During the Babylonish exile, therefore, many Judæans remained in their former dwelling-places, and these we have also to notice in the history of Israelitish literature. Compare Hk. O. II. 150, n. 8, 339 sqq., III. 357 sq. In spite of this we could say above, p. 55, that "the Israelitish nation had ceased to exist in its native land." Not only had those who remained in Judæa much to suffer from the neighbouring tribes, and especially from the Edomites, who appropriated a good portion of the territory of the tribe of Judah (comp. Hk. O. II. 152 sq., 341, n. 4), but they also lacked organization and leaders. The aristocracy, in more than one sense, had been carried off to Babylonia. Those who were left formed a part of the population of a Chaldean province, but they were no longer a people and no longer represented a nationality. When a fresh nucleus was formed in Judæa, they were able-as we shall see directly to join it and greatly increase it. But left to themselves they had no alternative but to become gradually absorbed by the foreign intruders and to cease to exist as Israelites.

We will now pass to the accounts relating to the return of the exiles from Babylonia. In Ezra ii. we possess a list of “the children of the province (Judæa) that went up out of the captivity, of those which had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away unto Babylon, and came again unto Jerusalem and Judah, every one unto his city" (verse 1). After this heading follow the names of the men who stood at the head of those who returned, Zerubbabel, Joshua and ten others (verse 2a); then there comes another heading: "the number of the men of the people of Israel" (verse 2b), with which compare the commencement of verses 36, 40-43, 55. The same list occurs again in Neh. vii. 6 seq., in the memoirs of Nehemiah himself, who relates that he found it while searching for the means of increasing Jerusalem's population: so much is certain, therefore, that this list was in existence about the year 440 B.C., and was provided with the same heading as it bears now. We find a third copy of the same list in the Greek book of Esdras

(3 Ezra), chap. v. 7 seq.-of course a translation of the Hebrew original, but from a text which differs a good deal from that in Ezra ii. and Neh. vii., and which moreover, at any rate here and there, deserves the preference. The three texts give the same total: 42,360 Israelites. Ezra ii. 2b, Neh. vii. 7b, lead us to believe that these were the grown-up men; but in 3 Ezra v. 41, it is stated that all who had attained the age of 12 are included; this is probably a conjecture of the Greek author to which we can attach no value. Now it is remarkable that this total does not agree with the preceding figures of which it ought to be the sum; in Ezra ii. these figures amount to 29,818; in Neh. vii. to 31,089; in 3 Ezra v. to 30,143. There can be no question here of a mistake in the total, in which the three texts agree. The separate numbers are not nearly so well guaranteed, and actually differ in the three copies. But it would be a very strange coincidence had they been corrupted in the three texts in such a manner that in each case they fell short of the totaland this by about 12,000. This presents a difficulty which as yet we are unable to solve.

We have now to remark further that the exiles did not all return, that even very many remained behind, the latter being apparently quite equal in number to those who had set out under Zerubbabel. This appears from Ezra vii. viii.: 1496 Jews began the journey to their own country with Ezra (chap. viii. 3-14), not counting the priests, the descendants of David (verse 2) and the Levites (verses 15—20); 3 Ezra viii. 28—40 gives 1690 instead of the 1496. But even then many Jews remain behind in Babylonia, as the sequel of the history will teach us. Compare provisionally Graetz, Gesch. der Juden, III. 283 sq.; IV. 302 sqq.

Now how are these returns of the Jews who went back and of those who remained in Babylonia to be reconciled with the accounts of the number of those who were carried away into exile? How can the figures given by the former be so much higher than those given by the latter?

The simplest way would certainly be to suppose that those who came back also included descendants of the ten tribes, so that they only partially corresponded with those carried off by Nebuchadnezzar, and could easily be more numerous than the latter. But this supposition is prevented by Ezra i. 5 (only Judah, Benjamin and Levi), ii. 1 (the exiles carried away to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar), &c. It is true, the inhabitants of Judæa look upon themselves as the representatives of the whole of Israel, and are thus prone to make use of the number twelve (Ezra ii. 2, vi. 17), but as the returned exiles settle within the borders of the kingdom of Judah, nay, at first in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem (comp. Bertheau, Esra, Nehemia u. Ester, pp. 34 sq.), so also they belong to the two tribes which had remained faithful to David and his house.

There is more foundation for the opinion that the returns of the number of those carried away are incomplete. This is even beyond all doubt, as we have already shown. 2 Kings xxiv. 14-16 is especially open to this interpretation. Should we not be going too far, however, in assuming, with Herzfeld (Gesch. d. V. J. von der Zerstörung des ersten Tempels, &c. I. 116, 447, 452), that the exiles of the year 586 B.C. were from 300,000 to 400,000 in number? Is not so high a figure too much in conflict with the evidence preserved to us in the Old Testament?

We must also take into consideration the increase of the Israelites in the land of their captivity. Their condition, upon the whole, was very tolerable, so that their number assuredly increased during the fifty or sixty years of their sojourn in Babylonia. But this growth too has its limits; it somewhat lessens the difficulty, it is true, but it does not remove it.

On the other hand, we can hardly believe either that subsequently to 586 B.C. many of those who had remained behind in Judæa went voluntarily to Babylonia (Stricker, Gesch. van het Joodsche volk, 1862, p. 5), or that the transportation of 581 B.C. (Jer. lii. 30) was followed by other transportations (Graf, Jeremia, pp. 630 sq.). We find no trace anywhere of either the one or the

other. Would such a voluntary migration have been permitted by the Babylonish authorities? Must it not have been preceded by an allotment of territory, somewhere in Mesopotamia? Were the men who remained in Judæa, however numerous they may have been, powerful enough to resist the Chaldeans, or even to awaken their fears, and so to occasion repeated transportations?

All the attempts hitherto mentioned to make the accounts relating to the exiles agree with those relating to the return, start from the latter and pre-suppose their absolute authenticity. But still suspicion, or at all events doubt, has been thrown also upon these. Professor E. Reuss (Schenkel's Bibel-Lexikon, II. 245) writes somewhat to this effect: "The number given in Ezra ii. 64 sq., Neh. vii. 66 sq., is quite out of proportion to the number of those carried away. We shall have to assume, either that the list of those who had returned (Ezra ii. and Neh. vii.) also contains the names of those who came back subsequently, or that it refers to a later period, or that during the exile the number of the Israelites had very greatly increased-which is not probable,—or finally, that the said list gives us the result of a census in which the component parts of the nation, as far as their origin was concerned, were not accurately distinguished, so that other Israelites, who had joined the families which had returned from Judah and Levi, were included in it. In any case, the arrangement of the list is very peculiar and surprising. Side by side with a number of very numerous but otherwise entirely unknown families, among which are some that contain more than 2000 persons, we find a series of much smaller groups, comprising the inhabitants of separate, well-known places. We have here a riddle of which criticism will probably be able to give no more than a doubtful solution."-It seems to me that these reflections of Reuss have been already satisfactorily answered in part by Bertheau, in his commentary upon Ezra ii. The names of the families which we meet with in Ezra ii. 3—19, and do not indeed read without surprise, occur also in other placesin Ezra viii.; Neh. viii.-x., &c.-and thus do not present any

insurmountable difficulty. Besides this, Neh. vii. 1-5 forbids us to carry our doubts too far. Moreover, before venturing to draw a definite conclusion, we ought to possess a better knowledge of the organization of the new colony than we are now able to employ. Yet Reuss puts forward a conjecture which is worthy of all consideration. Why should we not assume that the original list of those who returned was amplified after the lapse of some years, and that then the Judæans who had remained in their own country, for so far as they had joined the former, were added to it? There was opportunity enough for such an addition in the interval between 538 and about 440 B.C.when Nehemiah found the list. That the original inhabitants were included among those who came back, and not, conversely, the latter among the former, lies in the nature of the case: the leadership of the Jewish state rested with the men who had returned; they took the lead in every domain. This hypothesis also explains why we hear nothing of the Judæans who were already on the spot they became assimilated by the new comers, and so negatived at the same time. And finally, it is recommended by the fact that it agrees with Neh. x. 28-a passage to which we shall return in Chapter VIII. If, upon the occasion of Ezra's reformation, some Judæans who had remained behind joined those who had returned—they are indicated in the passage referred to by the words, "all they that had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands unto the law of God”— what can be more natural than the hypothesis that others had done the same thing before?

Perhaps in the want of agreement between the total and the preceding figures, to which we have referred, a trace has also survived of a redaction which the original list has undergone. At any rate this antagonism affords proof that the whole document, however it may have been done and whoever may have done it, has suffered, so that it cannot be called presumptuous to remove the difficulties in our way by conjectures such as these. If by this means the total of those who returned is reduced and