KIDNAPPED Seventy Years Ago

 Nadene Goldfoot                                        

Wasn't he lucky, though?  Nebuchadnezzar II (604-561 BCE) inherited a whole empire because of his victory!    He was the Babylonian king that came to own Assyria's Empire. He had won the battle over the Assyrian-Egyptian alliance at Carchemish in 605.  He was now the Emperor as he conquered all the lands from the Euphrates River to the Egyptian frontier, including Judah. 

 His  conquest achievement was in taking the land of Judah in 597 BCE and again in his last attack in 586 BCE, 11 years later.  He succeeded in exiling many of its Jews to Babylon. Many scholars cite 597 BCE as the date of the first deportation, for in that year King Jehoiachin was deposed and apparently sent into exile with his family, his court, and thousands of workers.

 Others say the first deportation followed the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar in 586 BCE; if so, the Jews were held in Babylonian captivity for 48 years.

They joined up with a population of 27,290  Hebrews that had been exiled by Assyria in 721 BCE., but that that was a good 135 years earlier. As far as they were concerned, they were simply taking back their own people who had once strayed away during some bad times.

 Among those who accept a tradition (Jeremiah 29:10) that the exile lasted 70 years, some choose the dates 608 to 538, others 586 to about 516 (the year when the rebuilt Temple was dedicated in Jerusalem).  This one is most popular.  They were kidnapped 70 years ago from their home in Judah!  Now they are faced with a choice of staying or returning to their ancestral homeland!  Most of them had never lived there, being born in Babylonia.  

Here's how it all came about:  

Ur, modern Tall al-Muqayyar or Tell el-Muqayyar, Iraq, important city of ancient southern Mesopotamia (Sumer), situated about 140 miles (225 km) southeast of the site of Babylon and about 10 miles (16 km) west of the present bed of the Euphrates River.  As an absolute minimal then, Abram, Sarai, Lot and all their herds, livestock, servants, etc must have walked 1551 miles (2494 Km) and it was probably MUCH more than that!

    Was this group Jacob's family-and were they Hyksos people?  

It was Terah with his son, Abraham and wife Sarah who had left long ago, possibly with a group later called the Hyksos, though they called themselves Habiru (Hebrew) and that Haran, their stopover, was a Habiru town,  in about 1500 BCE, who emigrated and created  Haran, that became a trading town,  and lived there for quite a while, then continued onto Egypt. Haran was Abram's brother who also lived in Ur of the Chaldees (Gen 11:26-31) and established Haran. They already had a moon cult established there.    But then that was a very long long time ago 903 years earlier than the days of Nebuchadnezzar.  Only Egypt would remember such migrations.

                         Pharaoh  Ahmose of Egypt

 The new king of Egypt, Kamose, the last king of the 17th dynasty, ruled over Egypt only for 5 years. However, in this short period, he was able to defeat the Hyksos until he reached their capital in the Delta. Kamose also took control of many other regions in Egypt including Al Bahariya Oasis and the Nubia. After his death, his brother, Ahmose, became the king of Egypt. Ahmose was in fact only 10 years old when he became the ruler of Egypt. Ahmose’s mother encouraged and motivated him to train on fighting. When he was 19 years old, his men were able to find a letter written from the King of the Hyksos to the rulers of Nubia to begin moving towards Thebes and attack it. This motivated Ahmose to begin a huge military campaign against the Hyksos.

     Babylon, known for its hanging gardens...

  All return to Babylon, thought Abram, as his name had been, and was from Ur of the Chaldees tribes.  They had moved into Ur with the natives already living there.  

By 538 BCE, some Jews had returned to Jerusalem after this 70 year hiatus. This means that only the oldest of the lot had been there as wee children, while the rest had never seen it or lived there earlier.  They were taking quite a chance as they had no idea what conditions they would find, and here they were in Babylon, all comfortable and cozy.   Babylon was the city of civilization, such as it was, in those days.  It was developed, organized and said to be beautiful, and probably was, but compared to what?  

The earliest Jews were in Rome was in 139 BCE. The traditional date for the founding of Rome is April 21st, 753 BC. Capitoline Wolf suckles the infant twins Romulus and Remus. The traditional date for the founding of the greatest city of the Western world was the product of guesswork by Roman writers of the late centuries BC, working backwards from their own time.  Jews had wound up in Rome that early from the close relationship Judea had with Rome from some trading, intermittent wars, and  Jewish slaves in Rome.                                    

        Ancient Babylon or Shinar in Bible, ziggurat in background...with Babylonia also referred to as land of the Kasdim (Chaldees)...meaning people of Abraham's line from Ur, no doubt..

 It was Cyrus II, king of Persia, who had granted permission to the exiles of Judah living in Babylon to return to their homeland and rebuild the Temple. (Ezra 1:1-44);  (II Chron.36:22-23) The Jewish exiles in return regarded Cyrus as a Divine agent. (Is 44:28:45:1). He had delivered an enlightened policy towards his subject people by allowing them to return home if so desired.  

When in Babylon, they maintained their national spirit and religious identity. Elders supervised the Jewish communities, and Ezekiel was one of several prophets who kept alive the hope of one day returning home. This was possibly also the period when synagogues were first established, for the Jews observed the Sabbath and religious holidays, practiced circumcision, and substituted prayers for former ritual sacrifices in the Temple. The degree to which the Jews looked upon Cyrus the Great as their benefactor and a servant of their God is reflected at several points in the Hebrew Bible—e.g., at Isaiah 45:1–3, where he is actually called God’s anointed. 

In the story of Esther, Cyrus is also inferred to be Esther's son or grandson.  Esther had married King Ahasuerus according to the Megillat Esther, though his name, Ahasuerus is not found in Persian records, written before 330 BCE, so that must be the Habiru name.  

The kings of the older line were Cyrus I, Cambyses I, Cyrus II (the Great), and Cambyses II. After the death of Cambyses II (522 bce) the junior line came to the throne with Darius I. The dynasty became extinct with the death of Darius III, following his defeat (330 bce) by Alexander the Great. Darius I reigned from 522-486 BCE and had inherited the throne of Cyrus.  At the beginning of his reign, he permitted Prince Zerubbabel and the Jews who had returned to Jerusalem to resume reconstruction of the Temple.  

Zerubbabel displays a plan of Jerusalem to Cyrus the Great by Jacob van Loo.

Zerubbabel (480 BCE) was the grandson of King Jehoiachin (598-597 BCE) of Judah, son of King Jehoiakim of Judah.  He sat on the throne at age 18 during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem and reigned for only 3 months and 10 days before capitulating to Nebuchadnezzar.  then he was taken to exile in Babylonia, remaining in detention until the accession of Evil-Merodach in 561 BCE when he was released (II Kings 24-25) (II Chron.. 36:8-10).  Official Babylonian records relating to his captivity have been recovered.  

      The rebuilding of the Temple of Solomon-2nd Temple

About 60 years after Zerubbabel had led his people back to Jerusalem from Babylonia, Ezra,  a Cohen, of the priestly family of Zadok who was working as a scribe in Babylon for the Persian government,  heard terrible reports about the returned Jews in Jerusalem in that they had lost the spirit of Judaism.  So he decided to lead another party back to Jerusalem who would firmly establish the Mosaic law.                                                

                                                   

In 458 BCE he received the permission from Artaxerxes I of Persia (could this be Ahasueros?)  and went to Jerusalem with 1,754 returning exiles.  Ezra together with Nehemiah, cupbearer to King Artaxerxes,  who became governor of Judah, persuaded the people to 1. keep the Torah, 2. to observe the Sabbath and the 3. sabbatical year, to 4. pay their Temple dues, and to 5. reject intermarriage with gentiles by 444 BCE. It was King Artaxerxes who appointed Nehemiah governor over Judah in 444 BCE.                                       

Nehemiah had organized the builders, the repair of its walls--an activity that was completed in 52 days despite interference by neighboring peoples.  He then devoted himself to social reforms with Ezra.   including cancellation of debts owed by the poor.  the leaders of the people had to pledge themselves to maintain the Temple regulations and pay their tithes.   

The security of Jerusalem was ensured by arranging for 1/10th of the people to live there.  After 12 years, Nehemiah returned to Susa, Persia but later returned to Jerusalem to renew his position.  In 433-432 BCE he took steps against mixed marriages, in conjunction with Ezra.  His work was decisive in the rebuilding of Judah.  Nehemiah's memoirs form the basis of the biblical Book of Nehemiah-which is a continuation of the Book of Ezra in the Hagiographa.  

Iraqi Jew kissing Mezuzah holding Deut.6:4-9 and 11:13-21 of parchment scroll beside the door on the right side, custom of all Jews everywhere.  The purpose is to remind us that all man's material possessions are the gift of heaven.  

The estimated 80,000 Jews who remained in Babylon – Iraq – after the return to Zion formed what was to become one of the most ancient exile communities in the world, existing for some 2,500 years continuously until 1948.  As for the male line of  Iraqi Jewry, I see a lot of E's, J1 (Cohen gene) and Gs listed at FTDNA.  

Resource:

https://www.familytreedna.com/public/AramaicDNAProject?iframe=yresults  chart of Y dna line

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.britannica.com/event/Babylonian-Captivity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zerubbabel

https://www.biblecartoons.co.uk/maps/map-of-middle-east-abram-abraham-s-journey-from-ur-to-canaan-distance in miles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmose_I