The exile was a spiritual and theological watershed for the Jews. The Promised Land had been God�s gift to His people; it stood as the emblem, the bridal gift, of Yahweh�s election of Israel as His people. Now they have been spewed out of the land. Are they still God�s people? Does Yahweh�s election promise continue to be valid for them? Is there a future for Israel as the people of God? These were the excruciating questions that hack at the heart of Jewish identity. The responsibility to address these questions fell to the exilic and post-exilic prophets like Ezekiel and Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi and � this might surprise you � the authors of Kings and Chronicles.
The Jews would remain in exile until the Persians took over the reins of Ancient Near Eastern politics from the Babylonians. Then under the leadership of Zerubbabel (from the line of David), Ezra and Nehemiah, and with the approval of their Persian overlords, the Jews would return to the land (c.520 BC)and began to rebuild the ruined city of Jerusalem, the Temple, and the surrounding as best as they could. Chastened by what disobedience to the laws of Yahweh had cost them, a new religious attitude, based on an austere, legalistic and racially exclusivist reading of the laws of Moses, began to emerge, one that would eventually lead to the Pharisaism so evident in the New Testament. When the Samaritans offered to help in the rebuilding they were ceremoniously rejected, thus acerbating the division between them. This history of the post-exilic era is reflected in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. A major social development of this period was the shift in the use of Hebrew to Aramaic as the common language.
With this era the Old Testament comes to a close.
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2013