common characteristics that Yahweh shared with Canaanite Baal were no longer a source of confusion or polemic, and they could profitably be brought again to the fore.

The book of Malachi is usually assigned to the early fifth century, just before the period of Ezra and Nehemiah. Like other postexilic writings, its authorship is anonymous; the reference in 3.1 to “my messenger” (Hebrew
mal’akî}
gives the book its
title. Malachi synthesizes priestly and prophetic themes. Its bitter attack on the reigning Temple priesthood has been viewed as merging the interests of dissident Levites and Third Isaian circles. Here, too, is a dramatic eschatological denouement, but the writer also appeals to sacred antiquity, appropriating for the prophet’s constituents God’s covenant with Levi, a more ancient and thus more authoritative covenant than that of the Zadokites.

A corollary to this resurgence of ancient lore is the Persians’ encouragement, beginning with Darius I, of the collection and preservation of their subjects’ religious learning. Both the work of Aryandes and Udjahorresnet in Egypt and of Ezra the Israelite scribe attest to this policy. The Priestly strand of the Pentateuch or even the Pentateuch itself could belong to this same incipient antiquarianism.

But ultimately the single most important stimulus to Persian-period Israel’s interest in and reverence for its history is the exile. The prophets having proved themselves by correctly predicting disaster for both Israel and Judah, their oracles were now sought out and edited, complete with chronological notices, for purposes of edification and future warning. Faced with the loss of national identity, priests and sages set about collecting and codifying religious laws and preserving Israel’s epic lore and its national history (the Pentateuch and “Former Prophets”). They collected the songs sung in the Temple, the Psalms. And they composed a new history, the book of Chronicles, whose stress on the sole legitimacy of the Jerusalem sanctuary and its rituals colors every episode from creation to exile. This process of collecting and amplifying led to the final canonization of the Bible, and may have been stimulated by an attempt to reconcile conflicting factions in the Jewish community.

After the successful completion of the Jerusalem Temple around 516–515
BCE
, the Bible is virtually silent about events in Judah during the seventy years between Zerubbabel and Nehemiah—that is, between the reigns of Darius I (522–486) and Artaxerxes I (465–424). Despite hints of internal religious dissent in Judah, the self-interested tolerance of the Persians who gave their blessing to the rebuilding of the Temple perhaps resulted also in some thirty years of relative political stability in Judah before a return to unsettled times. Lack of mention of Persian interference in Judah in itself is noteworthy, since the Persians are known to have intervened in religious disputes elsewhere that threatened local peace.

Political stability cannot guarantee economic or social well-being, however. The book of Malachi belongs to this period. The Temple is operating, and the prophet tries to assure doubting Judeans of Yahweh’s continued love in spite of infestation, drought (Mai. 3.10–11), and general social ills and inequities (Mai. 3.5). If Third Isaiah (Isa. 56–66) can be assigned to this period, it confirms Malachi’s portrayal of economic struggle and religious uncertainty.