Israel’s Continued Exile

The election of Abraham and his family (Israel) was always meant to undo the sin of Adam and Eve by “setting things right.” In a sense they were called to be a “new humanity.” By taking dominion and becoming a great nation, Abraham and his family would bring salvation to the cursed nations through “blessing” (Gen 12:3; Isa 42:6; 49:6). As foretold in Deuteronomy however, a disobedient Israel would be thrust out of her land, subjugated by her enemies, and rather than actively conquering the curse, they themselves would become the greatest curse upon the earth (Deut 28:15-29:28). The Deuteronomic curses, as prophesied generations beforehand, came into fruition when the Northern Kingdom of Israel turned from YHWH and was taken into exile in 722 BC by Assyria (2 Kgs 17). After the slower corrosion of the Davidic dynasty in the Southern Kingdom, Jerusalem too was finally destroyed and the inhabitants of Judah bore the reproach of being led into captivity in 586 BC.

Israel’s release from Babylon, some 70 years later, only proved to be the beginning of their geopolitical problems. After Babylon came the Persians in 538 BC, the Greeks in 332 BC, with Antiochus IV Epiphanes outlawing Judaism in 169 BC, and finally the Romans ruling the Jews with an iron fist from 66 BC onward. If exile was the punishment of Israel’s sins and the return of exile was YHWH forgiving Israel, then why were the people of God still “enslaved in their own land?”

One of the assumptions this thesis will be built on is that many, if not most, Jews in Israel during the first century were waiting for the Creator God to fulfill His promises (Deut 30:1-5), proclaimed by the prophets (Isa 55:10-13; Jer 31:1-40), which were always supposed to accompany Israel’s return from exile. “Exile” was never merely a relocation of the people of God to a different geographical region, and thus, “return from exile” cannot be understood as the Jew’s simply relocating back in 538 BC. Exile was typified in YHWH no longer dwelling with His people (Ezek 10:18), the infertility of the cursed land (Deut 28:16), and the injustice and death brought on by captivity (Jer 15:2). Consequently, the return from exile then must be seen as the creator God making His home again with Israel (Isa 40:9, 52:7-8; Ezek 43:1-5), bringing forth the fertile land of “new creation” (Isa 55:13; 65:17-25; 66:22), the reign of Righteousness (Isaiah 54:14), resurrection (Ezek 37:1-14) and finally, bringing all twelve tribes back to Israel (Ezek 37:18-27).

 A Nation Enslaved

The book of Daniel portrays the extended exile point quite clearly. Daniel recognized that, according to Jeremiah, 70 years was appointed for the exile (Dan 9:3). He then repented for the sins of Israel, identifying what happened to them as the curses of Deuteronomy 28:15ff (Dan 9:3-19). Then, while he was praying, an angel appeared and told him that Israel’s restoration would not happen after 70 years, but 70×7 years, which is 490 years (Dan 9:24). This chapter’s shocking intention was to bring the Jewish readers into the realization that the exile was not over with the decree of Cyrus to return the Jews to Jerusalem; rather the decree was just the beginning (Dan 9:25). The Vision of Animals (1 En 85-90) and the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 En 91, 93), interpreting Daniel’s vision, unify the exilic and post exilic age under one era that will cease when the Messianic age commences. Even if one wishes to assert the end of the Babylonian exile with the decree of Cyrus, the exiles from Assyria never returned home, thus, Israel’s exile, according to Ezekiel 37:18-27, was in full swing.

The idea that the Jews, though geographically in the land, were theologically in exile was also vast in so-called “post-exilic” literature. Nehemiah, after the decree of Cyrus, expressed how Israel was in bondage after they returned from Babylon using exilic language (Neh 9:36-7). As did Ezra when he prayed, “Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hand of foreign kings, as it is today” (Ezra 9:7 NRSV). Ezra seemingly believed that the exile happened because of Israel’s sins and, most importantly, that the punishment for their sins was being carried out even after they returned home.

Deutero-canonical literature expressed the same dilemma. Baruch, written in the 3rd century BC, wrote:

And we will praise you in our exile, for we have put away from our hearts all the iniquity of our ancestors who sinned against you. See, we are today in our exile where you have scattered us, to be reproached and cursed and punished for all the iniquities of our ancestors, who forsook the Lord our God.
(1 Bar 3:6-8 NRSV; italics mine)

Multiple texts that belonged to the Qumran community, who lived outside of Jerusalem, conveyed the similar theories of Israel’s continued exile. Written in the 2nd Century BC, 4Q504 states:

You have raised us through the years of our generations, [disciplining us] with terrible disease, famine, thirst, even plague and the sword- [every reproa]ch of Your covenant. For You have chosen us as Your own, [as Your people from all] the earth. That is why You have poured out Your fury upon us, [Your ze]al, the full wrath of Your anger. That is why You have caused [the scourge] [of Your plagues] to cleave to us, that of which Moses and Your servants the prophets wrote: You [wou]ld send evil ag[ain]st us in the Last Days.
(4Q504 2:7-17; italics mine)

God’s covenantal faithfulness to a faithless Israel, as foretold in Deuteronomy 28:15ff and seen here in retrospect, would culminate in wrath and exile in order to bring the wayward nation back to YHWH.

There is conclusive evidence that the Jews saw their state after the return from Babylon as a continuation of the punishment of exile. The “age of wrath” was still weighing heavily upon those in the land in famine, sword, disease, and subjugation. Babylon, Persia, Greece, and finally Rome were present and active in the affairs of Israel precisely because of the nation’s sins. However, most in Israel didn’t believe this was YHWH’s last word concerning His people.

 A Future Return

Gretchen Wolff Prichard once wrote, “The heart of Scripture is a continuing pattern of exile and return.” As Adam and Eve were cast eastward of the garden, as Abraham left his father’s house to land he did not know, and as Jacob went down into Egypt, so the children of Israel had been found captive to people of unknown speech. But exile was never the end of the story. The hope of Israel was that the Creator God would return to Zion after gathering His children from the ends of the earth as foretold by Jeremiah:

See, I will bring them from the land of the north
and gather them from the ends of the earth.
Among them will be the blind and the lame,
expectant mothers and women in labor;
a great throng will return.
They will come with weeping;
they will pray as I bring them back.
I will lead them beside streams of water
on a level path where they will not stumble,
because I am Israel’s father,
and Ephraim is my firstborn son.
“Hear the word of the Lord, O nations;
proclaim it in distant coastlands:
‘He who scattered Israel will gather them
and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.’
For the Lord will ransom Jacob
and redeem them from the hand of those stronger than they
(Jer 31:8-11)

If anyone believes that these events were fulfilled in Zerubabbel’s return, it is possible that they have failed to consider the scope of biblical prophecy. The prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah depict a complete reversal of the banishment and subjection brought on by exile. Israel never waited for slightly better times or nicer pagan rulers to show them favor (which is what happened with Ezra and Nehemiah). Rather Israel looked for a dynamic turnaround in everyway imaginable.

Qumran, too, hoped in a Day of vindication when they would be released from their sins:

[The interpretation] is that it applies [to the L]ast Days and concerns the captives, just as [Isaiah said: “To proclaim the Jubilee to the captives” (Isaiah 61:1). … just] as […] and from the inheritance of Melchizedek, f[or … Melchize]dek, who will return them to what is rightfully theirs. He will proclaim to them the Jubilee, thereby releasing th[em from the debt of a]ll their sins.
(11Q13 2:4-6; italics mine)

Tobit, written two hundred years after Israel’s return from Babylon, announces a future return from exile. The Testament of Moses expresses the same expectations, as did other radical groups within 2nd Temple Judaism (War 2.258-63; Ant. 21.97-98; Sir 36:8; 1 En 85-90; Apoc. Abr. 31).

Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Jesus, envisages a beautiful day when Israel would finally be set at liberty:

For even though they dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth, in slavery to those who led them away captive, one signal, as it were, one day will bring liberty to all. This conversion in a body to virtue will strike awe into their masters, who will set them free, ashamed to rule over men better than themselves. When they have gained this unexpected liberty, those who but now were scattered in Greece and the outside world over islands and continents will arise and post from every side with one impulse to the one appointed place, guided in their pilgrimage by a vision divine and superhuman unseen by others but manifest to them as they pass from exile to their home.
(Praem. 28-29.164-65; italics mine)

Everything will suddenly be reversed, God will turn the curses against the enemies of these penitents, the enemies who rejoiced in the misfortunes of the nation and mocked and railed at them… Then those of them who have not come to utter destruction, in tears and groans lamenting their own lapse, will make their way back with course reversed to the prosperity of the ancestral past.
(Praem. 29.169-70)

Philo proclaimed an awaited dynamic shift in history, characterized by Israel’s return from exile, where God would turn the tables on the nations who have tyrannized His people for so long. Though Philo’s version of exilic return and the messianic age appeared much different than that of Josephus’, The Testament of the Patriarchs, or the Qumran community, it appears from these texts that it bore great significance to his eschatology.

Although it is nearly impossible to piece together a singular coherent belief system concerning the return from exile from all the writings of that time, a few things are abundantly evident. First that the many Jews in the first century AD interpreted their condition under the Roman empire as God’s punishment for their covenantal unfaithfulness. Secondly, that the Creator God would act once again in history to fulfill the prophetic promises made to Abraham (Gen 12:1-3) and David (2 Sam 6), which were later reaffirmed by both Isaiah (Isa 40-55) and Jeremiah (Jer 31-33).