Isaiah 56:1-8 and the redefining of the restoration Judean community

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Summer, 2000 by Clinton E. Hammock

With the return of the exiles to their homeland, and their encounter with the people of the land, particularly ethnic Israelites and Yahwists who were not exiled, the issues of group membership and concerns over land and children became problematic. The returnees, led by the priests, represented exilic values and ideologies (i. e., the components of the Judean identity movement), which they brought home with them. The returnees, upon their arrival, proceeded to reestablish their land rights, restore the temple for their religious observances (completed in 515 BCE), and exclude the people of the land from their community. In drawing boundaries between themselves (as Judeans) and their unexiled ethnic kin (the "people of the land"), they (the Judeans) lumped the "people of the land" together with other ethnic groups of the region into the undifferentiated category of foreigner, i.e., illegitimate occupiers of the land. Although the Samaritans can be considered "people of the land," I am not specifically including them when I use the term. The people I have in mind are primarily the ethnic Judeans living in the area of Judah.

We can now begin to understand Figure 1. It is important to recall that this diagram is representative of the perceptions of the returning exiles, designated here as Judeans. The plus sign ( ) indicates those who could be a full standing member of the Judean community. The minus sign (-) designates those who were not acceptable. The top level of the diagram indicates how the Judeans defined themselves over and against the "people of the land." Although both the Judeans and the "people of the land" were ethnically descended from pre-exilic Judeans, the Judeans experienced the exile, and the "people of the land" did not. From the perspective of the Judeans, their community had been purified by the exilic experience, whereas the "people of the land" had not. As a consequence, a first level binary pair can be established between the Judeans and the "people of the land" based on the taxonomizer "purification." The first section of this article will consider the historical background of the restoration in which these two groups become fully polarized, and culminated in the complete exclusion of the "people of the land" from the Judean community at the time of Ezra's marriage reform.

As the second level of this diagram shows, these two main communities can be further subdivided based on the taxonomizer "loyalty." Bearing

in mind that this diagram represents the viewpoint of the Judeans, the people who are considered loyal to the Judean community are those who can reproduce and socialize offspring for the Judean community who are not tainted by outside or syncretistic practices. In the second subdivision of the diagram we can see that the "people of the land," who convert to the Judean community, can be absorbed into the community. In converting they provide access to land for the growing returnee community. This absorption of converts can continue until the Judean community is self-sustaining. Then the less wholehearted converts will come to be excluded also. Early in the restoration the converts made suitable marriage partners and good economic contacts, because, unlike the gentiles, they did not threaten the community by introducing syncretistic cult practices into the community. It should be pointed out that the gentiles are not necessarily non-Israelites, but included "people of the land" who practiced syncretistic worship practices, and posed a risk to the uncontaminated socialization of Judean children.