John H. Tullock, "The
Exile: Judah's Dark Night of the Soul," The Old Testament Story,
6th ed., p. 263
last revised: 12/9/04
The land lay in ruins. Cities that
once had been alive with people were now blackened piles of rubble. Fields
that once had produced abundant crops of life-sustaining foods now lay
idle, overgrown with weeds. Jerusalem, the once proud capital city of David
and Solomon, was wrecked. Its houses, from the hovels of the poor to the
palaces of its kings, were burned to the ground; its massive walls were
filled with gaping holes; and the Temple, the building that popular religion
was sure would be the magic charm to protect the city was just another
heap of rubble. And the people who had given life to the city were gone.
Many were dead in the city's ruins; others were exiles in neighboring lands.
Those of the upper echelons of society who had survived had been, for the
most part, carried to Babylon as prisoners of war. Most of those left behind
were poor farmers and shepherds, men incapable of leading any kind of revolt
against the powerful armies of Babylon.
a division of
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