Judah had survived the Assyrian onslaught of the 7th Cent. But she did not escape from the Babylonians. Before the first quarter of the 6th Cent. was out, her capital Jerusalem had been sacked, the temple destroyed, and the cream of her citizens exiled to Babylonia. The world of the Levant came then to be dominated by four major powers's Lydia, Media, Babylonia and Egypt (see map below). Within another fifty years, all these would be swept away, to be replaced by the new world ushered in with the arrival of the Persian Empire.
The Persian Empire owes its origin to the efforts of one man—Cyrus II (the Great). We know little of him, however, or of the origins of the Persian people he led, though traditions claim his decadency from the house of Achaemenes, a Median royalty.1 History meets Cyrus for the first time in 559 when he inherited the kingdom of Anshan, a minor vassal of the Medes.
Now, the Medes and the Babylonians were at one time allies, and their combined forces had struck the fatal blow to the Assyrian Empire when, in 612, they attacked and brought down the Assyrian capital city of Nineveh. Though the Medes had led the initial charge on the city, they soon withdrew for reasons that still remain a mystery. Capitalizing on Assyria's disaster, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, then marched westward and annexed all her territory, and despite Egypt's attempt to make trouble for Nebuchadnezzar, the tide of Babylonian victory could no longer be stamped. The subsequent political realignment of the states in the Near East strained the relationship with the Medes still further until they became a source of constant insecurity for the Babylonians. In 550 BC, however, Cyrus took on and defeated Astyages, king of the Medes.2
Cyrus proved to be a generous conqueror. Though he had no qualms plundering the wealth of Ecbatana, the Median capital, he spared the city and kept it as one of the capital cities of his new empire.3 He also earned the gratitude and respect of the locals when he returned many of the former Median officials to their posts. Such largesse in a conqueror was new and it would become a characteristic of Cyrus's reign.
Inheriting all of Astyages's vast territorial possessions in one stroke, Cyrus's empire became a major power quite overnight. Such an event could not but create tremors across the surrounding nations, but no one then could have seen the deep and far-reaching cracks those tremors would cause. Gregory Dix was only over-stating the point slightly, but only slightly, when he claims that:
The tapestry of history has no point at which you can cut it and leave the design intelligible. Yet the sudden rise to Empire c.550 B.C. of Cyrus, the prince of a petty Persian tribe, is almost such a point. Herodotus saw in this event the turning point of all Greek history. That is only part of the truth. Deutero-Isaiah, who saw in Cyrus God's Shepherd of the nations, the man whose right hand God Himself upheld, "to open the doors before him and the gates shall not be shut," suggests a wider vision. The life's work of this one man moulded the destiny of three great civilizations and set the main lines upon which universal history would run for more than fifteen hundred years, with consequences that are still potent today.4
G. Dix, Jews and Greeks, cited in F. F. Bruce, Israel and the Nations (Exeter: Paternoster, 1973) 97.
The kingdom of Lydia occupied the territory of Anatolia west of the River Halys, that is, the western part of what is modern Turkey and the New Testament calls Asia. It was a fertile land with rich natural resources, the most important of which was gold from the Pactolus River. Long ago, the Greeks had sailed across the Aegean Sea and established a number of colonies along the coast that became major cities. Conquered by a former Lydian king and permitted to retain their own traditions and local government, taxes from these cities gave birth to the English idiom "as rich as Croesus." Croesus made himself richer still when he conquered Ephesus and Miletus and added them to his empire.
The western border of Cyrus's kingdom now abuts Croesus's and Croesus saw how the cracks were making their way into his territory. Croesus never acted without the counsel of divine oracle. Wanting to know how his reign would go, a priestess of Apollo at Delphi had warned him:
Lydian, beware of the day when a mule is lord of the Medians:
Then with thy delicate feet by the stone-strewn channel of Hermus
Flee for thy life, nor abide, nor blush for the name of a craven.
Herodotus, History, I.55.
That is, his kingdom was in mortal danger from a mule who shall be "lord of the Medians" is clear. Now, who else could this mule be but the new upstart Cyrus who was born of Persian and Median blood?5 Croesus quickly made a defensive pack with Nabonidus (aka Nabu-naid) of Babylonia and Pharaoh of Egypt. The Greek city of Sparta offered her fleet in aid. He also sent a trusted friend, Eurybatos, with a large sum of money to raise a mercenary force in the Peloponnesus, the southern peninsula of Greece. Eurybatos, however, fled to Cyrus and betrayed Croesus's plans to him.
Before leaving for war, Croesus again sought the counsel of Apollo. This time they told him that if he should send an army against the Persians "he would destroy a great empire." Rather conveniently, they did not say which empire.6Croesus won the first round. Cyrus offered to leave his throne and kingdom alone provided the Lydian king recognized the Persian claim to sovereignty. Buoyed by this success and his understanding (or rather mis-understanding) of the oracle, Croesus sneered and mocked Cyrus, saying that whereas he had never bowed to another power, the Persians had been slaves to the Medes.
After two more battles in which neither could claim victory, Croesus was driven from the fields of Pteria, whereupon he fled back to Sardis, his capital, confident that Cyrus would not pursue him because of the onset of the cold winter season. Not wanting to risk the possibility of Greek, Babylonian, or Egyptian allies coming to Croesus's aid, Cyrus attacked at once. But when Cyrus saw Croesus's cavalry (horse-soldiers) arrayed on the plains outside Sardis, he worried. Then he devised a plan that demonstrated the talent and wisdom that made Cyrus "the Great." Here is Herodotus's account of it:
Assembling all the camels that followed his army bearing food and baggage, he took off their burdens and set men upon them equipped like cavalrymen; having so equipped them he ordered them to advance before his army against Croesus' horse; he charged the infantry [foot-soldiers] to follow the camels, and set all his horse behind the infantry . . . The reason of his posting the camels to face the cavalry was this: horses fear camels and can endure neither the sight nor the smell of them . . . So when battle was joined, as soon as the horses smelt and saw the camels they turned to flight, and all Croesus' hope was lost. Nevertheless the Lydians were no cowards; when they saw what was happening they leaped from their horses and fought the Persians on foot. Many of both armies fell; at length the Lydians were routed and driven within their city wall, where they were besieged by the Persians.7
The aid that Croesus had summoned from his Greek, Babylonian and Egyptian allies before the battle begun never materialized. After the fall of Sardis and the death of Croesus, Lydia was turned into the Persian satrapy of Saparda, with a native Lydian placed in charge.
Cyrus's victory over Sardis brought him face to face with the Greeks cities near the coast, but he was urgently needed back in the east. He left his general Harpage to deal with these Greek cities. Harpage eventually brought all of them to yield, all except the city of Melitus, which struck an advantageous deal with the Persians. Cyrus knew, of course, that it was only a question of time before a showdown with mainland Greece has to happen. For the moment he has the east to deal with.
If Cyrus's victory over Astyages of Medes created tremors, we can imagine what the fall of Lydia into his hands must have done for the peoples in the regions. For those in the ruling classes, this news would probably mean consternation. But what of those who were subject people, of which Babylonia was so full from their previous conquests and policy of forced exile?
We have no records of what the other peoples thought, but we know what the sentiments of one prophet for whom these circumstances formed the foreground. Addressing the exilic community, Isaiah first proclaimed a word of consolation:
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord's hand double
for all her sins. (Isa 40:1-2)
God was done with their punishment! Then Isaiah called the people to prepare for a fresh visitation of the Lord:
In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (40:3-5)
Before Isaiah reveals the specific content of the good news he emphasized that no one should mistake what he was about to say as anything other than the absolute work of Yahweh. To do this, Isaiah first extolled Yahweh as the Incomparable One:
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Who has understood the mind of the Lord, or instructed him as his counsellor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding? (40:12-14)
Then, he turned to the question of how the wheels of history move, how the fate of the nations turn:
Who has stirred up one from the east, calling him in righteousness to his service? He hands nations over to him and subdues kings before him. He turns them to dust with his sword, to wind-blown chaff with his bow. He pursues them and moves on unscathed, by a path his feet have not travelled before. Who has done this and carried it through, calling forth the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord—with the first of them and with the last—I am he. (41:2-4)
A Jew in exile might think that all this is fine and good, but so what? Was not Judah still a subjugate nation and the temple in Jerusalem still a heap of ruins? To this, Isaiah said:
This is what the Lord says, your Redeemer,
who formed you in the womb:
'I am the Lord, who has made all things,
who alone stretched out the heavens,
who spread out the earth by myself,
who foils the signs of false prophets
and makes fools of diviners,
who overthrows the learning of the wise
and turns it into nonsense,
who carries out the words of his servants
and fulfils the predictions of his messengers,
who says of Jerusalem, 'It shall be inhabited,'
of the towns of Judah, 'They shall be built,'
and of their ruins, 'I will restore them,'
who says to the watery deep, 'Be dry,
and I will dry up your streams,'
who says of Cyrus,
'He is my shepherd
and will accomplish all that I please;
he will say of Jerusalem, "Let it be rebuilt,"
and of the temple, "Let its foundations be laid."'
(44:24-28)
That, then, was the good news Isaiah had to bring the exiles. Cyrus's victory over Croesus was not going to be just a flash in the pan, for Cyrus was the one Yahweh had anointed and would hold by the hand:
This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armour, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut: I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. For the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen, I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honour, though you do not acknowledge me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things. (45:1-7)8
Cyrus's success over Lydia was not a mere passing accident, but the first act in the new drama that Yahweh is enacting on the world stage. Lydia had fallen; Babylon—the oppressor of Judah—would come next.
Before Cyrus took on Babylonia, however, he had to secure his eastern front from possible attacks by the "barbarians" of the Asian Steppes. The details of Cyrus's campaign in the east are not chronicled as were those of his conquests of Lydia and Babylonia; what is certain is that he soon reached and incorporated into his new empire lands that include what is modern-day Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and stretching down to the banks of the Indus River. With that done, Cyrus turned south for Babylon.
Babylonia had risen swiftly into a superpower when the founder-chieftain of the Chaldean people, Nabopolassar, came to power in 626 BC, and then with the alliance of the Medes, brought the Assyrian empire crushing to its knees within twenty years. His successor Nebuchadnezzar built on it and established a powerful and efficient kingdom that his successor Amel-Marduk (rendered Evil-Merodach in the OT) continued to administer ably. Jeremiah and the author of the book of Kings report that on Apr 2, 561 BC, i.e. "in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Evil-Merodach became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin from prison on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month" (Jer 52:31; 2 Ki 25:27).
Evil-Merodach's reign ended in a period of political uncertainty rife with assassinations until 556 BC, when a military junta appointed as king Nabonidus (aka Nabu-naid), the son of a high priestess of the moon-god Sin at Haran. Soon after his appointment, however, he set off for Arabia, where he established a series of posts centered around Tema but going as far south as Yathrib (modern-day Medina). Different reasons have been suggested for this sequester. Some scholars think it was a matter of trade, others that it was because Tema was an ancient center for the worship of the moon-god, Sin, to whom he was devoted. In his absence Nabonidus appointed his son Belshazzar in charge.9
Nabonidus is often made out by scholars to be incompetent; the fact that the military junta would appoint him king, however, suggests that he could not have been quite so limp. Taken together, the evidence suggests that it was his insensitivity to the religious sentiments of his own people that finally brought down his kingdom. Once king, he had elevated the status of Sin over above Marduk, the chief god of the Babylonians. Further, his failure to attend the yearly New Year festival—in which, as king he should "have taken the hands of Marduk" and thus symbolically re-enthroned the deity as king for another year—all those years he was away did nothing to lighten the displeasure of his people, the priests of Marduk foremost among them. A Babylonian inscription ("the Nabu-naid chronicles") now in the British Museum, tellingly records the years he was absent from the capital but more significantly added the comment, "The king did not come to Babylon for the ceremonies of the month of Nisanu, Nabu did not come to Babylon, Bel did not go out from Esagila in procession, the festival of the New Year was omitted."10
Then, as Cyrus's army approach the city, he made things worse by plundering the gods from the surrounding cities and installed them in the capital, enraging those so disenfranchised.
Given these events, it was not difficult to understand why Cyrus was welcomed with open arms by the Babylonians when he finally moved on the city. On Oct 12/13, 539, his army marched into Babylon unopposed. The fall of the city is narrated in at least two accounts from that time. This is Cyrus's account:
Marduk . . . scanned and looked through all the countries, searching for a righteous ruler . . . He announced the name of Cyrus, king of Anshan, declared him to be the ruler of all the world . . . He made him set out on the road to Babylon, going at his side like a real friend. His widespread troops—their number, like that of the water on a river, could not be established—strolled along, their weapons packed away. Without any battle, he made him enter his town Babylon, sparing Babylon any calamity. He delivered into his hand Nabunaid, the king who did not worship him.
James B. Prichard, ed. The Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955) 315f.
In a ceremony in the temple Cyrus openly "took the hand of Marduk," and in doing so not only did he legitimized his claim to the throne he also endeared himself to the people. This act, of course, "betokened no special devotion to Marduk on Cyrus's part, but he was sensible enough to realize the rich dividends of submission and even of gratitude which would accrue from such an inexpensive policy of outward respect to the deities of his subject nations."11
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2013