_ISRAEL UNDER THE PERSIANS_ (539—331 B.C.)
The next group of the Twelve Prophets—Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi and
perhaps Joel—fall within the period of the Persian Empire. The Persian
Empire was founded on the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus in 539 B.C.,
and it fell in the defeat of Darius III. by Alexander the Great at the
battle of Gaugamela, or Arbela, in 331. The period is thus one of a
little more than two centuries.
During all this time Israel were the subjects of the Persian monarchs,
and bound to them and their civilisation by the closest of ties. They
owed them their liberty and revival as a separate community upon its
own land. The Jewish State—if we may give that title to what is perhaps
more truly described as a Congregation or Commune—was part of an empire
which stretched from the Ægean to the Indus, and the provinces of
which were held in close intercourse by the first system of roads and
posts that ever brought different races together. Jews were scattered
almost everywhere across this empire. A vast number still remained in
Babylon, and there were many at Susa and Ecbatana, two of the royal
capitals. Most of these were subject to the full influence of Aryan
manners and religion; some were even members of the Persian Court and
had access to the Royal Presence. In the Delta of Egypt there were
Jewish settlements, and Jews were found also throughout Syria and
along the coasts, at least, of Asia Minor. Here they touched another
civilisation, destined to impress them in the future even more deeply
than the Persian. It is the period of the struggle between Asia
and Europe, between Persia and Greece: the period of Marathon and
Thermopylæ, of Salamis and Platæa, of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand.
Greek fleets occupied Cyprus and visited the Delta. Greek armies—in the
pay of Persia—trod for the first time the soil of Syria.[526]
In such a world, dominated for the first time by the Aryan, Jews
returned from exile, rebuilt their Temple and resumed its ritual,
revived Prophecy and codified the Law: in short, restored and organised
Israel as the people of God, and developed their religion to those
ultimate forms in which it has accomplished its supreme service to the
world.
In this period Prophecy does not maintain that lofty position which
it has hitherto held in the life of Israel, and the reasons for its
decline are obvious. To begin with, the national life, from which it
springs, is of a far poorer quality. Israel is no longer a kingdom,
but a colony. The state is not independent: there is virtually no
state. The community is poor and feeble, cut off from all the habit
and prestige of their past, and beginning the rudiments of life
again in hard struggle with nature and hostile tribes. To this level
Prophecy has to descend, and occupy itself with these rudiments.
We miss the civic atmosphere, the great spaces of public life, the
large ethical issues. Instead we have tearful questions, raised by
a grudging soil and bad seasons, with all the petty selfishness of
hunger-bitten peasants. The religious duties of the colony are mainly
ecclesiastical: the building of a temple, the arrangement of ritual,
and the ceremonial discipline of the people in separation from their
heathen neighbours. We miss, too, the clear outlook of the earlier
prophets upon the history of the world, and their calm, rational grasp
of its forces. The world is still seen, and even to further distances
than before. The people abate no whit of their ideal to be the teachers
of mankind. But it is all through another medium. The lurid air of
Apocalypse envelops the future, and in their weakness to grapple either
politically or philosophically with the problems which history offers,
the prophets resort to the expectation of physical catastrophes and
of the intervention of supernatural armies. Such an atmosphere is not
the native air of Prophecy, and Prophecy yields its supreme office
in Israel to other forms of religious development. On one side the
ecclesiastic comes to the front—the legalist, the organiser of ritual,
the priest; on another, the teacher, the moralist, the thinker and the
speculator. At the same time personal religion is perhaps more deeply
cultivated than at any other stage of the people’s history. A large
number of lyrical pieces bear proof to the existence of a very genuine
and beautiful piety throughout the period.
* * * * *
Unfortunately the Jewish records for this time are both fragmentary
and confused; they touch the general history of the world only at
intervals, and give rise to a number of difficult questions, some
of which are insoluble. The clearest and only consecutive line of
data through the period is the list of the Persian monarchs. The
Persian Empire, 539—331, was sustained through eleven reigns and two
usurpations, of which the following is a chronological table:—
Cyrus (Kurush) the Great 539—529
Cambyses (Kambujiya) 529—522
Pseudo-Smerdis, or Baradis 522
Darius (Darayahush) I., Hystaspis 521—485
Xerxes (Kshayarsha) I. 485—464
Artaxerxes (Artakshathra) I., Longimanus 464—424
Xerxes II. 424—423
Sogdianus 423
Darius II., Nothus 423—404
Artaxerxes II., Mnemon 404—358
Artaxerxes III., Ochus 358—338
Arses 338—335
Darius III., Codomanus 335—331
Of these royal names, Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes (Ahasuerus) and Artaxerxes
are given among the Biblical data; but the fact that there are three
Darius’, two Xerxes’ and three Artaxerxes’ makes possible more than
one set of identifications, and has suggested different chronological
schemes of Jewish history during this period. The simplest and most
generally accepted identification of the Darius, Xerxes (Ahasuerus)
and Artaxerxes of the Biblical history,[527] is that they were the
first Persian monarchs of these names; and after needful rearrangement
of the somewhat confused order of events in the narrative of the Book
of Ezra, it was held as settled that, while the exiles returned under
Cyrus about 537, Haggai and Zechariah prophesied and the Temple was
built under Darius I. between the second and the sixth year of his
reign, or from 520 to 516; that attempts were made to build the walls
of Jerusalem under Xerxes I. (485—464), but especially under Artaxerxes
I. (464—424), under whom first Ezra in 458 and then Nehemiah in 445
arrived at Jerusalem, promulgated the Law and reorganised Israel.
But this has by no means satisfied all modern critics. Some in the
interests of the authenticity and correct order of the Book of Ezra,
and some for other reasons, argue that the Darius under whom the Temple
was built was Darius II., or Nothus, 423—404, and thus bring down
the building of the Temple and the prophets Haggai and Zechariah a
whole century later than the accepted theory;[528] and that therefore
the Artaxerxes, under whom Ezra and Nehemiah laboured, was not the
first Artaxerxes, or Longimanus (464—424), but the second, or Mnemon
(404—358).[529] This arrangement of the history finds some support
in the data, and especially in the _order_ of the data, furnished by
the Book of Ezra, which describes the building of the Temple under
Darius _after_ its record of events under Xerxes I. (Ahasuerus) and
Artaxerxes I.[530] But, as we shall see in the next chapter, the
Compiler of the Book of Ezra has seen fit, for some reason, to violate
the chronological order of the data at his disposal, and nothing
reliable can be built upon his arrangement. Unravel his somewhat
confused history, take the contemporary data supplied in Haggai and
Zechariah, add to them the historical probabilities of the time, and
you will find, as the three Dutch scholars Kuenen, Van Hoonacker and
Kosters have done,[531] that the rebuilding of the Temple cannot
possibly be dated so late as the reign of the second Darius (423—404),
but must be left, according to the usual acceptation, under Darius I.
(521—485). Haggai, for instance, plainly implies that among those who
saw the Temple rising were men who had seen its predecessor destroyed
in 586,[532] and Zechariah declares that God’s wrath on Jerusalem has
just lasted seventy years.[533] Nor (however much his confusion may
give grounds to the contrary) can the Compiler of the Book of Ezra
have meant any other reign for the building of the Temple than that
of Darius I. He mentions that nothing was done to the Temple _all the
days of Cyrus and up to the reign of Darius_:[534] by this he cannot
intend to pass over the first Darius and leap on three more reigns, or
a century, to Darius II. He mentions Zerubbabel and Jeshua both as at
the head of the exiles who returned under Cyrus, and as presiding at
the building of the Temple under Darius.[535] If alive in 536, they may
well have been alive in 521, but cannot have survived till 423.[536]
These data are fully supported by the historical probabilities. It is
inconceivable that the Jews should have delayed the building of the
Temple for more than a century from the time of Cyrus. That the Temple
was built by Zerubbabel and Jeshua in the beginning of the reign of
Darius I. may be considered as one of the unquestionable data of our
period.
But if this be so, then there falls away a great part of the argument
for placing the building of the walls of Jerusalem and the labours of
Ezra and Nehemiah under Artaxerxes II. (404—358) instead of Artaxerxes
I. It is true that some who accept the building of the Temple under
Darius I. nevertheless put Ezra and Nehemiah under Artaxerxes II.
The weakness of their case, however, has been clearly exposed by
Kuenen,[537] who proves that Nehemiah’s mission to Jerusalem must have
fallen in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes I., or 445.[538] “On this
fact there can be no further difference of opinion.”[539]
These two dates then are fixed: the beginning of the Temple in 520 by
Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and the arrival of Nehemiah at Jerusalem in
445. Other points are more difficult to establish, and in particular
there rests a great obscurity on the date of the two visits of Ezra to
Jerusalem. According to the Book of Ezra,[540] he went there first in
the seventh year of Artaxerxes I., or 458 B.C., thirteen years before
the arrival of Nehemiah. He found many Jews married to heathen wives,
laid it to heart, and called a general assembly of the people to drive
the latter out of the community. Then we hear no more of him: neither
in the negotiations with Artaxerxes about the building of the walls,
nor upon the arrival of Nehemiah, nor in Nehemiah’s treatment of the
mixed marriages. He is absent from everything, till suddenly he appears
again at the dedication of the walls by Nehemiah and at the reading of
the Law.[541] This “eclipse of Ezra,” as Kuenen well calls it, taken
with the mixed character of all the records left of him, has moved some
to deny to him and his reforms and his promulgation of the Law any
historical reality whatever;[542] while others, with a more sober and
rational criticism, have sought to solve the difficulties by another
arrangement of the events than that usually accepted. Van Hoonacker
makes Ezra’s _first_ appearance in Jerusalem to be at the dedication of
the walls and promulgation of the Law in 445, and refers his arrival
described in Ezra vii. and his attempts to abolish the mixed marriages
to a second visit to Jerusalem in the twentieth year, not of Artaxerxes
I., but of Artaxerxes II., or 398 B.C. Kuenen has exposed the extreme
unlikelihood, if not impossibility, of so late a date for Ezra, and
in this Kosters holds with him.[543] But Kosters agrees with Van
Hoonacker in placing Ezra’s activity subsequent to Nehemiah’s and to
the dedication of the walls.
These questions about Ezra have little bearing on our present study
of the prophets, and it is not our duty to discuss them. But Kuenen,
in answer to Van Hoonacker, has shown very strong reasons[544] for
holding in the main to the generally accepted theory of Ezra’s arrival
in Jerusalem in 458, the seventh year of Artaxerxes I.; and though
there are great difficulties about the narrative which follows, and
especially about Ezra’s sudden disappearance from the scene till after
Nehemiah’s arrival, reasons may be found for this.[545]
We are therefore justified in holding, in the meantime, to the
traditional arrangement of the great events in Israel in the fifth
century before Christ. We may divide the whole Persian period by the
two points we have found to be certain, the beginning of the Temple
under Darius I. in 520 and the mission of Nehemiah to Jerusalem in 445,
and by the other that we have found to be probable, Ezra’s arrival in
458.
On these data the Persian period may be arranged under the following
four sections, among which we place those prophets who respectively
belong to them:—
1. From the Taking of Babylon by Cyrus to the Completion of the Temple
in the sixth year of Darius I., 538—516: Haggai and Zechariah in 520 ff.
2. From the Completion of the Temple under Darius I. to the arrival of
Ezra in the seventh year of Artaxerxes I., 516—458: sometimes called
the period of silence, but probably yielding the Book of “Malachi.”
3. The Work of Ezra and Nehemiah under Artaxerxes I., Longimanus,
458—425.
4. The Rest of the Period, Xerxes II. to Darius III., 425—331: the
prophet Joel and perhaps several other anonymous fragments of prophecy.
* * * * *
Of these four sections we must now examine the first, for it forms
the necessary introduction to our study of Haggai and Zechariah, and
above all it raises a question almost greater than any of those we
have just been discussing. The fact recorded by the Book of Ezra, and
till a few years ago accepted without doubt by tradition and modern
criticism, the first Return of Exiles from Babylon under Cyrus, has
lately been altogether denied; and the builders of the Temple in 520
have been asserted to be, not returned exiles, but the remnant of Jews
left in Judah by Nebuchadrezzar in 586. The importance of this for our
interpretation of Haggai and Zechariah, who instigated the building of
the Temple, is obvious: we must discuss the question in detail.
FOOTNOTES:
[526] The chief authorities for this period are as follows:—A. Ancient:
the inscriptions of Nabonidus, last native King of Babylon, Cyrus and
Darius I.; the Hebrew writings which were composed in, or record the
history of, the period; the Greek historians Herodotus, fragments of
Ctesias in Diodorus Sic. etc., of Abydenus in Eusebius, Berosus. B.
Modern: Meyer’s and Duncker’s Histories of Antiquity; art. “Ancient
Persia” in _Encycl. Brit._, by Nöldeke and Gutschmid; Sayce, _Anc.
Empires_; the works of Kuenen, Van Hoonacker and Kosters given on p.
192; recent histories of Israel, _e.g._ Stade’s, Wellhausen’s and
Klostermann’s; P. Hay Hunter, _After the Exile, a Hundred Years of
Jewish History and Literature_, 2 Vols., Edin. 1890; W. Fairweather,
_From the Exile to the Advent_, Edin. 1895. On Ezra and Nehemiah see
especially Ryle’s _Commentary_ in the _Cambridge Bible for Schools_,
and Bertheau-Ryssel’s in _Kurzgefasstes Exegetisches Handbuch_: cf.
also Charles C. Torrey, _The Composition and Historical Value of
Ezra-Nehemiah_, in the _Beihefte zur Z.A.T.W._, II., 1896.
[527] Ezra iv. 5-7, etc., vi. 1-14, etc.
[528] Havet, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, XCIV. 799 ff. (art. _La Modernité
des Prophètes_); Imbert (in defence of the historical character of
the Book of Ezra), _Le Temple Reconstruit par Zorobabel_, extrait du
_Muséon_, 1888-9 (this I have not seen); Sir Henry Howorth in the
_Academy_ for 1893—see especially pp. 320 ff.
[529] Another French writer, Bellangé, in the _Muséon_ for 1890, quoted
by Kuenen (_Ges. Abhandl._, p. 213), goes further, and places Ezra and
Nehemiah under the _third_ Artaxerxes, Ochus (358—338).
[530] Ezra iv. 6—v.
[531] Kuenen, _De Chronologie van het Perzische Tijdvak der Joodsche
Geschiedenis_, 1890, translated by Budde in Kuenen’s _Gesammelte
Abhandlungen_, pp. 212 ff.; Van Hoonacker, _Zorobabel et le Second
Temple_ (1892); Kosters, _Het Herstel van Israel_, in _Het Perzische
Tijdvak_, 1894, translated by Basedow, _Die Wiederherstellung Israels
im Persischen Zeitalter_, 1896.
[532] Hag. ii. 3.
[533] Zech. i. 12.
[534] Ezra iv. 5.
[535] Ezra ii. 2, iv. 1 ff., v. 2.
[536] As Kuenen shows, p. 226, nothing can be deduced from Ezra vi. 14.
[537] P. 227; in answer to De Saulcy, _Étude Chronologique des Livres
d’Esdras et de Néhémie_ (1868), _Sept Siècles de l’Histoire Judaïque_
(1874). De Saulcy’s case rests on the account of Josephus (XI. _Ant._
vii. 2-8: cf. ix. 1), the untrustworthy character of which and its
confusion of two distant eras Kuenen has no difficulty in showing.
[538] When Nehemiah came to Jerusalem Eliyashib was high priest, and
he was grandson of Jeshua, who was high priest in 520, or seventy-five
years before; but between 520 and the twentieth year of Artaxerxes II.
lie one hundred and thirty-six years. And again, the Artaxerxes of
Ezra iv. 8-23, under whom the walls of Jerusalem were begun, was the
immediate follower of Xerxes (Ahasuerus), and therefore Artaxerxes I.,
and Van Hoonacker has shown that he must be the same as the Artaxerxes
of Nehemiah.
[539] Kosters, p. 43.
[540] vii. 1-8.
[541] Neh. xii. 36, viii., x.
[542] Vernes, _Précis d’Histoire Juive depuis les Origines jusqu’à
l’Époque Persane_ (1889), pp. 579 ff. (not seen); more recently also
Charles C. Torrey of Andover, _The Composition and Historical Value of
Ezra-Nehemiah_, in the _Beihefte zur Z.A.T.W._, II., 1896.
[543] Pages 113 ff.
[544] Page 237.
[545] The failure of his too hasty and impetuous attempts at so
wholesale a measure as the banishment of the heathen wives; or his
return to Babylon, having accomplished his end. See Ryle, _Ezra and
Nehemiah_, in the _Cambridge Bible for Schools_, Introd., pp. xl. f.