CHAPTER VIII. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE HIERARCHY AND THE UNDER the leadership of Zerubbabel and Joshua, the Jewish exiles, a numerous company, full of glad anticipations, began the journey to their native land. No farther description is given us of their march, but it certainly was not free from troubles and privations. They succeeded, however, in overcoming all difficulties. Upon their arrival in Judæa, the various families settled down in their former dwelling-places.* Before we proceed farther, we will glance at the composition of the new colony. From the list of those who returned+ we find, in the first place, that, irrespectively of the staff of the temple, they belonged to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin: the towns and villages whose former inhabitants went back, were all situated in the territory of these two tribes. The continued use of the sacred number twelve, therefore, proves-not that "the children of the exile" belonged to all the twelve tribes, but -that they considered themselves the lawful representatives of all Israel. In the second place, our attention is attracted by the returns concerning the staff of the temple. Separate mention is made of: the priests,|| the Levites, T the singers,** the porters,++ the Nethînîm ("those given," i.e. temple slaves),‡‡ and the children of Solomon's servants, §§ i.e. the Canaanites whom Solomon had made his slaves and who had thus been incorporated into * Ezra ii. 70. The question whether Sheshbazzar (Ezra i. 8, 11, v. 14, 16) must be distinguished from Zerubbabel is passed over here, as it is not connected with the history of the religion. + Ezra ii.; Neh. vii.; comp. above, pp. 177 sq. Ezra ii. 21-35; Neh. vii. 26-38. Ezra ii. 36-39, vii. 39-42. ** Ezra ii. 41; Neh. vii. 44. Ezra ii. 43-54; Neh. vii. 46-56. § Ezra ii. 2, vi. 17. Ezra ii. 40; Neh. vii. 43. ++ Ezra ii. 42; Neh. vii. 45. SS Ezra ii. 55-58; Neh. vii. 57-60. Israel.* If we add the number of all these upper and lower temple-servants together, we obtain a total of more than 5000; thus they formed nearly an eighth of the entire colony, perhaps even about a sixth, if the returns of the numerical strength of the single families be more worthy of credit than the figure which is given as the total amount. Though this proportion is remarkable in itself, yet there is more that calls for our notice. The Levites, the singers, &c., are distinguished here from the priests and this for the first time. Among the returning exiles, therefore, there were persons who were appointed to serve in the sanctuary, but were not considered fit for the actual priestly functions. If we remember, such under-priests-as one might call them—had existed since Josiah's reformation (621 B.C.).‡ It was very natural that the line of demarcation between them and the priests had not been gradually obliterated, but rather defined more sharply. Ezekiel had ordained, in his description of the restored Israelitish state, that for the future only "the sons of Zadok," i.e. the descendants of the priestly families of Jerusalem, should take charge of the service of the altar, and had excluded from the priesthood the rest of the sons of Levi, precisely because they had been foremost in worshipping Jahveh on the high places.§ It is now evident that the reality began to answer these requirements of the prophet. But at the same time another circumstance is now explained. The priests are more than 4000 in number || the Levites only amount to a total of 74, or 341 if we include the singers and porters. This proportion remains an insolvable riddle to any one who, with the (younger) Mosaic laws, holds the priests or sons of Aaron to be a small subdivision of the tribe of Levi. On the other hand, it is extremely natural, if the Levites be regarded as degraded priests probably they were less numerous than their brethren * 1 Kings ix. 20, 21. + Comp. Ezra ii. 64; Neh. vii. 66; and above, pp. 180 sq. Ezra ii. 36-39 and Neh. vii. 39-42 agree in the number 4289. ¶ Ezra ii. 40-42. According to Neh. vii. 43-45, the total is 360. at Jerusalem from the very first, but at any rate the desire to go up to Jerusalem must have been less strong in them than in the men who had the prospect of occupying the highest rank in the new temple.* And finally it does not escape our notice, that in the list already mentioned of those who returned, the singers and porters occur next to the Levites, and thus are distinguished from the latter. If this only happened here, we might perhaps suspect a slight inaccuracy of expression, and— in agreement with the Chroniclert and tradition-assume that the whole of the servants of the temple belonged to the tribe of Levi. But the same distinction is made elsewhere. The singers are included among the Levites for the first time in a document of considerably younger date,§ and the porters also still more recently, by the Chronicler. It appears, therefore, from the historical accounts themselves, that it was only by degrees that the whole temple-service was assigned to the tribe of Levi, yet not by removing from their posts the non-Levitical families connected with it, but by including them in the tribe of Levi by means of fictitious genealogies. This happened, e.g., with "the sons of Asaph," singers and musicians, who no doubt were appointed to the temple because they were skilled in music, and had made themselves indispensable there, when the idea arose that an office such as theirs could only be filled by the offspring of Levi: Asaph now became a descendant of Levi,¶ and a contemporary of David.** But we shall revert to this hereafter: that idea did not yet exist at the time with which we are occupied now. The accounts of the first fortunes of the new colony†† are in * Comp. Ezra viii. 15 seq. +1 Chr. xxv., xxvi. 1-17, and elsewhere; comp. 1 Chr. xxiii. 3—5. Ezra vii. 7, 24, x. 23, 24; Neh. vii. 1, x. 28, 39, xii. 47, xiii. 5, 10. § Neh. xi. 15-18 (=1 Chr. ix. 14-16; comp. Hk. O. I. 293 sqq.). After the total of "all the Levites in the holy city" has been given in Neh. xi. 18, the porters are treated separately in ver. 19. || 1 Chr. xxvi. 1-17, &c.; comp. n. †. ** 1 Chr. xxv. and elsewhere. T1 Chr. vi. 39-44. ++ Ezra iii.-vi. complete and moreover of later date, so that they must be used with caution. Luckily, however, we can supplement them from the contemporaneous prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah.* The pivot upon which the history of the returned exiles at first revolves, is the building of the temple. In the year of their arrival in Judæa, in the 7th month, they assembled at Jerusalem and there built an altar, upon which sacrifices were offered regularly from that time forward. The feast of tabernacles was also kept. The redactor of the book of Ezra, to whom we are indebted for this information, adds, that immediately after this they began to prepare for the building of the temple: as early as the 2nd month of the 2nd year the foundations of the new house of God were laid, amidst very mixed emotions on the part of those present, among whom there were some who still remembered Solomon's temple, and, mentally comparing it with the building which was now to arise, could not share the joy evinced by younger men. The comparison of the utterances of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah renders it at least doubtful whether such great haste was made with the important work; we should rather infer from their words that it was not until fifteen years later, in the second year of the reign of the Persian king Darius Hystaspis, that the foundations of the temple were laid. § But however this may be, difficulties soon arose which made it impossible to continue the work. The inhabitants of the former kingdom of the ten tribes came to Zerubbabel and Joshua and requested permission to take part in the building of the temple. It was refused then, and this on the ground of Cyrus' mandate, whereby leave to carry out that work was granted to the returned exiles exclusively. As was to be expected, this refusal aroused great animosity. Those who were * In chap. i.—viii. of the book named after him; chap. ix.―xiv. are older. Comp. Hk. O. II. 374 seq. Ezra iii. 1—6. Ezra iii. 7-13. § Hagg. i. 2, 4, 8, 14, ii. 18; Zech. i. 16, iv. 9, 10, vi. 12, 13. Comp. also Ezra v. 2, 16 (taken by the redactor of the book from an older writing). Ezra iv. 1-3. repulsed "hired counsellors against the Jews, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Kores king of Persia until the reign of Darius king of Persia."* What the accusations were which they made against the Jews with such good result, we are not told. But if we may judge from what took place on other occasions, they succeeded in throwing doubts upon their fidelity to the Persian monarchy, and in awakening the suspicion that they wished to make themselves independent. We are surprised that this complaint was at once believed, but if we knew the circumstances of the case, our surprise no doubt would disappear. It is enough that the prosecution of the work could not be thought of. The inhabitants of the former kingdom of Ephraim now appear on the stage of history for the first time. Thenceforward they repeatedly come in contact with the Jews, mostly as enemies. To understand rightly the part which they play, it will be necessary for us to study specially their origin and religious standpoint. It lies in the nature of the case, that after the fall of Samaria (719 B.C.) the extensive territory of the kingdom of the ten tribes was not entirely depopulated by the Assyrians. They confined themselves as the Chaldeans did subsequently in the kingdom of Judah‡-to carrying off the kernel of the nation as captives. But this and the war which preceded it occasioned so heavy a loss to the population of the land, that it was deemed necessary to send foreign colonists thither. This was done, either at once by Shalmanezer, § or some years later by Esarhaddon, Sennacherib's successor. It would seem that they were military colonies which the Assyrian king transferred to the cities of Samaria, and to other parts of Syria as well, and that they were under the command in chief of Osnappar, T "the great * Verses 4, 5. + Ezra iv. 12 sq., 15 sq., 19 sq. Comp. above, pp. 98 sq., 174 sq. § As is stated in 2 Kings xvii. 24, since the "king of Assyria" mentioned here is no other than Shalmanezer, verses 3 seq. Verses 7-23 were introduced by the last redactor. According to the Assyrian monuments, Sargon must take the place of Shal manezer. Thus Ezra iv. 2. Ezra iv. 10. |