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79-589: Yehud Medinata , also called Yehud Medinta ( Jewish Babylonian Aramaic : יְהוּד מְדִינְתָּא ‎ Yəhūḏ Məḏīntā ) or simply Yehud , was an autonomous province of the Achaemenid Empire . Located in Judea , the territory was distinctly Jewish , with the High Priest of Israel emerging as a central religious and political leader. It lasted for just over two centuries before being incorporated into

158-590: A Babylonian vassal (605 BC), Judah revolted but was subjugated again by Babylon (597 BC), and Judah revolted once more. This revolt was the final one: Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple and exiled its king and many of the leading citizens in 586 BC, ending Judah's existence as an independent or quasi-independent kingdom and inaugurating the Babylonian exile . The book can be conveniently divided into biographical, prose and poetic strands, each of which can be summarised separately. The biographical material

237-813: A battery of technical logical terms, such as tiyuvta (conclusive refutation) and tiqu (undecidable moot point), which are still used in Jewish legal writings, including those in other languages, and have influenced modern Hebrew . Like the other Judeo-Aramaic languages , it was written in the Hebrew alphabet . May his great name shall be blessed (Kaddish Shalem, 8th century) ַ ני ‎ נַטְרַנִי ‎ he supervised me נֵיעָרְבִינְהוּ וְנִכְתְּבִינְהוּ There are six major verb stems or verbal patterns (binyanim) in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. The form pe‘al (פְּעַל) “to do”,

316-594: A closely related version. The shorter version ultimately became canonical in Greek Orthodox churches, while the longer was adopted in Judaism and in Western Christian churches. It is generally agreed that the three types of material interspersed through the book – poetic, narrative, and biographical – come from different sources or circles. Authentic oracles of Jeremiah are probably to be found in

395-420: A form of communication in which a message was delivered by performing symbolic actions. Not unique to the book of Jeremiah, these were often bizarre and violated the cultural norms of the time. They served the purposes of both drawing an audience and causing that audience to ask questions, giving the prophet an opportunity to explain the meaning of the behavior. The recorder of the events in the written text (i.e.

474-455: A new covenant are foreshadowed. Authentic oracles of Jeremiah are probably to be found in the poetic sections of chapters 1 through 25 , but the book as a whole has been heavily edited and added to by the prophet's followers (including, perhaps, his companion, the scribe Baruch) and later generations of Deuteronomists. It has come down in two distinct though related versions, one in Hebrew,

553-405: A part of the kingdom of Israel , was far more densely populated than Judah itself, and now held both the administrative capital, Mizpah, and the major religious centre of Bethel. Mizpah continued as the provincial capital for over a century. The position of Jerusalem before the administration moved back from Mizpah is unclear. From 445 BCE onwards, it was once more the main city of Yehud, with walls,

632-412: A remarkably introspective prophet, impetuous and often angered by the role into which he has been thrust, alternating efforts to warn the people with pleas to God for mercy, until he is ordered to "pray no more for this people." He does a number of prophetic symbolic acts, walking about in the streets with a yoke about his neck and engaging in other efforts to attract attention. He is taunted and retaliates,

711-414: A total of 4,600 were exiled to Babylon . To such numbers must be added those deported by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE after the first siege to Jerusalem , when he deported the king of Judah, Jeconiah . His court, other prominent citizens, craftsmen, and a sizable portion of the Jewish population of Judah, numbering about 10,000. The Book of Kings also suggests 8,000. The former kingdom of Judah then became

790-443: Is Active Frequentative . The verbal pattern itpa'al is Passive Frequentative . The verbal pattern aphel is Active Causative . The verbal pattern itaphal is Passive Causative . The language has received considerable scholarly attention, as shown in the bibliography below. However, the majority of those who are familiar with it, namely Orthodox Jewish students of Talmud, are given no systematic instruction in

869-545: Is a consensus among biblical scholars that ancient Judah during the 9th and 8th centuries BCE was basically henotheistic or monolatrous , with Yahweh as a national god in the same way that surrounding nations each had their national gods. Monotheistic themes arose as early as the 8th century, in opposition to Assyrian royal propaganda, which depicted the Assyrian king as "Lord of the Four Quarters" (the world), but

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948-625: Is clear from the last chapters of the book, however, that he continued to speak in Egypt after the assassination of Gedaliah , the Babylonian-appointed governor of Judah, in 582. This suggests that the superscription is trying to make a theological point about Jeremiah by comparing him to Moses – whereas Moses spent forty years leading Israel from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land, Jeremiah's forty years saw Israel exiled from

1027-545: Is especially true of the chronological sequence of Ezra and Nehemiah, with Ezra 7:6–8 stating that Ezra came to Jerusalem "in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the King," without specifying whether he was Artaxerxes I (465–424 BCE) or Artaxerxes II (404–358 BCE). The probable date for his mission is 458 BCE, but it is possible that it took place in 398 BCE. The results of archaeological excavations and surveys suggest that in comparison to late Iron Age Judah, late Persian period Yehud

1106-565: Is no evidence that a popular "assembly" existed, and he would have had little discretion over his core duties. Evidence from seals and coins suggests that most, if not all, of the governors of Persian Yehud were Jewish, a situation which conforms with the general Persian practice of governing through local leaders. The succession order and dates of most of the governors of the Achaemenid province of Yehud cannot be recreated with any degree of certainty. Coins, jar-stamp impressions, and seals from

1185-597: Is shorter than the Hebrew by about one eighth, and arranges the material differently. Equivalents of both versions were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls , so it is clear that the differences mark important stages in the transmission of the text. Most scholars hold that the Hebrew text underlying the Septuagint version is older than the Masoretic text, and that the Masoretic evolved either from this or from

1264-528: Is thrown in jail as the result, and at one point is thrown into a pit to die. The Deuteronomists were a school or movement who edited the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings into a more or less unified history of Israel (the so-called Deuteronomistic History) during the Jewish exile in Babylon (6th century BCE). It is argued that the Deuteronomists played an important role in the production of

1343-541: Is to be found in chapters 26 –29 , 32 , and 34 –44 , and focuses on the events leading up to and surrounding the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 BCE; it provides precise dates for the prophet's activities beginning in 609 BCE. The non-biographical prose passages, such as the Temple sermon in chapter 7 and the covenant passage in 11:1–17 , are scattered throughout the book; they show clear affinities with

1422-408: Is unclear whether Jeremiah thought that repentance could ward off judgement or whether it would have to follow judgement. The theme of restoration is strongest in chapter 31:32 , which looks to a future in which a New Covenant , made with Israel and Judah, will not be broken. This is the theme of the " New Covenant " passage at chapter 31:31–34 , drawing on Israel's past relationship with God through

1501-454: The Bible and the prayer book , are of limited usefulness for this purpose, as they are in different dialects.) Talmudic Aramaic bears all the marks of being a specialist language of study and legal argumentation, like Law French , rather than a vernacular mother tongue, and continued in use for these purposes long after Judeo-Arabic had become the languages of daily life. It has developed

1580-522: The Book of Chronicles , and genuinely original work including Ben Sira , Tobit , Judith , 1 Enoch and, much later, Maccabees . The literature from Ben Sira onwards is increasingly permeated with references to the Hebrew Bible in the present form, suggesting the slow development of the idea of a body of "scripture" in the sense of authoritative writings. One of the more important cultural shifts in

1659-510: The Deuteronomists , the school of writers and editors who shaped the series of history books from Judges to Kings , and while it is unlikely they come directly from Jeremiah, they may well have their roots in traditions about what he said and did. The poetic material is found largely in chapters 1 –25 and consists of oracles in which the prophet speaks as God's messenger. These passages, dealing with Israel's unfaithfulness to God,

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1738-847: The Hellenistic empires , which emerged following the Greek conquest of the Persian Empire . Upon the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE, the Achaemenid Empire established its own Yehud province to absorb the Babylonian province of Yehud , which, in turn, had been established by the Neo-Babylonian Empire to absorb the Kingdom of Judah upon the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. Around this time,

1817-644: The Second Temple after the region was conquered by the Persians. By the late sixth century BC, the temple in Jerusalem had been restored, and its body of worship, practice, and sacrificial cult had been re-established. Much of the literature which became the Hebrew Bible was compiled in the early post-Exilic period , and Persian Yehud saw considerable conflict over the construction and function of

1896-528: The Temple, and other facilities needed to function as a provincial capital, including, from 420 BCE, a local mint striking silver coins. Nevertheless, Persian-era Jerusalem was modest: about 1,500 inhabitants. It was the only true urban site in Yehud, as the bulk of the province's population lived in small unwalled villages. This picture did not much change throughout the entire Persian period. The entire population of

1975-496: The fallen Israelite kingdom . The name Yêhūd Mêdīnāta is originally Aramaic and was first introduced after Judah fell to the Babylonians. In Jewish history , the Persian period marks the start of the Second Temple period . Governor Zerubbabel , who led the first Jewish returnees, laid the foundation of the Second Temple . Other Jewish leaders followed, such as Ezra and Nehemiah , and their efforts to rebuild Jewish life in

2054-436: The 20th year of Artaxerxes (almost definitely Artaxerxes I, whose twentieth year was 445/444 BCE) Nehemiah , the cup-bearer to the king and in a high official post, was informed that the wall of Jerusalem had been destroyed and was granted permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuild it. He succeeded in doing so but encountered strong resistance from the "people of the land," the officials of Samaria (the province immediately to

2133-555: The Achaemenid emperor Cyrus the Great shortly after the fall of Babylon, was a royal proclamation by which he ended the Babylonian captivity. In the Hebrew Bible , this decree is accredited as having enabled the return to Zion —an event in which the exiled populace of Judah returned to their homeland after it had been restructured as a self-governing Jewish province within the Achaemenid Empire. To replace Solomon's Temple, work began on

2212-547: The Babylonian exile. Despite Ezra's and Nehemiah's intolerance of gentiles and Samaritans, Jewish relations with the Samaritans and other neighbours were otherwise close and cordial. Comparison of Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles bears this out: Chronicles opens participation in Yahweh-worship to all twelve tribes and even to foreigners, but for Ezra-Nehemiah, "Israel" means the tribes of Judah and Benjamin alone as well as

2291-542: The Babylonian province Yehud, with Gedaliah , a native Judahite, as governor (or possibly ruling as a puppet king). According to Miller and Hayes, the province included the towns of Bethel in the north, Mizpah , Jericho in the east, Jerusalem, Beth-Zur in the west and En-Gedi in the south. The administrative centre of the province was Mizpah. On hearing of the appointment, the Jews who had taken refuge in surrounding countries returned to Judah. However, before long, Gedaliah

2370-586: The Exile broke the competing fertility, ancestor and other cults and allowed it to emerge as the dominant theology of Yehud. The minor gods or " sons of God " of the old pantheon now turned into a hierarchy of angels and demons in a process that continued to evolve throughout the time of Yehud and into the Hellenistic age. Zoroastrianism influenced the Judahite religion and, subsequently, Judaism. Although

2449-467: The Great decreed that the deportees in Babylon could return to Yehud and rebuild the Temple. Led by Zerubbabel, 42,360 exiles returned to Yehud, where he and Joshua the High Priest , although they were in fear of the "people of the land", re-instituted sacrifices. According to Book of Ezra , Jeshua and Zerubbabel were frustrated in their efforts to rebuild the Temple by the enmity of the "people of

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2528-455: The Persian king Cyrus the Great issued what is commonly known as the Edict of Cyrus , which is described in the Hebrew Bible as a royal proclamation that ended the Babylonian captivity and initiated the return to Zion . In the new province, repatriated Jews began to revive their national identity and reconstruct the Temple in Jerusalem . The province constituted a part of Eber-Nari and

2607-605: The Persian period has survived, including some coins from Tell Jemmeh and Beth-zur using the Paleo-Hebrew script , two seal impressions on bullae from a cave in Wadi Daliyeh , a seal from Tel Michal , etc. In contrast, Aramaic-written epigraphic material is much more prevalent. In 539 BCE, Babylon fell to the Achaemenids. That event is dated securely from non-biblical sources. In his first year (538 BCE), Cyrus

2686-530: The Persian period was the rise of Imperial Aramaic as the predominant language of Yehud and the Jewish diaspora . Originally spoken by Aramaeans , the Persians adopted it and became the lingua franca of the empire, and already in the time of Ezra , it was necessary to have the Torah readings translated into Aramaic for them to be understood by Jews. Only a small amount of Hebrew-written epigraphic material from

2765-409: The Persian period, did not reach their realisation until the 2nd century BCE. The Book of Jeremiah grew over a long period of time. The Greek stage, looking forward to the fall of Babylon and aligning in places with Second Isaiah , had already seen major redaction (editing) in terms of overall structure, the superscriptions (sentences identifying following passages as the words of God or of Jeremiah),

2844-404: The Temple and matters of cult (i.e., how God was to be worshiped). Persia controlled Yehud using the same methods it used in other territories; Yehud's status as a Persian holding is crucial to understanding the society and literature of the period. The returnees from the exile community attempted to restore in Yehud the pre-Exile tripartite leadership template of king ( Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel),

2923-531: The Temple in Jerusalem. Thus, by 586 BCE, much of Judah was devastated; the royal family, the priesthood, and the scribes, the country's elite, were in exile in Babylon, and the former kingdom suffered a steep decline in economy and population. The numbers of those who were deported to Babylon or made their way to Egypt and the remnants that remained in Yehud Province and surrounding countries are subject to academic debate. The Book of Jeremiah reports that

3002-467: The assignment of historical settings, and arrangement of material, and may have been completed by the late Exilic period (last half of the 6th century BCE); the initial stages of the Masoretic Hebrew version may have been written not long afterwards, although chapter 33:14–26 points to a setting in post-exilic times. According to its opening verses the book records the prophetic utterances of

3081-669: The author of the text) had neither the same audience nor, potentially, the same intent that Jeremiah had in performing these prophetic gestures. The following is a list – not exhaustive – of noteworthy sign-acts found in Jeremiah: The influence of Jeremiah during and after the Exile was considerable in some circles, and three additional books, the Book of Baruch , Lamentations , and the Letter of Jeremiah , were attributed to him in Second Temple Judaism (Judaism in

3160-550: The book as "the words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah". Of all the prophets, Jeremiah comes through most clearly as a person, ruminating to his scribe Baruch about his role as a servant of God with little good news for his audience. His book is intended as a message to the Jews in exile in Babylon, explaining the disaster of exile as God's response to Israel's pagan worship: the people, says Jeremiah, are like an unfaithful wife and rebellious children, their infidelity and rebelliousness made judgment inevitable, although restoration and

3239-569: The book had such a long and complex composition history. It can be divided into roughly six sections: The background to Jeremiah is briefly described in the superscription to the book: Jeremiah began his prophetic mission in the thirteenth year of king Josiah (about 627 BC) and continued after the eleventh year of king Zedekiah (586 BC), "when Jerusalem went into exile in the sixth month". During this period, Josiah instituted religious reforms, Babylon destroyed Assyria, Egypt briefly imposed vassal status on Judah , Babylon defeated Egypt and made Judah

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3318-469: The book of Jeremiah; for example, there is clear Deuteronomistic language in chapter 25 , in which the prophet looks back over twenty-three years of unheeded prophecy. From the Deuteronomistic perspective the prophetic role implied, more than anything else, concern with law and covenant after the manner of Moses. On this reading Jeremiah was the last of a long line of prophets sent to warn Israel of

3397-449: The call to repentance, and attacks on the religious and political establishment, are mostly undated and have no clear context, but it is widely accepted that they represent the teachings of Jeremiah and are the earliest stage of the book. Allied to them, and also probably a reflection of the authentic Jeremiah, are further poetic passages of a more personal nature, which have been called Jeremiah's confessions or spiritual diary. In these poems

3476-412: The consequences of infidelity to God; unlike the Deuteronomists, for whom the call for repentance was always central, Jeremiah seems at some point in his career to have decided that further intercession was pointless, and that Israel's fate was sealed. The book's superscription claims that Jeremiah was active for forty years, from the thirteenth year of Josiah (627 BCE) to the fall of Jerusalem in 587. It

3555-494: The covenant at Sinai to foresee a new future in which Israel will be obedient to God. Scholars from Heinrich Ewald onwards have identified several passages in Jeremiah which can be understood as "confessions": they occur in the first section of the book (chapters 1–25) and are generally identified as Jeremiah 11:18–12.6, 15:10–21, 17:14–18, 18:18–23, and 20:7–18. In these five passages, Jeremiah expresses his discontent with

3634-492: The day of his birth (Jeremiah 20:14–18 and Job 3:3–10). Likewise, Jeremiah's exclamation "For I hear the whispering of many: Terror is all around!" matches Psalm 31:13 exactly. However, Jeremiah's laments are made unique by his insistence that he has been called by Yahweh to deliver his messages. These laments "provide a unique look at the prophet's inner struggle with faith, persecution, and human suffering". Prophetic gestures, also known as sign-acts or symbolic actions, were

3713-571: The early years of the 6th century BCE, despite the strong remonstrances of the prophet Jeremiah and others, the Judahite king Jehoiakim revolted against Nebuchadnezzar II . The revolt failed, and in 597 BCE, many Judahites, including the prophet Ezekiel , were exiled to Babylon. A few years later, Judah revolted yet again. In 589, Nebuchadnezzar again besieged Jerusalem, and many Jews fled to Moab , Ammon , Edom , and other countries to seek refuge. The city fell after an 18-month siege, and Nebuchadnezzar again pillaged and destroyed Jerusalem and burned

3792-464: The exact extent of that influence continues to be debated, a shared concept of God as creator, the one who guarantees justice, and the god of heaven. The experience of exile and restoration itself brought about a new worldview in which Jerusalem and the House of David continued to be central ingredients, and the destruction of the Temple came to be regarded as a demonstration of Yahweh's strength. Possibly

3871-541: The expulsion of the Persians from Egypt by Pharaoh Amyrtaeus (404 BCE), the Jewish temple in Elephantine was abandoned. Scholars believe that in the Persian period, the Torah assumed its final form, the history of ancient Israel and Judah contained in the books from Joshua to Kings was revised and completed and the older prophetic books were redacted. New writing included the interpretation of older works, such as

3950-540: The form Aph'el (אַפְעֵל) “let do”, and the form Pa'el (פַּעֵל) “like to do”, are all in the active voice. But the form Itpe'el (אִתְפְּעֵל), the form Itaph'al (אִתַפְעַל) and the form Itpa'al (אִתְפַּעַל) are essentially reflexive and usually function in a passive sense. The Aramaic verb has two participles : an active participle with suffix and a passive participle with suffix : |} The verbal pattern (binyan) pa‘el are frequentative verbs showing repeated or intense action. The verbal pattern pa'el

4029-535: The fourth century BCE, the province of Yehud was home to a network of strongholds. One of these is Hurvat Eres, a little rectangular fort that was discovered atop Har HaRuach, north of Kiryat Ye'arim . Other noteworthy non-urban sites from the period include a fortress and agricultural estate found in Har Adar , as well as an agricultural estate in Qalandia . Jewish Babylonian Aramaic language The language

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4108-542: The governor of Yehud appointed by Cyrus in 538, was of Davidic origin, as was his successor (and nephew) Zerubbabel; Zerubbabel in turn was succeeded by his second son and then by his son-in-law, all of them hereditary Davidic governors of Yehud, a state of affairs that ended only around 500 BCE. This hypothesis—that Zerubbabel and his immediate successors represented a restoration of the Davidic kingdom under Persian overlordship—cannot be verified, but it would be in keeping with

4187-473: The high priest (Joshua, descended from the priestly line ), and prophet (Haggai, Zechariah). However, by the middle of the next century, probably around 450 BCE, the kings and prophets had disappeared and only the high priest remained, joined by the scribe-sage ( Ezra ) and the appointed aristocrat-governor ( Nehemiah ). This new pattern provided the leadership model for Yehud for centuries to come. Canaan State of Israel (1948–present) Yehud

4266-547: The holy tribe of Levi. Despite Yehud being consistently monotheistic, some pockets of polytheistic Yahwism still appeared to exist in the Persian period: the Elephantine papyri and ostraca (usually dated to the 5th century BCE) shows that a small community of Jews living on the Egyptian island of Elephantine , while being devout supporters of Yahweh, also venerated the Egyptian goddess Anat and even had their temple on

4345-551: The island. This community had probably been founded before the Babylonian exile and had, therefore, remained cut off from religious reforms on the mainland. While it appears that the Elephantine community had some contact with the Second Temple (as evidenced by the fact that they had written a letter to the High Priest Johanan of Jerusalem), the exact relationship between the two is currently unclear. Following

4424-657: The land and Jeremiah himself ultimately in exile in Egypt. Much of Jeremiah's prophetic preaching is based on the theme of the covenant between God and Israel (God would protect the people in return for their exclusive worship of him); Jeremiah insists that the covenant is conditional, and can be broken by Israel's apostasy (worship of gods other than Yahweh , the God of Israel). The people, says Jeremiah, are like an unfaithful wife and rebellious children: their infidelity and rebelliousness makes judgement inevitable. Interspersed with this are references to repentance and renewal, although it

4503-491: The land" and the opposition of the governor of "Beyond-the-River" (the satrapy of which Yehud was a smaller unit). ( Ezra 3–4:4 ) However, in the second year of Darius (520 BCE), Darius discovered the Decree of Cyrus in the archives. He directed the satrap to support the work, which he did, and the Temple was completed in the sixth year of Darius (516/515 BCE). ( Ezra 6:15 ) The Book of Ezra dates Ezra's arrival in Jerusalem to

4582-646: The language, and are expected to "sink or swim" in the course of their Talmudic studies, with the help of some informal pointers showing similarities and differences with Hebrew. Book of Jeremiah The Book of Jeremiah ( Hebrew : ספר יִרְמְיָהוּ ) is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible , and the second of the Prophets in the Christian Old Testament . The superscription at chapter Jeremiah 1:1–3 identifies

4661-417: The later Persian period , and his prophecy that the Babylonian exile would last 70 years was taken up and reapplied by the author of the Book of Daniel in the 2nd century BCE. The understanding of the early Christians that Jesus represented a " new covenant " is based on Jeremiah 31:31–34 , in which a future Israel will repent and give God the obedience he demands. The Gospel's portrayal of Jesus as

4740-486: The message he is to deliver, but also his steadfast commitment to the divine call despite the fact that he had not sought it out. Additionally, in several of these "confessions", Jeremiah prays that the Lord will take revenge on his persecutors (for example, Jeremiah 12:3 ). Jeremiah's "confessions" are a type of individual lament . Such laments are found elsewhere in the psalms and the Book of Job . Like Job, Jeremiah curses

4819-410: The mid-5th century BCE the prophets and Davidic kings had disappeared, leaving only the High Priest. The practical result was that after c.500 BCE Yehud became a theocracy, ruled by a line of hereditary High Priests. The governor of Yehud would have been charged primarily with keeping order and seeing that tribute was paid. He would have been assisted by various officials and a body of scribes, but there

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4898-458: The north of Yehud, the former kingdom of Israel ) and other provinces and peoples around Jerusalem. ( Nehemiah 1–7 ) In Nehemiah 8 , the narrative abruptly switches back to Ezra, apparently with no change in the chronology, but the year is not specified. The Book of Nehemiah says Ezra gathered the Jews together to read and enforce the law (his original commission from Darius but put into effect only now, 14 years after his arrival). Ezra argued to

4977-601: The other known from the Septuagint Greek translation. The dates of the two (Greek and Hebrew) can be suggested by the fact that the Greek shows concerns typical of the early Persian period, while the Masoretic (i.e., Hebrew) shows perspectives which, although known in the Persian period, did not reach their realisation until the 2nd century BCE. It is difficult to discern any structure in Jeremiah, probably because

5056-611: The people that failure to keep the law had caused the Exile. The Jews then agreed to separate themselves from the "peoples of the land" (once again, intermarriage was banned), keep the Sabbath and generally observe the Law. ( Nehemiah 8–12 ) There is no complete agreement on the chronology of the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid periods: the following table is used in this article, but alternative dates for many events are plausible. That

5135-659: The period between the building of the Second Temple in about 515 BCE and its destruction in 70 CE); in the Greek Septuagint they stand between Jeremiah and the Book of Ezekiel , but only Lamentations is included in modern Jewish or Protestant bibles (the Letter of Jeremiah appears in Catholic bibles as the sixth chapter of Baruch). Jeremiah is mentioned by name in Chronicles and the Book of Ezra , both dating from

5214-441: The period provide the names of Elnathan , Hananiah (?), Jehoezer , Ahzai and Urio , all of them Jewish names. Some of them must have served between Zerubbabel and Nehemiah. Bagoas the Persian (Bagohi or Bagoi in Persian ) is known by this short form of several theophoric names that was often used for eunuchs . He is mentioned in the 5th-century Elephantine papyri , and must therefore have served after Nehemiah. There

5293-459: The poetic sections of chapters 1 – 25 , but the book as a whole has been heavily edited and added to by followers (including perhaps the prophet's companion, the scribe Baruch) and later generations of Deuteronomists. The date of the final versions of the book (Greek and Hebrew) can be suggested by the fact that the Greek shows concerns typical of the early Persian period, while the Masoretic (i.e., Hebrew) shows perspectives which, although known in

5372-400: The priest Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, "to whom the word of YHWH came in the days of king Josiah" and after. Jeremiah lived during a turbulent period, the final years of the kingdom of Judah, from the death of king Josiah (609 BCE) and the loss of independence that followed, through the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and the exile of much its population (587/586). The book depicts

5451-471: The prophet agonises over the apparent failure of his mission, is consumed by bitterness at those who oppose or ignore him, and accuses God of betraying him. Jeremiah exists in two versions: a Greek translation, called the Septuagint, dating from the last few centuries BCE and found in the earliest Christian manuscripts, and the Masoretic Hebrew text of traditional Jewish bibles. The Greek version

5530-438: The province remained around 30,000. There is no sign in the archaeological record of massive inwards migration from Babylon, in contradiction to the biblical account where Zerubbabel's band of returning Israelite exiles alone numbered 42,360. The Persians seem to have experimented with ruling Yehud as a vassal kingdom, but this time under the descendants of Jehoiachin , who had kept his royal status even in captivity. Sheshbazzar,

5609-584: The region are chronicled in biblical books named after them . Another significant Persian-period achievement was the canonization of the Torah , traditionally credited to Ezra and playing an important role in shaping the Jewish identity . In the late 7th century BCE, Judah became a vassal state of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. There were rival factions at the court in Jerusalem , some supporting loyalty to Babylon and others urging rebellion. In

5688-567: The second year of Artaxerxes. Its position in the narrative implies that he was Artaxerxes I in which case the year was 458 BCE. Ezra, a scholar of the commandments of Yahweh, was commissioned by Artaxerxes to rebuild the Temple and enforce the laws of Moses in Beyond the River. Ezra led a large party of exiles back to Yehud, where he found that Jews had intermarried with the "peoples of the land" and immediately banned intermarriage. ( Ezra 6–10 ) In

5767-480: The single most important development in the post-Exilic period was the promotion and eventual dominance of the idea and practice of Jewish exclusivity, the idea that the Jews (meaning descendants of Jacob , followers of the God of Israel and the law of Moses ) were or should be an ethnic group apart from all others. According to Levine, that was a new idea originating from the party of the golah , those who returned from

5846-439: The situation in some other parts of the Persian Empire, such as Phoenicia. The second and third pillars of the early period of Persian rule in Yehud, copying the pattern of the old Davidic kingdom destroyed by the Babylonians, were the institutions of High Priest and Prophet. Both are described and preserved in the Hebrew Bible in the histories of Ezra–Nehemiah–Chronicles and in the books of Zechariah, Haggai and Malachi , but by

5925-625: Was a rural province with no more than half as many settlements as the late Iron Age, and a much smaller population. Jerusalem had shrunk to its pre-eighth century proportions and also had a much smaller population, which now concentrated in the Temple Mount and the City of David , especially near the Pool of Siloam . The most impressive building plan of the period was discovered at Ein Gedi . Throughout

6004-635: Was assassinated by a member of the former royal house, and the Babylonian garrison was killed, triggering a mass movement of refugees to Egypt. In Egypt, the refugees settled in Migdol , Tahpanhes , Noph , and Pathros , and Jeremiah went with them as moral guardian. Although the Babylonians deported many Judeans and Jerusalem was left in ruins, a small but far from negligible population of Judeans continued to live in their native land during this period. The population of Persian-period Jerusalem has been estimated at 1,500 inhabitants. The Edict of Cyrus, issued by

6083-619: Was bounded by Idumaea (now part of Achaemenid Arabia ) to the south, lying along the frontier of the two satrapies . Spanning most of Judea—from the Shephelah in the west to the Dead Sea in the east—it was one of several Persian provinces in Palestine , together with Moab , Ammon , Gilead , Samaria , Ashdod , and Idumaea/Arabia, among others. The province's overall population is gauged as having been considerably smaller than that of

6162-633: Was closely related to other Eastern Aramaic dialects such as Mandaic . Its original pronunciation is uncertain, and has to be reconstructed with the help of these kindred dialects and of the reading tradition of the Yemenite Jews , and where available those of the Iraqi , Syrian and Egyptian Jews . The value of the Yemenite reading tradition has been challenged by Matthew Morgenstern . (The vocalized Aramaic texts with which Jews are familiar, from

6241-562: Was smaller than the former Iron-Age kingdom of Judah, stretching from around Bethel in the north to about Hebron in the south, which at the time belonged to Idumaea, and from the Jordan River and the Dead Sea in the east to, but not including, the Shephelah , the slopes between the Judean highlands and the coastal plains in the west. After the destruction of Jerusalem the centre of gravity shifted northward to Benjamin ; this region, once

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