HISTORY OF ISRAEL LIBRARY

The History of Ezra and of the Hagiocracy in Israel To the time of Christ.

EZRA AND NEHEMIAH

I
BIRTH AND EDUCATION OF EZRA

EZRA was of the tribe of Levi, and of the priestly branch of it, which was descended from Aaron. He came of the line of the High Priests, but not of the branch which had enjoyed the High Priesthood since the return from the Captivity. The last high priestly ancestor whom he could boast was Seraiah (Ezra VII. 1), who held the office in Zadekiah's time (2 Kings XXV. 18), was captured at the final siege of Jerusalem, and was put to death by Nebuchadnezzar (ibid. ver. 21). This personage was probably his great-great-grandfather. There is reason to believe that the priestly houses were held in high respect among their countrymen during the whole period of the exile; and that such as elected to remain behind when Cyrus gave permission for the Return, continued to form the directing and governing element among the flourishing communities of Jews which were scattered over the eastern countries, more especially in Babylonia, Persia, and Media. Thus Ezra, as belonging to a high-priestly family, would from the first have held a dignified position among the exiles, and, as he grew to manhood among them, would have bad every opportunity to cultivate his mind, and lay up stores of knowledge, that the circumstances of the time allowed. His position in the priestly order would be above that of most, since there could be few with so illustrious an ancestry—an ancestry of which he was justly proud (Ezra VII. 1-5)—and whatever forms of culture belonged to the Judeans of the period, whatever "schools" were open to them, whatever access they had either to native or to foreign literature, would come within the range of his choice. It is difficult to say, what exactly was the culture, either of the Judean or of the Babylonian schools of the time; but some attempt must be made—however scanty are the materials—to estimate each, if any definite idea is to be formed of the means at Ezra's disposal for equipping himself to perform his task in life.

Now the learning of the Babylonians had, from a very ancient date, covered a wide field. They had cultivated arithmetic, astronomy, history, chronology, geography, comparative philology, and grammar. In astronomy the progress which they had made was remarkable. They had mapped out the heaven into constellations, traced the passage of the sun and moon along the line of the Zodiac, catalogued the fixed stars, observed, calculated, and recorded eclipses, noted occultations of the planets by the sun and moon, determined correctly within a small fraction the synodic revolutions of the moon, and the true length of the solar year, ascribed eclipses of the sun to their proper cause, noticed comets, fixed the periodic times of the planetary revolutions, and thence correctly determined their relative distance from the earth. They had, it is true, mixed astrology with their astronomy, and thus degraded the "queen of sciences" from the exalted position properly belonging to her; but still "a school of pure astronomers existed among them", and it was a veritable science which the Greeks of the days of Alexander the Great received at their hands. It was a science built up inductively from observation and experience, resting upon ancient records, and, in the main, truthful and sound. It formed a solid basis for the further researches of Hipparchus and Ptolemy. It lies, in many respects, at the root of the astronomy of today. It had, of course, the defects naturally belonging to a geocentric system; but, in spite of these defects, it had no small value, both as a mental training, and as available for many practical purposes.

Astronomical investigations cannot be conducted without a knowledge of arithmetical processes; and there is evidence that Babylonian learning included a considerable proficiency in the science of number. Not only were the simpler processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division known to them, but they formed tables of squares and cubes, and extracted square and cube roots. Two systems of arithmetical notation were employed by them, the one decimal, the other sexagesimal. In calculations of time, they counted by the sar, the ner, and the soss—the soss being a period of sixty, the ner one of six hundred, and the sar one of three thousand six hundred (60x60) years. But for ordinary calculations they had a decimal system, and a notation much resembling that of the Romans.

Babylonian history and chronology were very closely interconnected, the Babylonians priding themselves on being most exact and particular in their dates. The names of kings and the duration of reigns were carefully chronicled; and calculations of the distance of time between one event of history and another were regarded as capable of being made with absolute accuracy. Events, however, were recorded in a very dry and jejune manner, while the investigation of causes, and the philosophy of history generally, met with complete neglect. Kings were usually their own historiographers, and directed what events of their reigns should be put on record, and what passed over sub silentio. Candour was not characteristic of the historical writings, which rarely mentioned the failure of an enterprise, and never chronicled a defeat. A minute exactness, however, was affected with respect to details, and in the accounts of a king‘s buildings, of his expeditions, of the plunder that he took, of the tribute that was paid him, of the punishments which he inflicted, all the facts were given in extenso, and nothing left to the imagination.

Geography, with the Babylonians, was practical rather than speculative. It did not concern itself with the shape or size of the earth, the general distribution of land and water, the height of mountains, the length of rivers, or the contour of coasts. It was, in the main, an enumeration of countries, with occasional mention of their relative geographical position, and with marked reference to their principal products. Only two seas were known, the "Upper Sea", or Mediterranean, and the "Lower Sea", or Persian Gulf. The rivers noticed were the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Greater Zab, the Lesser Zab, the Eulaeus, the Khabur, and the Orontes. The principal known countries were Elam, Chaldea, Babylonia, Persia, Media, Assyria, Armenia, or Ararat, Mesopotamia, or the Nairi country, Cilicia, Lydia, Commagene, Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, Arabia, the Sinaitic peninsula, Egypt, and Ethiopia. The mountain ranges which received notice were those of Zagros, Niphates, Masius, Amanus, and Lebanon. The only islands known were Cyprus, Aradus, and the Bahrein isles in the Persian Gulf. Distances were estimated by kaspu (parasangs or farsakhs) and double kaspu (kaspu-kikkar)—the former about three miles and a half, the latter about seven miles, English! There is no indication, how­ever, of any use of maps or plans by the Babylonians, nor any proof that they even made exact measurements of the distance between place and place, much less anticipated the modern system of accurate survey by means of triangulation.

The study of comparative philology and grammar was forced on the Babylonians by the linguistic changes of which their country was the theatre. Originally, the inhabitants of the lower Mesopotamian region spoke an agglutinative language of a Turanian type. This language—the Akkadian or Accadian—gradually died out, and was succeeded by a form of the Semitic, not very different from Hebrew. The old Akkadian after a while became unintelligible, except to scholars; and as the whole of the ancient learning—the accumulation of centuries—was written in it, careful study and exact translation became absolutely necessary, unless the living and coming generations were to lose all benefit from the times that were past. Hence the energy of a large number of persons was turned in this direction; and the result was a whole library of works, con­sisting in part of direct translations of the old Akkadian documents into the new Babylonian language—in part, of syllabaries, vocabularies, and lists of various kinds, where the ancient forms of speech were represented in one column, and their modern equivalents in another. A labor of this kind could not but result in a considerable advance in linguistic and grammatical science, by the formation of canons of construction, the observance of different shades of meaning in words, and the establishment of approximate synonyms. The litterati of Babylon in the time of Ezra were, in all probability, possessed of something more than a rudimentary criticism; and their translations and paraphrases were well calculated to serve as models for less advanced nations.

On the other hand, the Hebrew exiles had also inherited from their forefathers, and brought with them into Babylonia from Palestine, a literary culture which was far from contemptible. From the time of the sojourn in Egypt, if not even earlier, Israel had been a literary people; and sacred writings, re­garded as possessing the highest value, and entitled to the utmost respect, had been among their most cherished treasures. "Schools" had early been formed, into which bodies of students were collected under the direction of a master, and in which writing, composition, religious doctrine, and music were taught. The chief subject of study was, no doubt, the Law and its interpretation; but "subsidiary subjects of instruction"  entered also into the curriculum, and among these were certainly included musical science, sacred poetry, exegesis, and a rough criticism. As time went on, the number of sacred books increased, and also the number of other books, not regarded as sacred, but nevertheless viewed as authentic, and of high value. The prophetical schools were the keepers of these books, and in some instances, probably, their compilers and arrangers. By the time of the Exile, or, at any rate, by the time of Ezra, there existed, not only the historical works of the Pentateuch, of Joshua, and Judges, of Samuel and of Kings, but a vast amount of poetical writings, partly of a gnomic character, partly in the shape of psalms and hymns, partly in that of the collected writings of particular prophets, as Jonah, Hosea, Isaiah, Amos, Joel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the rest of those commonly known as "the Major and Minor Prophets"; whose works are still extant. There were also a number of compositions, well known to the writers of the time of the Captivity, which have since been wholly lost; as those quoted by the author of Chronicles—"the Chronicle of King David" (I Chron. XXVII. 24), "the Acts of Samuel the Seer", "the Acts of Nathan the Prophet", "the Acts of Gad the Seer" (ibid. XXIX. 29), "the Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite", "the Visions of Iddo the Seer" (2 Chron. IX. 29), "the Acts of Shemaiah the Prophet", "Iddo the Seer on Genealogies" (ibid. XII. 15), "the Com­mentary of the Prophet Iddo" (ibid. XIII. 22), "the Acts of Jehu the son of Hanani" (ibid. XX. 34), "the Commentary of the Book of the Kings" (ibid. xxiv. 27), "Isaiah's Acts of Uzziah" (ibid. xxvi. 22), "the Vision of Isaiah" (ibid. XXXII. 32), and "the Acts of Hosai", or "of the Seers" (ibid. XXXIII. 19). Whether the "Thousand Songs of Solomon", and his works upon natural history (I Kings IV. 32, 33), were extant then, or not, may be doubted; but it is beyond question that the exiles were in possession of a copious literature, varied in its character, and of high educational value to those who studied it.

Such being the condition of learning and literature during the time when Ezra was growing to manhood, we have further to inquire, what was the probable course and line of his own studies and acquirements. And here it seems necessary at once to note the strong religious bias of his mind and character. Ezra, though not a member of "the goodly fellowship of the prophets", had all the religious fervour of a prophet, and all the disregard of mere profane and secular learning which characterized the prophets generally. His heart was wholly set on the moral and religious improvement of his countrymen. The bulk of the Babylonian learning would, consequently, possess little attraction for him. He would devote himself especially to the pursuit and cultivation of that science and literature which had been handed down in the Judean schools, and which since the Exile had no doubt derived considerable advantage and improvement from contact with the "Chaldean learning", and with the "famous scientific caste" which had one of its chief seats at Babylon, and another at Borsippa, in the immediate neighborhood. His main study would be a study of the sacred books, and especially of the Torah or "Law of Moses"—the most sacred of all the Judean documents, of his deep regard for which we have ample proof. But this would involve much linguistic and critical research, since the Old Hebrew was no longer generally intelligible to the exiles, whose language had come to be the Aramaic, or so-called "Chaldee". Ezra would have to make himself thoroughly acquainted with two considerably different forms of speech, and able without hesitation or pause to translate the one into the other. He would also have to master the elements, at any rate, of textual criticism, in order to decide between various readings in the different copies of the Law, which were in the hands of the exiles. Either it was from the first, or it soon came to be, his object to make himself as perfect a "scribe of the Law of God" as possible; and this involved not only acquaintance with the letter, but familiarity with the spirit, of Scripture—the power of expound­ing aright all the many passages of the Law where the meaning was obscure or ambiguous, and so making the hearer to "understand" it. Essential elements in his education would thus be—(I) Knowledge of two languages, Hebrew and Aramaic; (2) Facility in speaking and writing them; (3) Deep acquaintance with the full spiritual meaning of the Law, so as to correctly expound it; (4) Some knowledge of textual criticism, either in its principles, or in the traditional application of them.

But this was not all that was needed. To be the successful teacher of a people, which was what Ezra set himself and "prepared his heart" to be, it is necessary to know them; and to know them, it is necessary to study their history. If Ezra was, as he almost certainly was, the author of Chronicles, he must clearly have made the history of his nation, from its earliest beginning, one of the principal objects of his study. The writer of Chronicles has searched the archives of his nation with extraordinary diligence, and has gathered his narrative from original documents, and the works of contemporary writers, with an indefatigable industry and a zeal above all praise. We cannot doubt that Ezra, in the course of his early training at Babylon, must have devoted a large share of his attention to the Judean historical literature, of which an account has been given above, which had been brought with them from Jerusalem by some of the richer and better-educated among the exiles, and had been treasured up by them as among the most valuable of their possessions. He may indeed have carried on these studies, and so reached the perfection to which he ultimately attained in later life; but the foundation, whereon was afterwards built up so lofty a superstructure, may be presumed to have been laid, and much of the material afterwards employed to have been accumulated, in those early years when leisure was abundant, and the acquisition of knowledge was the main duty of the day. It is deeply to be regretted that so little has come down to us with respect to the Judean schools of the period of the Exile, the division of the subjects of study, the methods of the teaching, or the order in which the subjects were taken. The very names of the teachers anterior to Ezra are unknown to us, and we are precluded from drawing any picture of the "Gamaliel" at whose feet he was brought up; we can only figure to ourselves vaguely a docile and zealous student, diligent in his attendance day after day on the best teachers of the time, listening to them, and hanging on their words, poring over the books to which they allowed him access, questioning them and pondering their replies, and so at once improving his mind,

"And hiving wisdom with each studious year".

The scribe could not enter upon his office until he was thirty years of age. His studies began, probably, at thirteen; in which case he would be under tutelage and instruction for the space of seventeen years. Education was thus not hurried over as it so often is; and Ezra would have ample space to equip himself with all the knowledge his profession required before the time came for engaging in its active exercise.

II

EARLY RELATIONS WITH THE PERSIAN GOVERNMENT.

THE position which Ezra occupied politically was, primarily, that of a Persian subject. The supremacy exercised by Babylon over the Jewish nation from the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (586 BC) to the destruction of the Babylonian Empire by Cyrus the Great (538 BC), passed on the capture of Babylon in that year to Persia, and the Achaemenian monarchs thenceforward for above two centuries controlled and directed the destinies of the Hebrew people. They inaugurated their rule by an act of extraordinary grace and favor. The people was found by them split into two great sections. On the one hand, there were still in Judaea Proper, in the central region of Palestine, in Galilee, and even in the district beyond the Jordan, many descendants of Israel who remained true to their religion, and lived peaceably, intermixed with heathens, in the old settlements of the nation; on the other hand, there dwelt in Babylon and its vicinity the great mass of the people, and especially the noblest and most distinguished of them, descendants of that élite of the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem which Nebuchadnezzar, in his various raids upon the land, had carried off. Cyrus had no sooner made himself master of Babylon than, in the very first year of his reign there, he issued a decree, whereby this entire population, amounting to many tens of thousands, and possessed of considerable wealth, was permitted, and exhorted, to quit the land into which it had been forcibly trans­planted some fifty, sixty, or seventy years earlier, and to transfer itself once more to its old and much-loved habitation.

It is an interesting inquiry, what were the grounds of the remarkable and exceptional favor thus shown by the great Persian conqueror, the foremost man of his day, to the Judean people? Ewald indeed suggests that, "as the mighty destroyer of the Babylonian Empire, Cyrus was called, without being stimulated by others, to bring freedom and restoration to all the peoples it had oppressed, and all the cities it had overthrown". But history records no other instance of such favor as having been shown by Cyrus to any other people; nor, indeed, is the mission of restoration and reversal of the doings of the power which he succeeds any part of the ordinary conception formed of his duties by an Oriental conqueror. In general the status quo is maintained; the achievements of the conquered power are regarded as faits accomplis; the victor reaps the benefit of them, and has no thought of undertaking so quixotic a task as that of giving back to freedom and independence the nationalities which his predecessor has brought under subjection. There must have been some very special reason which induced Cyrus to depart from the ordinary course of proceeding among kings and rulers of the period, and at the same time to make an exception from his own usual practice, by the restoration of Israel.

The explanation of this abnormal act is probably to be found in the recognition by Cyrus of a certain resemblance and conformity between his own religion and that of the Israelites—a resemblance and conformity which caused him to feel a keen sympathy with the people and a strong desire to help and benefit them. The nearness of Zoroastrianism to the ancient Jewish faith is generally allowed; and, though it is now held by some that Cyrus was not a Zoroastrian, yet the grounds for this opinion are in reality insufficient, and historical criticism will, it is probable, ultimately revert to the belief which was almost universal before the discovery of the well-known "Cyrus Tablet". The decree in Ezra, considered merely as a historical document, is likely to be quite as authentic as the Babylonian clay tablet, which was not issued by Cyrus himself, but by the priests of Bel-Merodach, who would be interested in misrepresenting him. And the Behistun Inscription shows us the Zoroastrian religion as established in Persia, certainly under Cambyses, and therefore probably under Cyrus, not as first set up by Darius Hystaspes. We are not perhaps entitled to regard the decree as exactly expressing the views of Cyrus on the subject of religion; its language is probably colored by the Hebrew medium through which it has passed; but at any rate we are justified in accepting it as the best extant authority on the guiding cause of the liberation, and the nearest approach that we can obtain to what was passing in the Great King’s mind. He was actuated by a religious motive; he sympathized with the Jews as monotheists; he identified their God, Jehovah, with his own God, Ormazd; and he con­sidered the restoration of the Jewish Temple as a religious duty. It is even quite within the bounds of possibility that the narra­tive of Josephus is true; and that the action of Cyrus was mainly determined by his having, on becoming master of Babylon, been brought into contact with the Jews who had held high office under his predecessor, and been by them made acquainted with those prophecies of Isaiah, which announced his victories, and declared him to be "God’s shepherd, who should perform all his pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built, and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid" (Isa. XLIV. 28). The theory of a "second Isaiah" or "Great Unnamed", who lived during the time of the Captivity, however fanciful, does not invalidate this view, since the effect on the mind of Cyrus would scarcely be less if the prophecies were recent than if they were two centuries old; and it might even be argued that the more recent they were, the greater the obligation under which they would have laid him. In any case, if we accept as true the high political position assigned to Daniel in the book that bears his name, under the three reigns of Belshazzar, Darius the Mede, and Cyrus the Persian (Dan. I. 21; V. II-29; VI. 2-28), it would be natural that the attention of Cyrus should be called to any mention of his name in the Jewish sacred books which was of a flattering and laudatory character.

The permission given by Cyrus for the return of the Jews, and indeed of the whole people of Israel (Ezra I. 21; II. 7o; VI. 16), to their own land, was not at first accepted by any very large number. No more than 42,36o Israelites, together with 7,337 slaves, quitted Babylonia under the appointed leader, Sheshbazzar, or Zerubbabel, and accomplished the long and painful journey from the Chaldean capital to the Judean territory. By far the greater number, and especially those of the wealthier classes, preferred to remain behind, to hold the property which they had acquired, and pursue the avocations to which they were accustomed on a foreign but now friendly soil. It has been calculated that those who returned stood to those who stayed behind in the proportion of one to six; but, however this may have been, it is quite certain that the edict of Cyrus took but a very partial effect, and that, both at Babylon and elsewhere in the Persian dominions, as especially at Susa (Esther IX. 5-18), there remained, during the whole of the Persian period, very large and flourishing communities of Jews, who, as a general rule, were content with their position, and made no effort to remove to Palestine It was to one of these communities, probably that of Babylon, that Ezra belonged. The Persian government, for the most part, treated them well. Most probably a special quarter was assigned to them in each of the principal towns wherein they dwelt, and an independent municipal organization may have been granted them in many, if not in all, instances. They enjoyed certainly the free exercise of their religion. Synagogues everywhere grew up, and in many places schools of learning were founded, which attained a high reputation. A certain connection was kept up with Jerusalem; and from the time of the complete restoration of the Temple (515 BC), an annual payment was made by each foreign Jew towards the Temple service, which was collected in the provinces, and carried each year by sacred messengers to Jerusalem. The Jewish communities formed, thus far, a sort of imperium in imperio; but still their individual members had all the duties of Persian subjects to discharge, were taxed like the other subject races, and might be called upon to serve in the wars. With the burdens of citizenship they shared also its privileges. High places were opened to them; and thus we find Zerubbabel and Nehemiah designated as "Pashas", or provincial governors, and Mordecai declared to have been "next to the king" (Esther X. 3).

No statement has come down to us with respect to the exact year of Ezra’s birth. We may gather, however, from the decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus in Ezra VII., that in 458 BC —that monarch's seventh year—he was at least forty years of age. If so, he must have been born under Darius, the son of Hystaspes—the great ruler in whose reign the Second Temple was brought to its completion (Ezra VI. 15), and to whom the organization of the Persian Empire was due. Darius was very friendly to the Jews, and is likely to have favored those of Babylon especially, since in the native Babylonians he had implacable enemies, who twice rebelled against him, and set up pretenders, who disputed with him the sovereignty of the Eastern world. But Darius died in 486 BC, when Ezra was probably still a boy attending school, and was then succeeded by his son Xerxes, the arbitrary tyrant, whose caprices and extravagances are so well known. Ezra grew to manhood under this licentious and sanguinary prince, the worst of all the Archemenian monarchs, and the most fickle and capricious even of Oriental rulers. He was probably about twenty-four or twenty-five years of age when the news came to Babylon from Susa that, to gratify a favorite, the fantastic Xerxes had issued a decree for the extermination of the whole Jewish people. Then "in every province"—and certainly not least in the adjacent province of Babylonia—"was there great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes". The doom of death, pronounced against the whole race, would be carried by the swift posts, which Darius had established throughout the empire, in a very short space, to the remotest Jewish settlement within the Persian dominions, not only to Babylon and Borsippa, and Ahava, and Nearda, but to Mespila, and Rhages, and Damascus, and Jerusalem, and Lachish, and Hebron, and Beersheba. Everywhere the Jews would be thrown into consternation. There would seem to be no way of escape. An irresponsible despot, utterly reckless of bloodshed, well known to have committed the wildest extravagances in the earlier years of his reign, had condemned the entire nation to death, and sealed his condemnation by a decree—a decree which even he, with all his pride and self-will, was powerless to revoke. Ezra, and his fellow-countrymen in Babylon, must have fully shared with the rest of the nation in their extreme alarm and apprehension, and while seeking to avert their doom by fasting and self-humiliation, must have been roused to bitter hatred of the monarch who threatened their lives.

This state of apprehension lasted for somewhat more than two months. Then, a little before midsummer, the posts went once more speeding through the land, bearing a royal mes­sage. "King Ahasuerus (Xerxes) granted permission to the Jews, in every city wherein they had a settle­ment, to gather themselves together on the day for which the massacre was fixed, and to stand for their lives, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish all the power of the people and province that should assault them, and to have their spoil for a prey". The former decree could not be directly countermanded; and so, to defeat it, the Jews were allowed and encouraged to resist in arms any attack that might be made upon them by the native races among whom they dwelt, and assured of the neutrality—the benevolent neutrality—of the royal forces. At once there was a revulsion of feeling. The Jews were confident of their own strength, if they might freely use it, unhampered by the fear of being taxed with rebellion, and punished by the central authority for insurrection. So, everywhere, "in every province and in every city, whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast, and a good day". The sackcloth was put off; the mourning came to an end; feasting superseded fasting; "joy and gladness" took the place of sorrow and apprehension. At Babylon, no doubt, as elsewhere, a violent reaction set in; and Ezra and his com­panions, released from their alarms, gave themselves up to rejoicing and festivity.

But the crisis was not yet past. The day fixed by the former decree would not arrive until the spring of the ensuing year. Between eight and nine months would have to pass before it could be seen and known whether the Jews or their enemies would prevail, whether God's people would triumph or be swept away. After the first burst of joy on the arrival of the second decree a certain amount of apprehension must have revived. The Jews had many bitter enemies among the various peoples subject to the Persian Crown. Their pride of race and haughty exclusiveness made them disliked generally. When Jerusalem was about to fall under the attack of Nebuchadnezzar, it was probably not among the Edomites alone that the cry was raised of "Down with her, down with her, even to the ground". The malevolence of their foes had been excited by the first decree, and, as time went on, it became quite clear to the Jews settled in foreign towns that on the day named in the decree—the 13th of Adar (early in March, 473 BC)—they would be attacked. Accordingly they prepared themselves, procured arms, "gathered themselves together", per­haps organized themselves into corps, at any rate watched and stood upon their guard, keeping a wary eye upon their foes. The attitude of the government was favorable. All the rulers of the provinces, and the lieutenants, and the deputies, and the officers of the king"—each in his several station—"helped the Jews", not, it is probable, openly taking their part, but secretly aiding them, granting them facilities, and putting impediments in the way of their foes. At last the day, so long looked for, arrived, and the collision took place. We have no details of the circumstances of the struggle in any place but Susa. There, on the 13th of Adar, the Jews of the place assembled, and being menaced, fell upon their enemies, and "smote them with the edge of the sword, and with slaughter and destruction, and did what they would unto them", slaying as many as five hundred. Nay, further, not content with their triumph, they asked and obtained the royal permission to continue the struggle for another day, and in the course of the second day slew of their enemies three hundred more, making a total of eight hundred. Among the killed were the ten sons of Haman, their great persecutor. Elsewhere, "in their cities throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus", the Jews also "gathered themselves together, to lay hand on such as sought their hurt, and stood for their lives, and slew of their foes", in all, "seventy and five thousand". Among the towns wherein these sanguinary scenes were enacted, Babylon is likely to have held a leading place.

Thus Ezra, by the time that he was twenty-five years old, had probably passed through some severe trials and had some remarkable experiences. He was not a mere recluse student. The circumstances of his life had made him acquainted with danger, trouble, doubt, suspense, conflict, triumph. When, at thirty, he was formally inducted into the scribe's office, he was no neophyte, trembling, nervous, and diffident, but a man of ripened judgment and tried powers, competent to fill well an important position, and to exercise a powerful influence over the fortunes of his countrymen. He cannot have been, during the lifetime of Xerxes, a very loyal Persian subject. The remem­brance of the fearful danger into which his nation had been thrust by the weakness and folly of the reigning king could not have been obliterated, and is scarcely likely to have been con­doned, in consideration of the half-repentance and half-retrac­tion which the influence of Esther and Mordecai brought about. Ezra, and the Jews generally, may have been pleased and grati­fied by the high place accorded to their compatriots at the Court of Susa; but they could never cease to detest the cruel king, who, with a barbarity beyond that even of Antiochus Epiphanes in later times, had doomed their whole race to extinction. While Xerxes lived they cannot have felt secure against a recurrence of the danger to which they had been exposed, and which they had, by a series of wonderful chances, escaped. Xerxes died in 465 BC, murdered by the captain of his guards. Ezra was at this time, probably, between thirty and thirty-five years of age.

III.

RELATIONS WITH ARTAXERXES LONGIMANUS.

THE crown of Persia passed, on the death of Xerxes, after a certain period of disturbance, to the youngest of his sons, Artaxerxes, whom the Greeks called "Macrocheir" and the Romans Longimanus." He was not much more than a boy at his accession, and had some difficulty in maintaining himself upon the throne; but, after seven months of indecision, he adopted a vigorous policy, punished Artabanus, the murderer of his father, and his tool, Aspamitres, with death, and undertook the active direction of the state. After suppressing a revolt in Bactria, in which he gained some military distinction, his attention was turned, in the fifth year of his reign, towards Egypt, where an insurrection had broken out under Inarus, an African chief, and Amyrtmus, a native Egyptian, which threatened the gravest danger to the empire, since it was fomented by the Athenians. It may well have been in connection with this most important rebellion, which was not suppressed till six years later, that the Great Monarch took into special consideration the condition of Palestine, which lay upon the Egyptian border; and, regarding the Judeans as the most faithful of all his subjects in that quarter, resolved to attach them as closely as possible to his interests by favors which should recall the old kindness and the old munificence of Cyrus and of Darius Hystaspes. The colonists who had gone out with Zerubbabel were, he knew, too few and too feeble to occupy one half of the territory which had belonged to the Jewish nation in the olden time; Jerusalem itself was but sparsely populated, and the people maintained with difficulty its position among the hostile tribes which encompassed it. Under these circumstances Artaxerxes determined on a re-colonization. He resolved to renew the permission which had been given, eighty years earlier, by Cyrus, and to make a decree that "all they of the people of Israel in all his realm, and of their priests and Levites, which were minded to go up to Jerusalem", should be at liberty to do so. He expected probably from this initiative a greater result than actually followed it. He desired to have in the extreme limit of South-Western Asia, an effective garrison, which should hold the country for him against all corners; furnish him with a point d'appui from which he might make his attacks on the revolted Egyptians; and, if the worst came to the worst, and Egypt re-established her independence, should form a solid barrier against any advance into Asia which might be attempted by the ambitious Africans.

But who was to lead out the colony, and from what quarter were the new settlers to be obtained? There is reason to believe that, of all the Jewish communities dispersed over foreign lands, that of Babylon was at the time at once the most numerous and the wealthiest. Without limiting his invitation—which was conceived in the broadest terms—to the inhabitants of a single city, it was natural that the Persian monarch should look especially to the place where Judeans were congregated in the greatest numbers, to be the starting-point, and the main source of supply, of the new migration. He would know Babylon well, since it had been, from an early date, the custom of the Achemenian kings to hold their court, during different portions of the year, at the three great capitals of Babylon, Susa, and Ecbatana. According to the best authority, the Babylonian residence was the longest, extending to seven months out of the twelve. Artaxerxes, during these frequent and prolonged sojourns, must have acquired an intimate knowledge of the great Chaldean city, of the mixed character of its population, and of the proportion in which the different ethnic elements stood to each other.

He may also have become personally acquainted with a certain number of the leading Judeans, the men of most repute among their fellow-countrymen in the Babylonian community. As Xerxes had had "Mordecai the Jew" among his intimates at Susa, and as this same Artaxerxes at a later date was familiar with Nehemiah, another Jew, at the same place, so in his earlier residences at Babylon Longimanus may have known something of Ezra, if not personally, yet at any rate by reputation. Or, possibly, it was not until the king had formed his project of reinforcing the Israelites in Judea by a second colony, that he began to inquire for a man of influence among the Jews of Babylon, competent to carry out his idea. The terms of his decree seem, however, to imply something like a close personal knowledge. Ezra is described as "the priest, a scribe of the law of the God of heaven, perfect. The law of his God is in his hand, and the wisdom of his God". He is trusted to an almost unlimited extent. He is addressed in the second person. It is possible that the decree, as reported by the writer of Ezra, may not be an exact translation of the original Persian document; but there can be little doubt that it fairly represents that document's tone and spirit. Ezra had clearly, in some way or other, gained the deep respect and high approval of the Persian king, who must have formed an extraordinary estimate of his character and capacity. Personal knowledge best explains this high estimate, and is quite conceivable under the circumstances.

The exact mission entrusted to Ezra is now to be considered. In the first place, he was to collect colonists. No compulsion was to be used. This was not like one of the occasions when a despotic Oriental king ordered the transference of a subject population from one part of his empire to another, for the purpose of punishing their offences, or breaking their spirit, or quenching their patriotic ardor. It was of its essence, that it should be voluntary. The king wanted, not a mere increase of population in the Judean territory, but the gathering together into that region of a band of stanch adherents, who would stoutly maintain the interests of the Persian Crown in the south-western corner of Asia and resist all encroachment. Ezra was, no doubt, bidden to collect as many as he could; but he had great difficulties to contend with, and the entire number of colonists with which he set out from Babylon does not appear to have exceeded six thousand. The Judean settlers in Babylonia were attached to the homes which they had made for themselves. They had trades, employments, businesses, which they could not carry away with them. To the generality expatriation meant impoverishment, the loss of position, the disruption of ties, the extinction of the old life, and its replacement by a new life to be begun under trying and difficult circumstances. It is apparent that the community which had gone out under Zerubbabel, notwithstanding the patronage which it had received from the two greatest of the Achemenian monarchs, Cyrus and Darius Hystaspes, had not greatly flourished, was not in a truly prosperous state, nay, rather was overwhelmed with debt and suffering, lay, in fact, in a weak and depressed condition, and so offered no tempta­tion to intending immigrants. Dean Stanley's picture of the Judean community at this period is not overdrawn: "The poorer classes", he observes, "had, many of them, sunk into a state of serfage to the richer nobles, in whom the luxurious and insolent practices of the old aristocracy, denounced by the earlier prophets, began to reappear. Jerusalem itself was thinly inhabited, and seemed to have stopped short in the career which, under the first settlers, had been opening before it. If we could trust the conjecture of Ewald that the eighty-ninth Psalm expresses the hope of a Davidic king in the person of Zerubbabel and his children, and the extinction of that hope in the troubles of the time, we should have a momentary vision of the shadows which closed round the reviving city. It is certain that, whether from the original weakness of the rising settlement, or from some fresh inroad of the surrounding tribes, of which we have no distinct notice, the walls of Jerusalem were still unfinished; huge gaps left in them where the gates had been burst and not repaired; the sides of its rocky hills cumbered with their ruins; the Temple, though completed, still with its furniture scanty and its ornaments inadequate". Thus, it was very far from a tempting prospect that was presented to the Babylonian Israelite, who was asked to exchange the comfortable quarters, where he and his fathers had been settled more than a hundred and thirty years, for residence in a distant land, exposed to many dangers, and in a community weak, depressed, and impoverished.

Again, there were the perils and hardships of the journey to be considered. Either the waterless desert must be crossed by way of Tadmor and Damascus, or the long détour must be made by the Euphrates valley, the chalky upland near Aleppo, and the Coele-Syrian vale; with the certainty, in either case, of great fatigue, and the probability of attack from robber tribes, fierce and cruel, and amenable to no government, who would cut off all stragglers from the caravan and carry them into hopeless slavery. Such a prospect would deter many, and strongly reinforce the other arguments which inclined the Jews of the Dispersion to remain where they were, and turn a deaf ear to the persuasions which Ezra addressed to them.

The result was, as we have said, that only about six thousand souls, men, women, and children included, obeyed his call and set out with him from Babylon. These souls belonged to some twelve families, chiefly families which had taken part in the colonization under Zerubbabel, and which therefore might expect to find friends and helpers in the Judean territory. One descendant of David accompanied the emigrants, a man of the name of Hattush. There were also, besides Ezra, two priests, Gershom and Daniel. The remainder were of families possessing but little distinction. The largest contingent sent by any family was three hundred adult males, or twelve hundred colonists; the smallest twenty-eight adult males, or a hundred and twelve of both sexes and all ages. One family, that of Adonikam, distinguished itself by joining the emigration with all its remaining members; but the number was insignificant, amounting to no more than two hundred and forty.

Next in importance to the number of colonists was the amount of wealth that they could bring with them. They were about to join a poverty-stricken community, or at any rate one in which opulence was rare, and the great majority was not merely possessed of narrow means, but crushed under the burden of indebtedness. Artaxerxes took this state of things into his consideration, and made provision against it. He and his chief counselors and his lords made a contribution in gold and silver to a large amount, and entrusted it to Ezra for conveyance to Jerusalem, where it was to be laid out in the adornment of the Temple, and other cognate uses. Further, they sanctioned and promoted a subscription among the non-Jewish inhabitants of the empire for the benefit of the Jews, following in this the example of Cyrus, who had done the same for those who went up with Zerubbabel. Artaxerxes likewise presented to the Temple a number of vessels, some of gold, some of silver, some of "fine copper" or brass—twenty basins of the first, each worth fifty darics, or about fifty-five pounds sterling; a hundred vessels of the second, each weighing a talent; and two vessels of the third, which was a rare amalgam at the time and regarded as highly valuable. He also conferred on Ezra a most important power—namely, the right of drawing upon the provincial treasuries in Palestine and Syria for any further sums or any stores that he might need, within the limit, however, of a hundred talents of silver, and a hundred measures, respectively, of wheat, wine, and oil. At the same time he granted an exemption from taxes of every sort or kind to all Jewish priests and Levites, to the Nethinim, or sacred slaves given to the Levites to assist them in their work, and even to the "ministers", or lowest class of persons employed in the Temple service. Ezra was thus enabled to convey to his countrymen in Judea a most important supply of the precious metals. The contribution in specie amounted to as much as six hundred and fifty talents of silver, or nearly twice the amount received annually by the Persian Crown from the entire Syrian satrapy, which included within it, not only Syria, but Phoenicia, Palestine, and Cyprus; together with one hundred talents of gold, which was probably worth at least four times the amount of the silver.

The powers conferred by Artaxerxes upon Ezra were extra­ordinary. He was sent, primarily, "to inquire", to make inquisition into the general condition of the pro­vince, and report upon it; according to an ordinary practice of the Persian Court, by which commissioners were despatched, either regularly or irregularly, from head-quarters, to inspect particular provinces and bring the Crown an account of them. But this was only a small part of his mission. Though he is not expressly given anywhere the title of governor—"Pechah" or "Tirshatha"—yet it is quite clear that he exercised the full governmental office, and was, during this his first visit to Jerusalem, entirely uncontrolled by any higher authority. He was distinctly empowered by the terms of his commission to set up magistrates and judges over all the people—i.e., all the Israelite people—in the district beyond the river—the “province” (médinah), as it was called, in a special sense; and it is evident that he was practically himself the Chief Judge. He had the power of life and death, though it does not appear that he exercised its and he had, of course, what such power implies, the right to inflict all the customary punishments of a secondary kind, as fine, imprisonment, entire confiscation of goods, and outlawry. It was especially enjoined upon him by the king, that he should see to the observance among all classes in Judea of "the law of his God"—that he should enforce it upon those who knew it, and teach it to such as were ignorant of it. He was to regard "the law of his God" as being, in the territory committed to his charge, also "the law of the king", and was not to condone its neglect or non­observance, but to punish all offenders against it rigorously. Special stress was laid upon the complete re-establishment, in full dignity and honor, of the Temple service with its daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly sacrifices, its meat-offerings and drink-offerings, and its entourage of priests, Levites, singers, porters, Nethinim, and "ministers," each in their several stations bearing their part in the service, and helping forward the due celebration of it. The house itself was to be "beautified", the number of the vessels increased, and all things that were needful for it provided. Artaxerxes seems to have set great store upon the intercession which the Jews were wont to make in their public services on behalf of their civil governor, whoever he might be, and was fearful lest, through any default in the regular series of offerings, there "should be wrath against the realm of the king, and of his sons". He clearly identified Jehovah, the God of the Jews with his God, Ormazd; and Ezra believed that it was Jehovah who had "put in his heart" all the good intentions which he entertained towards the Jewish people.

Ezra did not fail to recognize that the commission entrusted to him by the Persian king involved not only responsibility, but a considerable amount of difficulty and danger. The thought crossed his mind to call the king's attention to the perils of the way, and to beg that such an escort of soldiers, both horse and foot, might be ordered to accompany himself and his fellow emigrants, as would afford them adequate protection if an attack were made. But, on consideration, he put aside the idea. In previous consultations with the king he had expressed a full assurance in the power and will of Jehovah to protect His faithful worshippers from all dangers, and to pour His wrath and fury upon all who might oppose them. After having thus expressed himself he felt ashamed to confess to any apprehension or alarm in respect of the coming journey, and therefore, as Ewald says, "refrained from asking for a royal escort for the caravan, although this precaution was quite customary at the time on account of risks from robbers". It was, however, scarcely from any super­abundance of "lofty courage" or "trust in God" that he so acted; he was evidently full of apprehension, but he smothered his fears in his own bosom and kept them to himself lest he should betray a want of confidence, which would be dishonoring, both to his own character and to the God whom he served.

In default of any such sign of the Great King's favor as a royal escort would have been, it was the more incumbent on the Jewish leader to obtain from the Court and carry with him into his province abundant written credentials, addressed to the official representatives of the Persian government in the regions which he was about to visit. Such credentials it is evident that he applied for and received. His main commission was "endorsed by the Seven leading members of the Royal Council"—the great "princes of Persia and Media which saw the king's face, and which sat the first in the king­dom". It was, no doubt, "written in the name of the king", Artaxerxes, and "signed with the king's ring". It set forth that Artaxerxes, king of kings, had made a decree that all they of the people of Israel, and of their priests and Levites, throughout his realm, which were minded of their own free will to go up to Jerusalem, might go thither with Ezra the priest, the perfect scribe of the law of the God of heaven. "Forasmuch", it went on, "as thou art sent of the king, and of his seven counselors, to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem, according to the law of thy God which is in thine hand; and to carry the silver and the gold which the king and his counselors have freely offered unto the God of Israel, whose habitation is in Jerusalem, and all the silver and gold that thou canst find in all the province of Babylon, with the freewill offering of the people and of the priests, offering willingly for the house of their God which is in Jerusalem: that thou mayest buy speedily with this money bullocks, rams, lambs, with their meat-offerings and their drink-offerings, and offer them upon the altar of the house of your God which is in Jerusalem. And whatsoever shall seem good to thee, and to thy brethren, to do with the rest of the silver and the gold, that do after the will of your God. The vessels also which are given thee for the service of the house of thy God, those deliver thou before the God of Jerusalem. And whatsoever more shall be needful for the house of thy God, which thou shalt have occasion to bestow, bestow it out of the king's treasure house. And I, even I, Artaxerxes the king, do make a decree to all the treasurers which are beyond the river, that whatsoever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, shall require of you, it be done speedily, unto an hundred talents of silver and to an hundred measures of wheat, and to an hundred baths of wine, and to an hundred baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much. Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven: for why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons? Also we certify you, that touching any of the priests and Levites, singers, porters, Nethinim, or ministers of this house of God, it shall not be lawful to impose toll, tribute, or custom upon them. And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God; and teach ye them that know them not. And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily upon him. whether it be unto death, or to outlawry, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment."

Besides this general commission, Ezra seems also to have taken with him from the Court a number of shorter documents, addressed to the several satraps, governors, and royal treasurers beyond the Euphrates, in the name and with the authority of the king, requiring them to do certain acts, and abstain from doing certain others, which were to be delivered severally to the individuals to whom they were addressed. Thus he was abundantly supplied with vouchers for his high dignity, and authority to speak in the king's name—vouchers of very much the same character as the firmans which at the present day are issued by the government of the Sublime Porte.

IV.

GOVERNORSHIP OF JUDEA

THE first stage of the journey between Babylon and Jerusalem presents little difficulty, and scarcely offers a choice of route. The course of the traveler, whether he journeys alone or forms one of a caravan, must be up the stream of the Euphrates, either on one side of it or the other. The left or eastern bank of the river is that usually preferred, since the country to the west of the Euphrates is for some distance marshy, and in wet seasons impassable, while the whole tract is more exposed than the left bank to the attacks of the predatory Arab tribes, who roam freely over the great Desert which intervenes between Mesopotamia and Palestine. Ezra, with his caravan of six thousand Israelites, probably quitted Babylon by the north gate—the gate of Nineveh, and proceeded north-westward along the river-course from the site of Babylon to that of Is or Hit, a distance of one hundred and forty miles. This he would accomplish in the space of nine days, without much trouble or fatigue. His way lay through cultivated districts, in a part of the empire which was well watched and guarded, perhaps along a "Royal Road", though not the Royal Road which is described by Herodotus. The caravan under his charge carried tents, which were pitched at the end of each day's journey, and sufficiently protected the travelers from the heavy night dews, and from any possible storms or other changes in the weather. It was accompanied, no doubt, by a considerable number of baggage animals—asses, camels, mules, and perhaps horses. The colonists who went out with Zerubbabel—forty-two thousand in number—were attended by above eight thousand beasts of burthen, or one to each five of the emigrants. If we suppose the same proportion to have been maintained by the later emigration, their baggage animals would have amounted to above eight hundred and fifty. The great bulk of them were, no doubt, asses; but it may be presumed that a certain number were horses or mules, and the emigrants are not likely to have adventured on the journey without a body of some fifty or sixty camels. They could not possibly avoid encountering stretches of desert; and the camel—the "ship of the desert"—is a sine qua non where such regions have to be traversed.

The start of the caravan from Babylon would offer a strange scene, picturesque and exciting, but full of tenderness and pathos. The friends and relatives of the emigrants, though resolved on remaining behind, would yet flock to the place of departure, bent on escorting their kindred for a certain distance. There would be agonizing partings of brother from brother, of parent from child, perhaps of youths and maidens, betrothed one to the other. While a holy enthusiasm sustained the majority of the emigrants, there were probably some with whom fear predominated over hope, who wept at leaving their old homes, and shrank in their inmost hearts from the perils of the unknown future. The friends whom they were about to leave behind would yield still more to sorrow and depression of spirits, and, with the abandon of Orientals, would "weep and wail without stint". Meanwhile, a babel of sounds would strike the ear, as the beasts that were being laden groaned, and their drivers lashed or goaded them with much objurgation and abuse, and horses neighed, and asses brayed, and mules stamped, and kicked, and squealed. At length all would be ready; the caravan would be marshaled and arranged; the guide or "captain of the caravan" would step forth; and the rest would follow, spears flashing, bells tinkling, banners (it may be) flying, turbans nodding, children laughing, women screaming, men shouting or asking the blessing of God upon their setting forth.

The journey to Hit—the modern representative of the ancient Is, Ihi, or Ahava—occupied, as we have said, nine days. The march would probably begin each day in the early morning, an hour or so before sunrise, and would continue till the sun reached a certain altitude, when it would be too hot to proceed, and the signal would be given for the midday halt. A shady spot would, if possible, be chosen, where a grove of palms, or a tangled cluster of acacias and tamarisks, gave a prospect of protection from the solar rays. The banks of the Euphrates, or of some canal or branch stream flowing in or out of it, would on most occasions be sought, that there might be sure to be abundant water for the entire company and also for their beasts. Tents would not be pitched; but the travelers would sit, or lie along the ground, in the densest shade that they could obtain, and rest, or chat, or take some slight refreshment, or indulge in a short siesta. Ere long, however, the signal would again be given, and the march resumed, this time under unpleasant con­ditions—the sun would burn overhead—the atmosphere would glow and quiver—the feet would be weary, the limbs would ache, the mouth would be dry and parched. The hours would drag slowly on, till at length the sun declined, lost his fiery heat, and then suddenly set. As night closed in, tents would be pitched, watch fires lighted, guards set, carpets strewn on the ground, camels unladen, horses and mules hobbled or picketed, the beasts generally fed and watered, after which, in a little time, silence would fall upon the camp, and scarcely a sound would break the stillness, till the dawn of another day flushed the sky.

At Ahava, or Hit, Ezra made preparations for a longer halt than the ordinary one. In the march of a caravan or of an army, it is always necessary to allow stoppages of some days' duration, at intervals, for rest and refreshment, and to enable the stragglers who have dropped out to rejoin. Cyrus, when he was hastening at his best speed from Asia Minor to Babylon, in order to attack his brother, Artaxerxes Mnemon, made several such halts. Ezra now determined on a halt of three days. Ahava was a pleasant spot, on the banks of the Euphrates, where a small stream flowed into it from the east, and at the point where the Babylonian alluvium terminates, and the rolling plain of Upper Mesopotamia has its commencement. It was a resort of merchants, who frequented it on account of its bitumen springs, which furnished that valuable article of commerce, and are still unexhausted. Ezra, having ordered the tents to be pitched, proceeded to bold a muster of the colonists, who were, perhaps, now for the first time counted, and assigned to their several families. In the course of his review, or on making out the muster-roll, the Jewish leader was greatly struck with the fact, that while a certain number of the priests had accompanied him from Babylon, there was not in the entire caravan a single person belonging to the class of simple Levites. A disinclination on the part of the Levites to return to Jerusa­lem had manifested itself at the former enrolment of colonists under Zerubbabel, when the priests had outnumbered the Levites in the proportion of nearly sixty to one. But the defection on the present occasion was still more pro­nounced, and Ezra thought it his duty to make an attempt to remedy it. There was a Jewish settlement at a place called Casiphia in the neighborhood of Ahava. The exact site is unknown, since Casiphia does not elsewhere obtain mention; but it was probably not more than a few miles off. To this place, where he knew that there were Levites and Nethinim, Ezra sent a formal embassy, consisting of twelve Israelites, to represent the twelve tribes, and begged the Casiphians to reinforce his colony by a supply of these lower ministers and servants of the Temple, who were quite as much needed as priests for the service of the sanctuary. The Casiphians, who had at their head a chief called Iddo, readily consented; and Ezra in this way obtained an addition to his followers of thirty-eight Levites of full age, and two hundred and twenty Nethinim. As these individuals were, no doubt, accom­panied by their families, we may regard the caravan, which Ezra was conducting, as henceforth increased by somewhat more than a thousand members, or raised from six thousand to seven thousand.

With his increased numbers, Ezra, after his three days' rest, set forth from Ahava, probably still ascending the course of the Euphrates on its left or eastern bank. He would pass Anat, on its island in the middle of the river, in long. 42° nearly, and proceed thence westward to Irzab or Werdi, and then north­westward to Sirki, which the Greeks and Romans called Cir­cesium. This city lay on the left bank of the Euphrates, im­mediately below its junction with the Khabour, Habor, or Aborrhas, the last of its great affluents, in lat. 35° 10’ nearly. It occupied an important position. Commanding the courses of the two streams which washed its walls, it was also, almost certainly, connected by a line of route with Tadmor or Palmyra, and was a mart for the Syrian and Phoenician trade which passed by way of Damascus and Tadmor into Assyria. It was here that Ezra must finally have determined whether he would attempt the comparatively short passage across the Syrian desert, from Sirki to Tadmor, from Tadmor to Kennesarin, and from Kennesarin to Damascus, or whether he would pursue the route ordinarily taken by armies, following the course of the Euphrates for two hundred or two hundred and fifty miles further, past Thapsacus and Balis, to the 36th parallel of lati­tude, and then striking across the chalky upland by Chalcis and Aleppo to the Lower Orontes valley, which would conduct him to Palestine.

The late Dean Stanley suggested in his work upon the Jewish Church, that the route actually selected by Esther was that which crossed the desert; but this view is highly questionable. The direct distance from Circesium to Damascus was not less than two hundred and sixty miles, or, at the rate at which Ezra seems to have moved, a journey of nearly three weeks. The route was almost absolutely waterless. Well-appointed caravans, no doubt, occasionally travelled it, but scarcely unless they had made arrangements with friendly tribes to allow them the use of the few wells, or even to furnish them with water at intervals, along the course of it. And, without an armed escort, the attempt to reach Jerusalem by this route would have been most dangerous. Ezra had refused an escort, or rather had not applied for one. He knew of "enemies in the way". He must have been well aware that the Arab tribes who peopled the sandy waste were for the most part a predatory race—a race whose "hand was against every man, and every man's hand against them"—he could scarcely hope to cross the desert without attracting their attention, and he could still less dream of resisting them successfully in arms. Whatever his trust in "the good hand of his God", he would not be likely to thrust himself into the midst of unnecessary dangers in reliance upon miraculous aid, when a little prudence and a little patience were alone needed to enable him to avoid them. The route along the great river to Balis, and across Northern Syria between the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh parallels was for the most part well watered, and was a comparatively safe one. It was not altogether secure from occasional Bedouin raids, or without a sprinkling of thievish tribes among its permanent inhabitants; but so large a caravan as that which Ezra led might hope to traverse it without very serious risk. The additional distance would not exceed a hundred and fifty miles, or two hundred at the utmost, and this distance could be accomplished, under favorable circum­stances, in a fortnight.

We think it best, therefore, to suppose that the prudent and circumspect leader, who well understood the perils of the way, having crossed the Khabour at Sirki, probably by a bridge of boats, continued his journey along the left or eastern bank of the great river from the Khabour to the Belik, and from the Belik at least as high as Balis, before crossing the stream and adventuring himself on the Syrian side of it. From Balis there was an established route, by way of Aleppo (Haleb), to the valley of the Orontes, and this route it is probable that Ezra pursued with his caravan of seven thousand persons. Progress along the dry and chalky upland was, no doubt, slow and difficult. Here probably were found "the enemy and those that lay in wait by the way"; and here there would be some scantiness in the supply of water; but enough for the needs of the caravan was probably carried in skins by the camels and asses from the Euphrates to the river of Aleppo, and from the river of Aleppo to the Orontes or Arantu. The difficulties of the long journey were now well-nigh over. Coele­Syria, or the double valley of the Orontes and Litany, is a long grassy plain, running southwards between two mountain ranges, with at first a gradual slight ascent to about lat. 34° to, and then a gradual slight descent to lat. 33° 20'. At this point Palestine is reached, and either the Jordan valley may be descended from Dan (or Laish) to Jericho, and then the steep incline ascended from Jericho to Jerusalem, or else a more westerly line may be taken through the Galilean hills, across the Esdraelon plain, and then along the highlands of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Benjamin to the Holy City. Ezra would be likely to follow the more eastern of these two routes, which was at once the more level and the more friendly. He would naturally avoid Samaria, where were gathered together "the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin", and would thus be led to avoid the entire Samaritan highland. In the Jordan vale he would find no enemies, and its luxuriant vegetation would attract him, when he was fresh from traversing the comparatively bleak tracks of Chalcitis and Coele-Syria. He would travel slowly along it, not following the tortuous stream, but keeping it generally in sight, and might complete the journey from Dan to Jericho in a little more than a week. Amid the lovely palm-groves of Jericho he would probably make his final rest, before affronting the difficulties of the long and steep ascent, along the side of the Wady Kelt, from Jericho to Jerusalem.

"The whole of the Wady Kelt is singularly wild and romantic, for it is simply a deep rent in the mountains, scarcely twenty yards across at the bottom, filled with tall canes, and beds of rushes, to which you look down over high perpendicular walls of rock. Its cliffs are full of caves ... White chalk hills rise in the wildest shapes on each side, forming strange peaks, sharp rough sierras, and fanciful pyramid - like cones; the whole seamed in all directions by deep torrent beds. Not a tree is to be seen on the bare slopes. Nor is the end of the pass less striking, for it is guarded, as it were, by two tall sloping peaks of white chalk, with each of which special traditions and legends are connected." The road from Jericho does not attempt to follow the deep ravine of the Wady Kelt, but "skirts".

Sometimes the track "leads along the edge of sheer precipices; at others, up rocks so steep and rough that it needs every care to prevent a fall."  The scenery is everywhere gloomy and forbidding, framed in by wild, desolate hills, ever more and more bare and stony. There is little animal or vegetable life at the present day, and there can never have been very much. The road reaches. its highest point by a sort of " rocky staircase",  in the vicinity of the Bir-el-Khut, the only spring to be found on the entire route—an unfailing source of clear, sweet water, probably the ancient En-shemesh, or "Spring of the Sun," mentioned in the Book of Joshua. From the Bir-el­Khut there is another steep ascent to Bethany, after which the road descends into the Kedron valley, and Jerusalem presents itself to the gaze of the weary traveler.

It was on the "first day of the fifth month"; in the burning heat of July—that Ezra with his company reached the Holy City. They had been just four months upon their journey. The direct distance of Jerusalem from Babylon is not more than about 520 miles, but the circuitous route pursued had almost doubled the length of the way. And long halts had no doubt been made at several places besides Ahava. The "king's commissions" had had to be delivered to the Persian satraps and subordinate governors to the west of the Euphrates, and détours had perhaps had to be made for this purpose, as well as to avoid robber tribes or other enemies. The result was that the average rate of progress had been little more than eight miles per diem, and four months had been consumed in traveling a distance that was usually accomplished in less than three. The wearied travelers, moreover, on their arrival, required another spell of rest; and it was not till three days after, that Ezra, with his chief priests and Levites, felt equal to appearing before the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of the city, to make Artaxerxes' intentions known to them, and discharge a special commission which they had received at his hands. Then, "on the fourth day", notice was given by Ezra to the Temple priests, and a solemn conference held, at which he made over to them the gold and silver vessels for the Temple service, together with the gold and silver bullion, which Artaxerxes and his lords had sent as an offering to the God of Israel, and which Ezra had at Ahava put under the charge of twelve priests and twelve Levites, for safe conveyance to Jerusalem. Having made over these treasures to the custodians of the Temple, Ezra and the colonists who had come with him offered a sacrifice on a large scale to the God of Israel, "twelve bullocks for all Israel, ninety and six rams, seventy and seven lambs, and twelve he-goats for a sin-offering: all this was a burnt-offering to the Lord". As before, when Zerubbabel made his great sacrifice on the dedication of the second Temple, so now Ezra put prominently forward the idea that the returned exiles represented "all Israel", were the people of God in their totality—not a remnant of one tribe only escaped from barbarian masters, but the entire nation restored to their native land, and planted there a second time, with a full right and title to all the old privileges and promises attached to the "seed of Abraham"— an indefeasible right of dominion over the entire tract which God had granted to the first patriarch, extending from "the river (or rather, the torrent) of Egypt even to the great river, the river Euphrates."

His mission thus by solemn rites inaugurated, the new-comer had to obtain recognition of the dignified position assigned to him by his royal master, and to arrange with the existing authorities, what exactly his relations were to be with them. Jerusalem, since the time of Zerubbabel, had had, it would seem, no special governor. It had remained under the authority of the satrap of Syria, who occasionally honored it with his presence, and had a residence there, or at any rate a tribunal, from which he delivered sentences, and which was known as "the throne of the governor on this side the river". In his absence authority rested, partly with the high priest, partly with the "princes", or "elders" of the people, who met together, from time to time, in council, and discharged the necessary municipal functions. Had Ezra come as "governor", the position of affairs would have been clear—Jerusalem would have reverted to its former condition under Zerubbabel, and all would have been plain sailing; but, under the royal decree which gave him his authority, Ezra was not exactly "governor"—he was, as Ewald expresses it, "Chief Judge". He was empowered to settle everything relating to the religion of the Judeans, and the life which was regulated by it, and to maintain everything quietly as it was established by law. But the manner in which the details were to be carried out could not be traced beforehand by the Persian king: it depended solely on the ancient sacred law, and the actual circumstances of the time.

Not much difficulty, however, seems to have been experienced in establishing a modus vivendi. Ezra was accepted as chief director of the affairs of the nation; but the previous local authorities were also maintained in office, and acted under him as his subordinates, not only in Jerusalem, but also throughout the country districts. "In the course of the first few months, the new chief judge was", as Ewald says, "settled down in Jerusalem in tolerable quiet"—his administrative functions were admitted without question, and the other officials, both ecclesiastical and civil, worked under him, apparently, without friction or jealousy.

It was not till several months had gone by without disturbance or special anxiety, that Ezra was suddenly asked to turn his attention to a matter of the deepest interest to the community. It is conjectured that "the copies of the Law which Ezra had brought from Chaldea must have become in the interval known to the settlement in Palestine",  and that it was these copies which brought home to the settlers generally the fact, that they were living in complete disregard of one of the simplest and plainest of the Mosaical directions. God had commanded, by Moses, that there should be no intermarriages between his peculiar people and the heathen races by which they were surrounded—"thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son"; but this command had, during the early ages, been frequently transgressed, and, after the return from the Captivity, had apparently been wholly forgotten. Foreign marriages had become matters of every-day occurrence. The colonists, who had not perhaps been accompanied on their return journey by an adequate proportion of females, had taken wives of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites; Levites and priests had been as guilty as the common people, and the upper classes had been implicated in the trespass "in a quite special degree". And the consequences had been such as were to be expected. "The people of Israel had not separated themselves from the people of the lands in respect of their abominations"—intimate association with idolaters had led to a toleration of idolatry within the limits of the Holy Land, and probably even of the "Holy Mountain"—superstitious practices of various kinds had crept in, and purity of religion was seriously endangered.

A modern pseudo-liberalism objects to the narrowness of view, which induced the leaders of the Jewish community to bring this "comparatively trivial and in some respects questionable" controversy before the notice of Ezra. "Larger, nobler, and freer views", we are told, "belonged to the earlier and also to the later portion of the Jewish history ... There had not been the faintest murmur audible when the ancestors of David once and over again married into a Moabite family, nor when David took among his wives a daughter of Geshur; nor is there a more exuberant Psalm than that which celebrates the union of an Israelite king with an Egyptian or Tyrian princess. Even if the patriarchal alliance of Abraham with the Egyptian Hagar or the Arabian Keturah, or the marriage of Moses with the Midianite or the Ethiopian, provoked a passing censure, it was instantly and strongly repelled by the loftier tone of the sacred narrative. Nor is there in the New Testament a passage more redolent of acknowledged wisdom and charity than that in which the Rabbi of Tarsus tolerates the union of the heathen husband and the believing wife. Nor are there more critical incidents in Christian history than those which record the union of Clovis with Clotilda, or of Ethelbert with Bertha". But it is not denied that the "narrower view", which after all has the sanction of the "Rabbi of Tarsus", who bids his converts "not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers", was suited to the times, and helped to "keep alive the spirit of exclusive patriotism and of uncompromising zeal," which alone enabled the community to maintain its existence during the times of depression and of trial that were approaching.

But, whatever moderns may think of the policy of Jewish isolation, and however much they may prefer to it "the large freedom of Isaiah", or the policy of attempting to convert the world by fusion with it, at any rate the holiest instincts of the religious Jews of the time were strongly set in the contrary direction. Ezra was appealed to by a certain number of the foremost members of the community to stop a practice which to them seemed not only wrong, but fraught with danger to the best interests of the nation. To Ezra himself the revelation came as a shock and an astonishment. Nothing in his Babylonian experience had prepared him for such a falling away. He was "seized with the most vehement horror" at the disclosure of it. “When I heard this thing”, he says, “I rent my garments and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head, and sat down astonied”. “Overwhelmed with horror, he sank involuntarily on the ground, and all the men of more tender conscience gradually assembled round their leader, still utterly unstrung, and wailing deeply; but not till about the time for evening sacrifice could he recover from the profound shock he had sustained sufficiently to pour forth his feelings in prayer. In words wrung from his inmost soul he implored God to have pity on His people, who, though long sunk so low by their ancient sins, had now, by this violation of His express command, imperiled even the feeble commencement of a somewhat improved condition, but now vouchsafed them by the grace of God”. It seemed to him that the very continuance of the people's exis­tence depended on an immediate and complete reform—on an entire relinquishment of the evil practice which had grown up, and on taking such other steps as might be necessary for purging out the fatal corruption which had been admitted into the heart of the nation. The national life hung on God's good pleasure—if after so solemn a warning as the Captivity, the restored nation, just allowed a deliverance, should again fall away, openly break God's commandments, and join in affinity with a people of abomination, might it not be expected that God would be angry with them till He had consumed them, so that there should be no remnant nor escaping? But, alone, he would have been powerless. What can one man do against a multitude? He had no armed force at his dis­posal, and the chief men of the nation were the chief sinners. It must have been with a deep sense of relief, that the Chief judge, lying prone in the Temple Court before the house of God, heard the utterance of "a distinguised lay­man"—one of the principal of those who bad congregated about him, one Shechaniah—who, "in the name of the whole community, confessed the guilt of the people, and further declared their true desire to act in full compliance with the Law, even in this respect". "We have trespassed against our God", he said, "and have taken strange wives of the people of the land: yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the Law. Arise, for this matter belongeth unto thee: we also will be with thee: be of good courage, and do it". Upon this, "the prostrate, weeping mourner sprang to his feet, and exacted an oath from all present, that they would assist his efforts; and, having done this, he disappeared, and withdrew into the chamber of the high priest's son, in one of the upper storeys of the Temple, and there remained in complete abstinence, even from bread and water, for the three days which were to elapse before a solemn assembly could be convened to ascer­tain the national sentiment".

The solemn assembly was then convened. Messengers were sent "throughout Judah to all the children of the captivity", and proclamation was made, requiring them all—i.e., all the males of full age—to gather themselves together to Jerusalem upon the third day, under the heavy penalty, on such as should absent themselves, of the confiscation of their goods, and their expulsion from the congregation of the faith­ful. The territory occupied by the returned Hebrews was still so small, that the short space allowed was sufficient, both for the distribution of the summonses, and for the coming together of the people in obedience to them. It was deep winter—December probably—and the heavy rains had set in; but still the whole people answered to the call made upon them, and on the third day—the twentieth of Chisleu—the men of Jerusalem, and all the outlying inhabitants of the hills of Judah and Benjamin, congregated in the open space in front of the great gate of the Temple—"shivering", it may be, "in the raw ungenial weather", but resolute to learn from their rulers, what the occasion was which had necessitated their being brought together, and to take prompt action with respect to it. The exposition of the circumstances was soon made; the danger into which they had brought the nation was explained; and the only course which in his judgment could avert the ruin of the people was set forth by Ezra. It would not be enough to resolve that the mixed marriages should be discontinued in the future; the past must be, as far as possible, undone—there must be a general dismissal of all the foreign wives, together with any children which they might have borne to their husbands. The decree thus formulated was adopted by the assembly, apparently without any opposition? It was agreed, however, not to hurry the matter. A Commission of Inquiry was appointed, consisting of Ezra and a number of the "rulers", who should investigate each supposed case of unlawful marriage separately, and decide according to the evidence. When the parties inculpated belonged to the country towns of Judah and Benjamin, the Commission was to be assisted by persons with local knowledge, such as the elders and judges of the several places, so that the truth might be clearly ascertained in every instance. The Court sat de die in diem, except probably on the Sabbath, and brought its labors to a close in the course of three months. The result was that four priests of the high-priestly family, together with thirteen other priests, ten Levites, and eighty-six laymen—many of them of high rank--were found to have been involved in the trespass, and were made to dismiss their foreign wives and foreign children. The four most exalted offenders were further required to make public acknowledgment of their transgression by each of them offering to God a ram as a trespass-offering.

Thus was this scandal put an end to, and a very real danger, for the time at any rate, escaped. The decision which Ezra enforced so inexorably, must doubtless have borne hardly upon many of the repudiated wives and of the cast-off children. These innocent ones suffered through the guilt of their husbands and fathers, who ought never to have contracted such marriages. But the suffering involved would probably not have been very great. In the East there has always prevailed a large facility of divorce; and the discarded wife, unless where her own misconduct has provoked the repudiation, is received back by her family without incurring reproach or disgrace. She has a right to reclaim her dowry at her husband's hands, and, if she goes back to her parents, she finds her status in the house­hold but little lowered. No slur rests upon her children, who live with the other children of the house on terms of equality. But Ezra would scarcely have felt himself bound to consider consequences. He would regard himself as having a plain duty to perform, which was to enforce the Law at whatever cost. It is quite clear that he read the Law as absolutely prohibitive of mixed marriages—i.e., as not only forbidding their inception, but their continuance. Strictly speaking, he probably looked upon them as unreal marriages, and so as no better than ordinary illicit connections. For the evils which flow from such unions, those who make them, and not those who break them, are responsible.

The record of Ezra's governorship of Judea terminates, somewhat abruptly, with the list of those who had "taken strange wives", and whose marriages were annulled by the Commission of Inquiry. The space covered is the short one of eight months. It seems probable that Ezra, soon after he had succeeded in effecting his reform, was either recalled by Artaxerxes to the Court, or returned of his own accord to make the report, which he had been commissioned to make, on the general condition of the Palestinian province.