There only remained, therefore, for the new comers the small, central strip of the country round Jerusalem occupied by the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. From these two tribes the larger part of the exiles were descendants, and to this, their ancient home, they returned. Henceforth the name of Judah took the predominant place in the national titles. As the primitive name of "Hebrew" had given way to the historical name of Israel, so that of Israel now gave way to the name of Judæan, or Jew, so full of The praise and pride, of reproach and scorn. "It name of "was born," as their later historian truly ob- and "Jew." serves, " on the day when they came out from Baby"lon," and their history thenceforth is the history not of Israel but of Judaism. "Judæan " B. C. 536. We trace the settlers of those rocky fastnesses back, each like a bird to its nest. Each hill-fort, so wellknown in the wars of Saul and David, in the approaches of Sennacherib,2 once more leaps into view; Gibeon, and Ramah, and Geba, and the pass of Michmash, and the slope of Anothoth, and the long descent of Bethel and Ai, and the waving palms of Jericho, and the crested height of Bethlehem, and the ancient stronghold of Kirjathjearim, all received back their "men," their "children," after their long separation. Some gradually crept farther south through the now Idumæan territory to the villages round Hebron, to which the old Canaanite possessors once more gave its ancient name of "Kirjath-arba." Some stole along the plains of the south coast down to the half-Bedouin settlements of Beersheba and Josephus, Ant., xi. 5, 7. 4 Neh. xi. 25. (See Mr. Grove on Kirjath-arba in Dict. of Bible.) Molada on the frontier of the desert. The bands of singers established themselves in the neighborhood of Jerusalem, at Geba, or at Gilgal, in the Jordan valley. Jerusalem. But these all, as it were, clustered round Jerusalem, which now for the first time in history assumes the name never since lost, and which in the East still remains its only title, "The "The Holy City," and if the country at large also takes for the first time in the mouths of the returning exiles the name which has clung to it with hardly less tenacity, "The Holy 2 "Land," it is as the seat and throne of the consecrated capital, which, if fallen from its antique splendor, reigned supreme, as never before, over the affections and the reverence of the people. When Herodotus in the next century passed by it he knew it only by this name, "The Holy Place," Kadesh, Grecised into Kadytis. When, three centuries later, Strabo saw it again, though the name of Jerusalem had been ascertained, it was transformed into Hierosolyma, the Holy Place of Salem, or Solomon, and he felt that it properly expressed the awe and veneration with which he regarded it, as though it had been one of his own ancestral seats of oracular sanctity. 6 All the other shrines and capitals of Israel, with the single exception of that on Mount Gerizim, had been swept away. The sanctity of Bethel and Shiloh, the regal dignity of Samaria and Jezreel, had how disappeared for ever. Jerusalem remained the undisputed queen of the whole country in an unprecedented sense. 10 Isa. xlviii. 2; lii. 1; lvi. 7; lxiv. 4 Philo calls it Hieropolis. Eupolemus, in Eus. Præp. Ev ix. 34. • Strabo, xvi. 10, 97. Even those very tribes which before had been her rivals, acknowledged in her misfortunes the supremacy which they had denied to her in her prosperity. Pilgrims from Shechem, Shiloh and Samaria, immediately after the Babylonian Captivity began, came, with every outward sign of1 mourning, to wail and weep (like the Jews of our own day) over the still smoking ruins. It was natural, therefore, that the exiles had constantly nourished the hope of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, which they had never forgotten in their brightest or their darkest days on the banks of the Euphrates;1 that the highest reward to which any of them could look forward would be that they should build the old waste places, raise up the foundations of many generations, be called the repairer of the ruins, the restorer of paths to dwell in. It was natural that along the broken walls of the city of David there should have been, as the Return drew nearer, devout Israelites seen standing like sentinels, repeating their constant watchwords, which consisted of an incessant cry day and night, giving the Divine Protector no rest until He establish and make Jerusalem a praise upon the earth.* It was natural that the names which had begun to attach to her during her desertion, as though she were the impersonation of Solitude and Desolation, should give place to the joyful names of the Bride and the Favorite returning to her married home with all the gayety and hopefulness of an Eastern wedding. It was natural that Ezekiel by the banks o the Chebar should so concentrate his thoughts on the 1 Jer. xli. 5-8 (Ewald, v. 97); see Lecture XL. 2 Psalm cxxxvii. 1, 5, see Lecture XLI. Isa. lviii. 12; lxi. 4. 4 Isa. lxii. 6 7. B.C. 536. 5 Isa. lxii. 4, 5; liv. 1-7. Beulat and Hephzibah. City and Temple of Jerusalem that their dimensions grew in his visions to such a colossal size as to absorb the whole of Palestine by their physical structure, no less than they did actually by their moral significance. Accordingly, the one object which filled the thoughts of the returning exiles, the one object, as it was believed by them, for which the Return had been permitted by the Persian king, was "the building of an house of the Lord God of Israel at Je"rusalem which is in Judah." The consecration of the new altar. There was a moment, it might have been supposed, when the idea of a more spiritual worship, like that of the Persians, would dispense altogether with outward buildings. "The heaven is my throne, the earth is my "footstool where is the house that ye build unto me? "and where is the place of my rest?"1 But this doctrine of the Evangelical Prophet was not yet capable of being put into practice; perhaps in its literal sense never will be. Ezekiel's ideal was, as we have seen, rather the restoration of the Temple on a gigantic scale. It was the chief, the one mission of Zerubbabel, and in a few weeks or months after his arrival the first step was taken toward the erection of the second Temple of Jerusalem, the Temple which was destined to meet the requirements of the national worship, till it gave way to the third Temple of the half-heathen Herod. That first step was precisely on the traces of the older Temple. As the altar which David erected long preceded the completion of the splendid structure of Solomon, so before any attempt was made to erect the walls, or even to lay the foundations of the Temple of the coming era, there was erected on the platform for merly occupied by the threshing-floor of Araunah, ther 1 Isa. lxvi. 1. 2 Ezra iii. 3. B.C. 536, for five centuries by the stately altar of David and his son Solomon, the central hearth of the future Temple; but, as if to vindicate for itself an intrinsic majesty despite of its mean surroundings, it was in its dimensions double the size even of its vast predecessor. The day fixed for the occasion of its consecration was well suited to do it honor. It was the opening to the great autumnal Feast of the Jewish year- the Feast of Tabernacles-the same festival as that chosen October. by Solomon for the dedication of his Temple, and by Jeroboam for the dedication of the rival sanctuary at Bethel.1 It was the first day of the seventh month, which, according to the Babylonian, now adopted as the Jewish, calendar, henceforth took the Chaldæan name of Tisri," the opening" month, the "January," and thus became the first of the year. The settlers from all parts of the country, as well as the aboriginal inhabitants, gathered for the occasion and witnessed the solemnity from the open space in front of the eastern gate of the Temple.3 That day accordingly was fitly the birthday of the new city. Henceforth there were once more seen ascending to the sky the columns of smoke, morning and evening, from the daily sacrifices the sign at once of human habitation and of religious worship in the longdeserted capital. Now that the central point was secured, the impulse to the work went on. The contributions which the exiles themselves had made. the offerings, as it would appear, from some of the sur rounding tribes, under the influence of the Persian Government, added to the resources. The 1 See Lecture XXVII. 2 September (see Kalisch's Commentary, ii. 269). 8 1 Esdras v. 47. B. C. 535 |