On The Babylonian Exile

 As I am working through my "Read The Bible" in a year - something I have been doing for 15 years or more - I find myself this week in the book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah, for those who may not know, is an Old Testament Prophet who was active in the latter part of the of Kingdom Judah to its capture and dissolution by second Babylonian Empire, from 625 B.C. to at least 570 B.C. or even 561 B.C. During this time the Kingdom of Judah tried to rebel against Babylon, but was first conquered and then destroyed in 586 B.C.  The period after the destruction, when thousands over a multi-year period were relocated to Babylon, is known as "The Babylonian Captivity" and in many ways represents a watershed in Jewish history.

Jeremiah had a pretty rough go of things, as prophets who are prophesying the end of their state often do.  His message changes as the situation becomes worse, moving from "Hey - Get right with God and He will preserve the Kingdom" to "Hey - submit to the Babylonian Empire and stay in the Kingdom" to "Hey - Pray for the peace of the land you have been transported to (because you are not coming back)." During his life he was beaten, put in stocks, put into a cistern sinking into the mud, and generally not taken seriously and spoken badly of.  Not quite the "self-actualizing life" people hope for when they are young.

During this week's reading, I was in Chapters 27 to 29, where Jeremiah first tells the nations around Judah - Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Sidon - that the best thing for them to do is to submit to the rising power of Babylon ("I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon..." (27:9)).  The same advice he gave to then reigning King of Judah (Zedekiah) - for which, in Chapter 28, he is roundly mocked by another "prophet" who proclaims exactly the opposite, that in two years all will be restored (guess how that worked out?).  Finally, in Chapter 29, Jeremiah writes a letter to the exiles already in Babylon, telling them effectively to put down roots, plan to be there for a while as a captive people, and pray/do all they can for the prosperity of the Babylonian Empire, because in that Empire at the current time is their prosperity - and that at some point in the future, God will return them to land of Judah.

"Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I has caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon:

Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit.  

Take wives and beget sons and daughters;

and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters, that they may be increased there, and not diminished.

And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:  Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed.

For they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them, says the Lord.

For thus says the Lord:  After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you and cause you to return to this place.  For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope."

(Jeremiah 29: 4-11, NKJV)

This really struck me when I read it.

Imagine you are an one of the Jewish exiles in Babylon.  You have already had the experience of being conquered, sorted, marching across the desert, and resettled.  You have tried to make a go of it but always in the back of your mind is the thought of going back to Jerusalem, where home is and the presence of God physically manifests itself.  There is anticipation due to prophets and seers that this will be the case.

And then, from the one prophet that actually has an impeccable track record, comes the actual news:  You are here for duration.  Build a life there with the anticipation that you will be staying there for a while - in fact, not only build a life there, but pray for your conqueror and the pagan people in which you will live - to pray for their destruction is to pray for your own destruction.  "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem" calls the Psalmist, temporarily replaced by "Pray for the peace of Babylon".  Yes, eventually you will go back - but realistically your grandchildren, not you. 

And then, as a coda to that thought "I will give you a future and hope".

What a hard saying.

I do not know why this reached out to me the way it did, but it made me sit and think about it for long after I finished my reading for the morning (thus, the post).  I am predicting precisely nothing (so do not read anything into it; I am neither the prophet nor the son of a prophet) and there are no allegories or current events to be gleaned from this post.  I was just struck by what that must have sounded like to everyone who received Jeremiah's message and was a follower of God: to those remaining in Jerusalem the knowledge that they would either be killed or transferred (imagine taking your family out past the city walls during the siege, the name calling and bitter hate), for those in Babylon the injunction that likely none of them were ever going back, only their grandchildren and beyond.  Make the best of the situation, be stellar citizens, and prepare for a day that most of you will never live to see.

It troubles me to read and then write on it.  It must have troubled at least some of them.

What a test of faith in God.  Other than the prophet Ezekiel, a contemporary, we hear little of the Jews in Babylon until the books of Nehemiah and Ezra, which document the Jewish return to Jerusalem.  Did God speak during that time through a prophet? We have no record of it.  What would it be like to have a promise that one could cling to 30 years in?  50 years in?  When the Babylonian Empire still essentially flourished, how did they manage their faith?

 We know that they managed their faith because Jews did return to Jerusalem following the conquest of Babylon by the Medio-Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great and there were some that returned.  Ezra reports that when the first cornerstone of the Second Temple was laid, the people shouted for joy except for the old men who remembered what First Temple had looked like in all its glory; these wept.

Why this passage?  I have no idea.  Like most of my writing, I suspect it is largely for myself.  There is a lesson here, a lesson I too often turn my own eyes away from:  God's purpose in this life will, ultimately, be determined by Him.  My job is to accept it, all of it - even the hard parts that sometimes literally sound counterintuitive to my sensibilities.