The surrender of Babylon to Cyrus the Persian in the year 539 BC was a momentous date in the history of the people of Israel. Cyrus immediately issued an edict setting all political prisoners free to return to their home countries. This had already been prophesied in Isaiah 44:24-28, where we read,

“This is what the Lord says – your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb…who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my Shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt”, and of the Temple, “Let its foundations be laid.”’”

Cyrus

Cyrus was not a great philanthropist – he was a wily politician. He reasoned that if he set the people free to return to Judah and gave them help in rebuilding their Temple, they would not only pray for him to their God, but they would be loyal subjects in his empire and he would not have any trouble from them!

Many of the people of Judah who had been in exile since 597 BC, some 60 years earlier, had not only settled in their communities but had prospered. Very few, if any, had been born in Jerusalem or the towns of Judah and they were probably too old and weak to face the thousand-mile trek back to their ancestral homes.

Most of the people were not willing to respond to the urge for a return to Jerusalem, which they knew to be in ruins. By this time many were wealthy merchants or prosperous landowners. Some were even employed in government service and although they had kept themselves separate from the Babylonians by only marrying within their ethnic community, and most of them had not succumbed to the worship of the Babylonian idols, they had adopted the culture of Babylon. They were far too comfortable to go back to the land of their forefathers and face the unknown hardships of rebuilding the ruins of Jerusalem, regenerating the devastated economy and physically reconstructing the shattered towns and villages across the land of their fathers that was now unknown to them.

Many of the people of Judah who had been in exile since 597 BC, some 60 years earlier, had not only settled in Babylon but had prospered. Very few were willing to return to Jerusalem.

Wealthy Exiles

Most of the exiles stayed in Babylon, but according to Ezra 2:64, some 42,360 undertook the trek back to Jerusalem. They were obviously a prosperous community as they had over 7,000 servants with them and plenty of transport – 736 horses, 245 mules, 435 camels and 6,720 donkeys! On arrival in Jerusalem they took an offering for the rebuilding of the Temple that amounted to about 500kg of gold and nearly three tons of silver! Undoubtedly God had prospered them in Babylon, as Jeremiah had foretold in his letter in the early days of the exile: “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers you too will prosper” (Jer 29:7).

Those who stayed in Babylon followed the strict teaching established by Ezekiel and kept themselves ethnically separated from the Babylonians. Sabbath worship was strict, with prayers in the home, worship in the knessets (village meeting places) and teaching provided by the ‘Great Assembly’ under the control of Orthodox scribes and priests.

Ultra-Orthodoxy

Ezra the priest came from the ‘Great Assembly’ of Babylon in the year 458 BC, some 60 years after the rebuilding of the Temple in 520 BC. It is reported that “Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel” (Ezra 7:10). He is recognised as the father of what today we know as the ultra-orthodox community in Israel, who practice an extreme form of nationalism and are vehemently opposed to Messianic Jews.

Ezra decided to impose his views upon the people of Jerusalem when he found that many among those who had stayed in Judah during the time of the exile had intermarried with the local people. Many of them were among those who became known as ‘Samaritans’, because the Assyrians who had overthrown Samaria in 721 BC had brought groups of foreigners into the land. Ezra was appalled at this, “confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God” (Ezra 10:1) in front of a large crowd of men, women and children. He called for a great assembly of the people of Judah and Benjamin and commanded, “separate yourselves from the people around you and from your foreign wives” (Ezra 10:11).

A small group opposed Ezra, whose names are recorded in Ezra 10:15, probably following the teaching of Isaiah 56:6 that “Foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of the Lord and to worship him, and all who keep the sabbath” would be welcome in the new Temple. It was midwinter and terrible weather, but instead of urging the men to ensure that their wives and children were taught the Torah and understood the faith of Judaism, Ezra persuaded many of the men to turn their wives and children out of their homes in what today would be regarded as a shocking act of racism.

A major part of God’s purpose in sending the people of Judah into exile in Babylon was to develop a new understanding of his purposes for them.

A New Theology

A major part of God’s purpose in sending the people of Judah into exile in Babylon was to develop a new theology – a new understanding of his purposes in establishing a covenant relationship with the people of Israel. Moses had told the people that God had not chosen them as an act of favouritism, but simply because he loved them (Deut 7:7).

Through the prophets of Israel God had revealed his nature and purposes, which reached new heights of revelation during the exile through the prophetic ministry of Isaiah, who said that the redeemed company of those who would be returning to the land were to take God’s message of salvation to the world. They were to be “a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth!” (Isa 49:6)

Missionary Purpose

Sadly, this missionary purpose was overridden by the nationalism developed in Babylon to protect the ethnic identity of the people of Judah from the Babylonians. It now became a barrier to the purposes of God for the exile. There is no evidence in the post-exilic prophets or historical records that the people of Judah had embraced the teaching given to them in the exile that they were to be the servants of the Lord, taking the message of salvation to the Gentile nations.

The prophecy “You will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God” (Isa 61:6) was not fulfilled until the day of Pentecost, when the disciples of Jesus – eyewitnesses of the risen Christ - spilled out onto the streets of Jerusalem declaring publicly that salvation was only to be found in the name of Jesus.

This article is part of a series. Click here for previous instalments.