Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah Under Babylonian Rule, The

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Dec 2006 by Phillips, Elaine A

The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah Under Babylonian Rule. By Oded Lipschits. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005, xiv 474 pp., $47.50.

The brief period between the fall of Jerusalem's temple and the beginning of the Persian period is elusive because it is indeed so short. Nevertheless, the biblical text indicates extremely significant changes for the nation of Israel in relation to the covenant and the land. In this work, which commenced as his doctoral dissertation at Tel Aviv University, Oded Lipschits investigates the nature of the Assyrian and Babylonian periods leading up to the destruction of the kingdom of Judah. He surveys the material remains and the demographic evidence for settlement patterns in subsections of Judah, the Negev, and Shephelah, and the tribal area of Benjamin in the interval between the deportation and return. Finally, he focuses on the fall of Jerusalem as we encounter it in 2 Kings 24-25 and Jeremiah 37-44.

In this multi-faceted approach, Lipschits intends to demonstrate that the 70 years of exile to Babylonia were not the "dark ages" that the Deuternomistic editor/redactor, writing from the perspective of the "returnees," made them out to be. In fact, even though the Babylonians utterly devastated Jerusalem as part of their program, there was a demonstrable continuity in population and material culture especially in the tribal area of Benjamin and in towns of northern Judah. In the end, we cannot make definitive declarations about the Babylonian period, but we can draw some conclusions about the two disparate populations of the nation of Israel at that time as they are represented in the text. One is the band of exiles from whom a small group would return to Zion. The other group is much larger but is given short shrift in the biblical text; they are those who remained in the land.

Chapter 1 surveys ANE history with particular focus on the abrupt transition from Assyrian to Babylonian rule, acknowledging the complications created by Egyptian influences. Egypt had economic and strategic interests in controlling the Levant, and the Egyptians expanded all the way to the Euphrates, the de facto boundary between Egypt and the dominant power in Mesopotamia. The presence of Egypt, of course, greatly affected internal politics in the final years of Judah.

Chapter 2 focuses on the geopolitical processes by which the tiny kingdom of Judah was swallowed up in international politics. Judah's loss of independence was part of a more extensive Babylonian policy to hold the provinces in the Levant that had been controlled by Assyria and to prepare for invasion of Egypt. Initially, small kingdoms like Judah were able to maintain internal freedom, although they paid heavy tribute. The final policy in Babylon was to remove the rebellious Davidic dynasty and systematically destroy Jerusalem, because it was a center of unrest. Gedaliah was appointed governor in Mizpah with the intent to remove any sense of the importance of Jerusalem. The number of those fleeing to Egypt after Gedaliah's murder was likely quite small, even though the biblical text makes it sound as if the land was left empty. The biblical text has concealed the presence of those who remained in the land. Instead, it focuses on the exiled elite because the return to Zion was part of an ideological message.

Chapter 3 addresses apparent changes in the borders of Judah between the end of the Iron Age and the beginning of the Persian period. Lipschits reads the town list in Joshua 15 as giving the picture of the kingdom in Josiah's day. The city lists in EzraNehemiah are deemed literary constructions shaped by ideological considerations, emphasizing the importance of those who returned to Zion. While there is no archaeological evidence of a massive deportation and return, there is evidence of those who were permitted to live in the region between Benjamin and the northern Judean hills.

In Chapter 4, Lipschits addresses the material culture in Israel from the Assyrian to the Persian periods as it informs our understanding of the history of Judah under Babylonian rule. Based on surveys, Lipschits concludes that there was an approximate 70% decline in overall population between the end of the Iron Age and Persian period. The only place where the population decline was not noticeable was in the northern Judean hills. There was also no evidence of destruction in the sixth century in Benjamin. Instead, we see a decline in cities of Benjamin at end of sixth and into the fifth century, indicating that the center went back to Jerusalem.

Chapter 5 turns to the biblical text and biblical historiography, giving a close reading of 2 Kings 24-25 and Jeremiah 37-44 to determine whether there is evidence of distinctive theological perspectives of the two groups-the exiles and those who remained in the land. From a theological perspective, those who remained viewed the exiles as having sinned and therefore as meriting punishment while considering themselves as the people of God. From a sociological perspective, it may be that the lives of those who remained improved because prior social structures favoring the elite were gone. In fact, when the exiles returned, there were likely tensions because their property had been appropriated by those who remained. Lipschits addresses at length the composition of the Deuteronomistic history. The historical accounts were essential for addressing right to land, status of Jerusalem, role of house of David, and the relation between the Diaspora and the land. The author also reviews extensively the challenging textual and compositional issues in Jeremiah.