Ancient Israel
by Sanderson Beck
Genesis Moses, Conquest of Canaan, David and the Psalms, Solomon and the Wisdom Books, Israel and Judah Divided, Amos Hosea Isaiah and Micah, Judah's Fall and Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Babylonian Isaiah, Jews in the Persian Empire
Ancient Egypt
Outside of the Old Testament there is little evidence of the history and ethics of the Jewish people in Palestine in the ancient times. The authors of the Hebrew Bible did have a strong sense of history and ethics, but these books were written by various individuals over several centuries. TheTorah, or first five books also called the Pentateuch, purports to be by Moses himself although it concludes with an account of his death. Scholars have found numerous discrepancies not only between the first six books or so of the Old Testament and the limited historical records and archaeological evidence but also within the Old Testament itself so that it is clear that as history there are many inaccuracies.Yet as the basis of the Jewish religion and, in combination with the New Testament, also as the scripture of Christianity (in addition to being revered by Islam and others), the Bible is probably the most influential book on the ethics of civilization in human history. Thus as scripture and literature it has developed a powerful cultural reality of its own regardless of how accurately it represented actual events. I believe that from the time of Moses on most of the events described did likely occur, though many of the details may have been altered by beliefs, imagination, and faulty memory of an oral tradition. Those books which are probably closer to literature than history will be indicated and discussed in the time period when they were likely written rather than in the era they were set, with the following exception of the first book in the Torah.
Genesis
The book of Genesis is a collection of very ancient stories passed down for centuries in an oral tradition that modernized many details, confounding the scholars. Because of its immense influence as scripture and as a great work of literature, its ethical implications are profound.Genesis begins with God creating the heavens and the Earth and light on the first day. In time God made the earth appear with its vegetation and animals, which were fruitful and multiplied according to their kinds. On the sixth day God created humans "in our image," implying a plural deity working as a group. Humans were created male and female, and God blessed them, telling them to be fruitful and multiply and giving them dominion over all other creatures. For food God at first gave humans and animals only the plants yielding seeds, a fruitarian diet. God saw what he had made and thought that it was "very good." On the seventh day God rested.
This benign creation, implying a progressive sequence not too unlike evolution, is followed by a second creation story in which man is formed of dust from the ground. The Lord (Yahweh) then breathed the breath of life into man, and he became a living being. The Lord planted a garden in Eden and put man there along with the trees of life and of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord warned man not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for it would cause him to die. Then the Lord made helpers for man in the beasts of the field and the birds of the air which were all named by man. During a deep sleep the Lord took a rib from man and made it into a woman; formed out of his flesh, a man and his wife were to become one flesh. They were both naked but not ashamed.
A serpent suggested to the woman that she eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, arguing that she would not die as God warned, but that she would become like God, knowing good and evil. Wanting to be wise, she and her husband ate from this tree. Their eyes were opened; they knew that they were naked, and they fashioned the first clothes from leaves. Hearing the Lord walking in the garden, they hid themselves. When asked why they ate from the tree that was forbidden, the man said the woman gave the fruit to him; she explained that the serpent beguiled her. The Lord then cursed the serpent, multiplied the pain of the woman in childbearing, made her subservient to her husband's rule, and forced the man to work by the sweat of his face to bring forth food; for they came out of dust, and to dust they would return.
The man named his wife Eve from the word for living because she was the mother of all living. The Lord made for them garments of skins and declared that man had "become like one of us, knowing good and evil."1 However, to prevent them from discovering the tree of life and eating from it so that they would live forever, the Lord sent them out of the garden of Eden to till the ground, guarding the tree of life with a flaming sword. This patriarchal and thus sexist story adds to woman's burden of childbearing the cultural obligation to obey her husband. It also vividly portrays the birth of ethics from the development of self-consciousness and implies that further development of consciousness would lead to eternal life.
Adam and Eve conceived, and Eve bore Cain and then Abel. Cain tilled the ground, and Abel kept sheep. When the Lord favored Abel's animal offerings over Cain's gifts of fruit, Cain became very angry and killed Abel in the field. The Lord asked Cain where his brother was, and Cain replied, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?"2 The voice of his brother's blood cried out from the ground, cursing Cain so that the ground would not yield to his strength. Cain became a fugitive and was afraid that whoever found him would kill him; but the Lord said no, that anyone who killed Cain would suffer sevenfold vengeance. The Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one would kill him. This story reflects the outbreak of murder and war with the development of agriculture and conflicts between herders and farmers over the surplus wealth produced.
The ancient legend of the deluge is explained as the Lord's punishment for human wickedness and violence with a loyal family being saved by God's warnings and their preparations. However, after the flood God promised Noah that never again would he curse the ground because of man, because human imagination is evil from youth. Now in addition to the plants God gave humans the flesh of animals for food, though they were not to drink the blood. In regard to murder, God announced that whoever sheds human blood shall have their blood shed; for God created man in his own image, implying the principle of responsible creation and the spiritual law of cause and effect.
The family of Abram came from Ur of the Chaldeans by way of Haran to enter the land of Canaan. The Lord promised to make of his descendants a great nation. Abram and his nephew Lot agreed to separate enough so that they would not be in strife with each other. Abram was blessed by Melchizedek, king of Salem and a priest of the highest God. God changed his name to Abraham, and he instituted the practice of circumcision.
Meanwhile Lot was living in the city of Sodom that was so wicked the Lord threatened to destroy it; but Abraham argued that the good people should not be destroyed with the bad. So the Lord agreed not to destroy it if there were ten good people there. When two angels disguised as men visited Lot, the men of Sodom wanted to have sexual relations with them. Lot was so intent on protecting his guests that he even offered the men of Sodom his two daughters, but the angels blinded the men and helped Lot's family to escape from the city before Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire and brimstone from the Lord. However, Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. In this story homosexuality is not explicitly condemned, but the attempted violation of Lot's hospitality was considered wrong.
Late in life Sarah bore a son named Isaac. God tested Abraham by directing him to sacrifice his son. Abraham was willing to obey, but at the last moment God told him not to lay his hand on his son. Abraham saw a ram caught in a thicket and sacrificed that animal instead. This story portrays Abraham as obedient in the extreme and indicates that animal sacrifice may have been justified as an alternative to human sacrifice. Isaac married Rebekah, and her second twin son Jacob stole the birthright and blessing from his older brother Esau by his cleverness and by lying to his father.
Jacob dreamed of a ladder to heaven on which angels of God were going up and coming down. Jacob visited his relative Laban and married his two daughters, Leah and Rachel; by them and their maids he had twelve sons and one daughter, Dinah. When Dinah was seduced by Shechem, he offered to marry her. The sons of Jacob said they would agree to have marriages between their families if they would be circumcised. Shechem got those in his city to be circumcised; but on the third day when they were sore, Dinah's brothers Simeon and Levi killed all the males in their city with their swords. The sons of Jacob plundered the city and took its flocks. Jacob complained that they brought trouble, and God told them to return to Bethel, where Jacob had had his dream. God appeared to Jacob again and changed his name to Israel.
Because Rachel was Jacob's preferred wife, he favored her sons Joseph and Benjamin. When Joseph was seventeen, he criticized his brothers to his father. Loving him most, Jacob had a special robe made for Joseph; this was resented by his brothers. Joseph had a dream that his brothers and parents would bow down to him; this increased his brothers' jealousy. One day they took his robe and threw Joseph into a pit. Judah suggested that they sell Joseph into slavery to a caravan on its way to Egypt. Then they killed a goat and put its blood on the robe and showed it to their father Jacob.
In Egypt Joseph was bought by Potiphar, the captain of the guard. When Potiphar's wife tried to seduce Joseph and he refused, she accused him of trying to seduce her (part of the famous Egyptian tale of two brothers). Joseph was put in prison, but by his ability he became in charge of the other prisoners. When he accurately interpreted the dreams of the Pharaoh's butler and baker, he was eventually called before the Pharaoh to interpret his dream of seven lean cows eating seven plump cows, of seven full ears of grain and seven empty ones. Joseph explained that there would be seven abundant years followed by seven lean years and that the Pharaoh should prepare for the lean years by storing grain. In this way Joseph became Pharaoh's chief minister.
Suffering from the famine Jacob sent his sons (except Benjamin) to Egypt to buy grain. Joseph recognized them but remained unrecognized himself; he accused them of spying, questioned them, and told them they must bring their youngest brother. Simeon remained in prison, and Joseph sent them away with their money secretly returned in their bags. When the brothers got back to Canaan, Jacob did not want to let Benjamin go; but when they ran out of food, he sent all the brothers back to Egypt with double the money and gifts. Joseph was overjoyed to see Benjamin and hear that their father was well. Joseph invited them to eat at his home and then ordered that their money be secretly returned again and a silver cup be put in Benjamin's sack. Overtaken on the road, their sacks were searched, and the cup was found in Benjamin's bag. The brothers returned to the city. Joseph said that he would keep Benjamin as a slave. Judah explained that he was special to his father because the only other brother by the same mother was dead.
Then Joseph, alone with them, revealed himself to them. He said that they did not send him to Egypt but that God meant it for good; he promised that they would dwell in the land of Goshen in Egypt, and he arranged it all for them to move there. Because of Joseph's foresight, Pharaoh was able to buy most of the land in Egypt, except what the priests had, and many people were made Pharaoh's slaves because of the famine.
This marvelous piece of narrative literature, however, does not explain how the family of Israel eventually became slaves in Egypt, but Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities suggested that the Hebrews stimulated envy by their prosperity. Eventually the benefits of Joseph were forgotten, as a new dynasty took over in Egypt demanding that canals, walls, and ramparts be built. Over a period of four hundred years these afflictions increased.
Moses
Josephus also mentioned that a prophecy was given that a great leader would emerge from the Israelites, which was why the Pharaoh ordered the killing of the male children of the Hebrews. Josephus' account also differs from Exodus in his narrative of how Moses led a military victory against the Ethiopians on behalf of the Egyptians and even married Tharbis, an Ethiopian princess, on the condition that the city of Saba surrender to the Egyptians.The Hebrew book of Names, called Exodus in the Greek translation (meaning "the way out"), tells the story of Moses in a context more historical than the accounts of the patriarchs in Genesis. The twelve tribes of Israel having been represented by Jacob's twelve sons, who all traveled to Egypt to avoid a famine, their descendants are portrayed suffering there under the tyranny of a Pharaoh, who believed they had grown too numerous and who feared them in war. They were set to working to help build the cities of Pithom and Ramses, bearing heavy burdens. So paranoid of their potential threat was the King of Egypt that he ordered male infanticide, but the Hebrew women avoided the midwives. After all Egyptians had been ordered to kill any Hebrew baby boy they found, Moses was born and placed in a basket caulked with pitch and put on the Nile River, where he was found by Pharaoh's daughter. Thus he was raised as an Egyptian in a royal family, though he was nursed by his actual mother.
When Moses grew up, he identified with the Hebrew people; for he killed an Egyptian because he was beating a Hebrew. Though he buried the corpse in the sand, someone must have found out, because when he tried to settle an argument between two Hebrews who were fighting, the man was afraid that he would be killed also by this man, who seemed to want to be a prince and judge over them. Afraid that he might be caught for the murder, Moses fled to the land of Midian, where he married the daughter of a priest named Jethro. In their bondage in Egypt the Hebrews cried out for help, and God heard them. Moses kept a flock for Jethro, and one day on Horeb mountain an angel appeared to him in a glowing bush (described as being on fire without being consumed). The Lord (Yahweh) spoke to Moses, saying that he was the God of his father, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he had seen the affliction of his people by their Egyptian taskmasters, and that he would deliver them from Egypt to the land of Canaan.
The Lord proposed to send Moses to Pharaoh to bring forth the people, and Moses asked what name he should use for this God. God said to Moses, "I am who I am." He was to go to the elders of Israel and tell them what the Lord intended to do. The Lord promised that he would tell him what to say. When Moses asked him to send someone else, the Lord got angry and said that his brother Aaron, who speaks well, would assist Moses. So Moses took his wife and sons and went back to Egypt, for he was assured by the Lord that those who were seeking his life were dead. The Lord told Moses that he would do miracles before Pharaoh, but that he himself would harden Pharaoh's heart so that he would resist letting the people go.
Moses and Aaron told the elders and then went to Pharaoh (probably Ramses II in the thirteenth century BC) asking permission for their people to hold a religious feast in the wilderness; essentially they wanted a three-day holiday to worship their God, but Pharaoh did not want to let them off work. Instead he ordered that heavier work be laid upon them by making them gather their own straw for the bricks without reducing the quota of bricks they must make. Naturally the workers felt worse off and did not listen to the promises of Moses. So the Lord sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh to perform magic and miracles more powerful than the Egyptians could do. The Egyptian magicians could make their staffs become snakes, but Aaron's rod swallowed up theirs. Next Aaron put his rod in the Nile and turned it to blood so that it became foul, and the fish died. This was followed by epidemics of frogs, gnats, and flies.
Pharaoh became afraid and was willing to let them sacrifice within the land, but Moses explained that religious conflicts might lead the Egyptians to stone them; they needed three days to make the journey into the wilderness. Although the Pharaoh promised, and Moses got the Lord to remove the flies, the Pharaoh went back on his word. So the Lord killed all the Egyptian cattle while preserving the cattle of the Israelites. Next Moses threw ashes up toward heaven that became boils on all the Egyptians. Then hail rained down on the Egyptians, destroying their fields; this was followed by locusts, which were blown away by the wind when the Pharaoh confessed his sin and requested it. Still Pharaoh would not let them go; so Moses called down a darkness for three days, and Pharaoh said that he never wanted to see his face again.
The climax of all this black magic practiced by the Lord and Moses against the Egyptians was the killing of all the first-born in Egypt, which the people of Israel were to escape by putting the blood of a lamb on the doorpost so that the Lord would "pass over" them. After this catastrophe Pharaoh finally allowed the people of Israel to leave Egypt. Afraid that they would change their minds and return to Egypt if they had to face war right away in the land of the Philistines, God first led them into the wilderness by way of the Red Sea, which he parted for them but closed to drown the pursuing Egyptian army.
In the wilderness the Lord provided quails in the evening for meat and a manna like coriander seed every morning, but the greedy who kept some overnight found it became foul and bred worms the next day. However, on the Sabbath when there was none to be found, that collected the day before was all right. When they were thirsty, Moses provided water from a rock. When the Amalekites attacked them at Rephidim, Moses held up his hand so that Joshua and his men could mow them all down with swords. Jethro visited them and observed Moses judging the people from morning till night, explaining the laws of God and his decisions. Jethro suggested that rather than wear himself out this way, Moses should teach them the statutes and decisions but choose able men to judge them as rulers of various-sized groups. Only the great matters would be decided by Moses.
They traveled on to Sinai, where the Lord declared through Moses that he would make a covenant with these people, who would be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Moses went up on Mount Sinai and received from the Lord the following ten commandments:
You shall have no other gods before me.Then Moses went into more specific ordinances such as a Hebrew slave after serving six years shall go out free in the seventh year. Capital punishment was demanded for killing a man; except if one did not lie in wait for him, a place of exile would be appointed. Execution was also mandated for striking or cursing one's father or mother, for stealing a man, for lying with a beast, and for working on the Sabbath. The fear of women's magic is seen in the statement that a sorceress should not be permitted to live, and the fear of other religions in the command that whoever sacrifices to any other god should be utterly destroyed. Later it was commanded that no one was to be put to death on the testimony of one witness. Stealing was to be paid for by restitution, but those who had nothing were to be sold for the theft. Except for the strong religious restrictions these were not unlike earlier law codes of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and the Hittites.
You shall not make for yourself a graven image
or any likeness of anything;...
you shall not bow down to them or serve them,
for I the Lord your God am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,
but showing steadfast love to thousands of those
who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain....
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor, and do all your work;
but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God;
in it you shall not do any work....
Honor your father and your mother....
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor's house;
you shall not covet your neighbor's wife
or his manservant, or his ox, or his ass,
or anything that is your neighbor's.3
The people agreed to all these laws, but then the Lord called Moses up on the mountain for forty days. By the time he came back they had melted down their jewelry to make a golden calf to worship. This made the Lord so angry that he wanted to consume them; but Moses pleaded for them and persuaded the Lord to turn from his fierce wrath and repent of this evil, reminding the Lord of his covenant. Nevertheless when Moses saw the golden calf and the dancing, he threw down the tables of writing and broke them. He burned up the calf, ground it to powder, put it in water, and made the people of Israel drink it. A rebellion broke out, and Moses ordered the loyal sons of Levi to slay every man his brother, companion, and neighbor, killing about three thousand men. In addition the Lord sent a plague because of the calf Aaron made.
The sons of Aaron and the tribe of Levites were made hereditary priests and provided for by their share of the extensive animal sacrifices and gift offerings required of the Israelites. However, Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu were killed by the Lord for offering unholy fire such as had not been commanded them. Also a man, who had blasphemed the Name and cursed, was commanded by the Lord to be stoned by the Israelites, and they did so. One good teaching of the Lord was that strangers sojourning with them were not to be wronged but were to be loved as themselves, for they had been strangers in the land of Egypt.
When most of the spies (except Caleb and Joshua) did not recommend attacking Canaan, the Lord became angry and said that the Israelites would not enter Canaan for forty years because of their faithlessness; the men who brought this "evil report" died of a plague. A man found gathering sticks on the Sabbath was stoned to death, as the Lord commanded through Moses. When Korah, Dathan, and Abiram challenged the authority of Moses and Aaron, the ground split open and swallowed up Korah and his family, and the 250 men offering incense in this protest were consumed by fire. The people of Israel complained about this killing. So the Lord sent a plague that killed 14,700 before it was stopped by Moses and Aaron.
The people of Israel entered the land of the Amorites and took their villages, defeating the King of Bashan in a battle at Edrei, killing him, his sons, and all his people. In Shittim the people of Israel were seduced by the daughters of Moab, for which the Lord commanded Moses to hang them in the sun; so Moses told the judges to slay those who had joined Baal. About 24,000 died of this plague. In a war against Midian, they slew every male and burned all their encampments. Moses ordered them to kill all the prisoners except the female virgins, which they were to keep for themselves. This Lord, who had forbidden it, certainly was promoting much killing. Yet being friendly with people of another religion was considered an even worse offense.
The Lord once again promised to bring the Israelites into the land west of the Jordan River and clear away the nations that were there before—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. When these mightier nations were defeated, they were to be "utterly destroyed," and no covenant was to be made with them. Their daughters were not to be taken in marriage lest they turn the sons of Israel away from this jealous God to serve other gods; this would anger the Lord, who would then destroy them. Instead their altars were to be broken down, their pillars dashed to pieces, and their graven images burned with fire.
Moses' recommendations for relating to the people they were invading were inherently unfair. He did suggest offering terms of peace first, but those who accepted this "peace" were to be made slaves of forced labor, the very condition he brought them out of in Egypt! Those who did not submit to this servitude were to be killed by the sword in war, the males executed and the women and children taken as spoil. This policy was only for the cities that were far from the land they wanted. The people in the cities that the Lord was "giving" them as an inheritance were to be utterly destroyed.
Although obviously unethical and unjust to foreigners, the Lord did command the Israelites to appoint judges to settle their own affairs according to justice and nothing else. They should not show partiality nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the just. Finally Moses died in the land of Moab, and the Israelites were ready to cross the Jordan into their promised land.
Conquest of Canaan
Joshua was appointed by the Lord to succeed Moses and lead the invasion of Canaan. The spies sent to Jericho were helped by Rahab, a harlot; so it was decided that everyone was to be destroyed in Jericho except Rahab's family. After marching around Jericho once a day for a week, the Israelites marched around it seven times, blew their trumpets, then attacked and destroyed the city. Achan, caught stealing votary items of silver and gold, was stoned to death. Next Joshua led his troops in a victory over Ai, killing all 12,000 of their people with the sword. The people of Gibeon took advantage of Moses' "peace terms" for distant cities by pretending they were from far away, and they were made servants by Israel. Gibeon was defended by Israel's forces when it was attacked by Amorite kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon. In this battle according to Joshua the majority of Israel's enemies killed were by the hail the Lord threw down. Nevertheless there was a great slaughter, and the five kings were hung on trees.Then the book of Joshua tells how this military leader attacked and destroyed Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, the forces of Gezer, Eglon, Hebron, and Debir. All their kings were killed, and peace was made with none except Gibeon.
For it was the Lord's doing to harden their heartsThirty-one defeated kings are listed. Some Canaanites managed to survive, but according to this book when Israel grew strong, they were made to do forced labor. The Lord gave the tribes of Israel a land on which they had not labored, cities which they had not built, and vineyards and olive orchards which they did not plant.
that they should come against Israel in battle,
in order that they should be utterly destroyed,
and should receive no mercy but be exterminated,
as the Lord commanded Moses.4
The book of Judges makes clear that the victory was not quite so overwhelming. Conflicts and struggles for domination continued in various parts of Canaan as the Lord raised up judges, who were actually military leaders in most cases, to fight for the various tribes of Israel. Judah took the hill country but could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had iron chariots. The people of Benjamin had to co-exist with the Jebusites in the Jerusalem area. The Lord complained that the Israelites served the Baals and Ashtaroth (Astarte, a goddess of fertility, love and war), and this is blamed for their defeats.
After Joshua died, the first judge was Othniel, who prevailed in a war against a king of Mesopotamia. Ehud, a Benjaminite, led a battle in the hill country of Ephraim in which all ten thousand of the Moabites were killed. According to Judges, Deborah and Barak led Zebulun and Naphtali in killing the entire army of Sisera. Since the Midianites and Amalekites kept destroying the produce and animals of Israel, Gideon was called by an angel of the Lord to take only three hundred men to defeat the Midianites. Gideon personally slew their kings, Zebah and Zalmuna, but he refused to rule over Israel, saying that the Lord would rule over them. But one of his sons by a concubine, Abimelech, joined with men of Shechem to kill seventy of his brothers. While Abimelech was ruling, the men of Shechem ambushed and robbed people on the mountain roads. Abimelech attacked and took Shechem, killed all its people, razed the city, and sowed salt. However, when he was attacking a tower of Thebez, a woman dropped a millstone on Abimelech that crushed his skull, punishing him for having killed his brothers.
A Gilead warrior named Jephthah gathered worthless fellows around him for raiding. When the Ammonites made war on Israel, the elders of Gilead got him to lead the Israelites in defeating twenty cities of the Ammonites "with a very great slaughter." The men of Ephraim resented his not asking them to join him in this battle so much that they fought each other; 42,000 Ephraimites fell because they could not pronounce the word "Shibboleth."
The powerful warrior Samson could refrain from wine and from cutting his hair, but he could not keep a secret from a woman. His Philistine wife caused him to lose a bet, and so he killed thirty men to take the spoil to pay it. He burned the Philistines' fields using foxes and claimed to have killed a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass. When his hair was cut off and his strength weakened, his eyes were gouged out in revenge. When his hair grew back, he pulled down the pillars of a Philistine temple, killing many more of them and himself. This tale implies that the Israelites would be able to defeat their wine-drinking Philistine enemies if they practiced temperance and kept their secrets.
A similar story to that of Lot in Sodom is told of Benjaminites in Gibeah, who demanded to have sexual relations with a man visiting; but instead they raped and abused his concubine all night. The man divided her body and sent the parts to the twelve tribes of Israel, leading to a civil war against the tribe of Benjamin in which 90,000 Israelites died in four days. The men of Israel who gathered for this war swore that they would not give their daughters in marriage to the tribe of Benjamin; but rather than let the tribe die out, they sent to Jabesh-gilead warriors, who had not participated in the civil war, to slay all the men and women except four hundred virgin women, whom they took to the Benjaminites. Benjaminites were also advised to take by force the daughters of Shiloh for wives. These events occurred when Israel had no king, and every person (and tribe) did what they thought was right.
The sordid tale just recounted contrasts to the tender story of Ruth, a Moabite woman, who married a man from Bethlehem, a refugee from a famine. When her husband, father-in-law and brother-in-law died, her mother-in-law Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem. Ruth elected to go with her and helped her to survive by gleaning the harvest that was left for the poor and needy. Ruth eventually married Boaz and bore a son, who was to become the grandfather of David. This warm tale indicates some tolerance for a foreigner who proved herself loyal.
In the first book of Samuel the Lord of Israel called a man of that name to be a judge so that they could win back the ark of God that had been captured by the Philistines. Under Samuel's leadership the cities, which the Philistines had taken, were restored to Israel from Ekron to Gath, and there was peace between Israel and the Amorites. When Samuel got old, he appointed his two sons judges; but seeking gain, they took bribes and perverted justice. The elders of Israel asked Samuel to appoint a king to govern them like other nations. The Lord guided Samuel to do this even though the Lord felt rejected as king of Israel. The Lord also told him to warn them what it would mean to have a king, who would take their sons for his farming work and for making implements of war, their daughters as perfumers and cooks, and the best products of their fields, servants, and farm animals; they would be his slaves, and the Lord would not be able to answer their complaints in that day.
But the people insisted, and the Lord told Samuel to anoint as king a tall and handsome man named Saul. The men of Jabesh were about to have their right eyes gouged out by the Ammonites when Saul mustered 300,000 men of Israel and 30,000 men of Judah to defeat the Ammonites. Saul and his son Jonathan led the war against the Philistines. Samuel criticized Saul for offering a burnt offering without him. Saul was going to put to death his son Jonathan for eating honey against his orders, but the people saved Jonathan. After defeating the Amalekites Saul spared the life of their king Agag and their best animals, and all that was good he did not destroy. This merciful policy according to the scripture angered the Lord and Samuel, causing another argument that led Samuel to reject Saul even though he went and killed Agag with his own sword.
David and the Psalms
According to the first book of Samuel, Samuel anointed David while he was only a young shepherd and unknown, but this strains credulity. Saul was suffering from an evil spirit, and a servant suggested that David's music might help him, which it did. So skilled with the sling that he had killed lions and bears, David volunteered to face Goliath's challenge of single combat, and he killed the giant warrior from Gath. However, this story may have been re-assigned to David to portray him as a hero, since 2 Samuel 21:19 states that Goliath was slain by Elhanan. David then led many victories against the Philistines, and women began to sing, "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." Saul became so envious of David that he threw his spear at him while he was playing the lyre. Saul sent David out to fight the Philistines, and he kept winning victories; so Saul offered him his eldest daughter in marriage, but then he turned around and gave her to another. However, Saul's daughter Michal loved David. Still trying to get David killed by the Philistines, Saul asked for the foreskins of a hundred Philistines as a marriage present, which David got by killing two hundred Philistines with his men.Saul tried to get his son Jonathan to kill David, but Jonathan liked David and warned him. David fled from Saul and gathered about four hundred discontented men around him while Saul ordered the killing of 85 priests of Nob who had befriended David. The Lord told David to defend Keilah from the Philistines, and he and his men made a great slaughter among them. Saul sought David at Keilah, and David was guided by the Lord to flee from there. Jonathan visited David and declared that David would be the next king. On more than one occasion David could have killed Saul, but he refrained from slaying the "Lord's anointed." David promised Saul that he would not cut off his descendants nor destroy his name. In Carmel Abigail helped David when her husband refused to support David and his men; when her husband died, she married him. David also married Ahinoam of Jezreel, for Saul had taken Michal and given her to another man.
Afraid Saul would kill him, David went to the Philistines and made Ziklag his home for 16 months, raiding the Geshurites, Girzites, and Amalekites, leaving none alive, but telling the king of Gath that he had raided Negeb of Judah, the Jerahmeelites, or the Kenites. He even seemed willing to fight alongside the Philistines against the Israelites, but the Philistine commanders would not trust him to do this and dismissed him. David went back to find that Ziklag had been burned by the Amalekites after they captured all its women and children. David consulted the priestly oracle of the ephod and pursued them with six hundred men and defeated the Amalekites, rescuing all whom they had taken, including David's two wives.
Meanwhile Saul consulted a witch to raise the spirit of Samuel. Saul had expelled mediums and wizards, but he promised the woman he would not punish her. The spirit of Samuel told Saul that the Lord was going to give Israel and its army into the hands of the Philistines and that Saul would be joining him. This prophecy came to pass the next day when the Philistines defeated Israel, killing Jonathan and two other sons of Saul. Saul in despair fell on his own sword. An Amalekite reported to David in Ziklag that he had killed the wounded Saul and taken his crown, which he brought to David. David ordered the Amalekite killed for destroying the Lord's anointed.
David then went to Hebron, where he was anointed King of Judah. For seven and a half years David held this position and fought a war against the house of Saul. The latter's military commander Abner offered to bring Israel over to David's side, and David accepted, provided that he brought along Saul's daughter Michal. However, David's military commander Joab killed Abner in revenge of his dead brother. David mourned the death of Abner, pleasing the people. Two brothers killed Saul's son Ishbosheth, who had been made king of Israel by Abner, and they brought his head to David. Again David had these assassins killed. The elders of the tribes then came to David at Hebron, and he was anointed king of all Israel. David took the stronghold of Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it his capital. As the Lord commanded, David fought the Philistines from Geba to Gezer. He also invaded Syria, killing 22,000. A second account listed the men of seven chariots and 40,000 Syrian horseman slain. On his return David is credited with killing 18,000 Edomites, making all the Edomites his servants.
At home David fell in love with Bathsheba and conceived a child with her. She was married to Uriah, a Hittite soldier in his army; but David ordered him into the worst of the fighting, and Uriah was killed. David married Bathsheba; then the prophet Nathan came and asked David about a rich man, who took the one little lamb of a poor man. When David declared that the rich man deserved to die and ordered that the lamb should be restored fourfold, Nathan accused David of being the man for having killed Uriah and taken his wife. Nathan prophesied that the sword would never leave David's house. David confessed his sin, but the child died anyway. Bathsheba bore a second son named Solomon, but by different wives David had older sons named Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah.
When Amnon raped Absalom's sister Tamar, Absalom found an opportunity to have his servants kill Amnon. Absalom fled to Geshur and remained there three years. Joab sent a woman to David to plead with him to protect her son, who had killed his brother. When David promised to do so, she said his decision convicted himself, for his own son was banished as an outcast. David suspected Joab's influence but agreed to send for Absalom. For two more years Absalom did not see David; but finally, summoned by Joab, Absalom spent the next four years comforting people who came to the King for judgment, winning thus the hearts of the people of Israel.
Then Absalom organized a conspiracy to make himself king that was successful enough to induce David to leave Jerusalem. David prayed that his renegade counselor Ahithophel's advice be turned to foolishness, and to help this along he sent Hushai to confuse the counsels of Absalom. Meanwhile the fleeing David shrugged off the curses of Shimei without punishing him. The advice of Ahithophel was rejected in favor of that by Hushai, leading Ahithophel to go home and hang himself. David and his men crossed the Jordan and defeated the men of Israel in the forest of Ephraim; 20,000 died that day in this civil war. Absalom was caught on an oak branch and killed by Joab. David mourned Absalom, once again refused to punish Shimei, and returned to Jerusalem. A second revolt led by Sheba was also put down.
When Israel suffered a famine for three years, David, believing it was caused by the bloodguilt of Saul's house, had seven of Saul's sons hanged at Gibeon, sparing only Jonathan's son Mephibosheth. War with the Philistines continued; when David became tired and was almost killed, his men would not let him go out to battle anymore. David was an outstanding musician and was credited with composing most of the Psalms, though it is difficult to know which of them David may have written.
The 18th Psalm is also recorded in 2 Samuel 22. David gave thanks and praised the Lord as his rock, his fortress, and his deliverer, who saved him from violence and his enemies. He called upon the Lord and was heard, believing he was rewarded according to his goodness. The faith was expressed that God is loyal to the loyal, blameless with the blameless, pure to the pure, but perverse to the crooked. God's way is perfect and true to his promises, offering a shield to those who take refuge in him. The Lord brought down vengeance on his enemies. Though not pure of this negativity, at least in the Psalms the prayer relies on the Lord for vengeance. The ethics of right and wrong is closely identified with belief in and the power of God. The philosophy is that the good and the just will prosper while the wicked, the violent, and the deceitful will suffer the recompense of their wrongs because God's judgment of good and evil is all-knowing and all-powerful.
Through prayer the Psalmist can align oneself with God and be guided into goodness and justice, strengthening one's inner resources. In the 7th Psalm David (or the author) trusted the judgments of the Lord and expected to be requited for his own wrongdoing. He asked that the wicked come to an end so that the just might be established by a just God, who tries the minds and hearts. The wicked, who conceive evil and lies, dig a pit and fall into the hole they made; mischief returns on one's own head, as does violence. Some of the ethical values are described in the 15th Psalm:
O Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tent?In the 37th Psalm David advised us not to fret because of the wicked nor to envy wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass. "Trust in the Lord and do good; so you will dwell in the land and enjoy security. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart."6The 51st Psalm expresses David's penitence after he was reprimanded by Nathan for having gone in to Bathsheba. He acknowledged his transgression and sin and believed God was justified and blameless in judgment. He admitted that he was "brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,"7 an early indication of the belief in the original sin of procreation.
Who shall dwell on thy holy hill?
Whoever walks blamelessly and does what is right
and speaks truth from one's heart;
who does not slander with one's tongue
and does no evil to one's friend
nor takes up a reproach against one's neighbor;
in whose eyes a reprobate is despised,
but who honors those who fear the Lord;
who swears to one's own hurt and does not change;
who does not put out one's money at interest
and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
Whoever does these things shall never be moved.5
Only the 72nd Psalm is attributed to Solomon, who asked that he might judge correctly, that the mountains bear prosperity, that he defend the poor, deliver the needy, and crush the oppressor. He asked for power over his enemies and foreign kings, long life, abundance of grain, and fame as he blessed the name of the Lord. Some psalms lament that judgments seem unjust as the wicked thrive, and they ask for justice for the weak, the rights of the afflicted, rescue of the needy, and deliverance from the wicked, who have neither knowledge nor understanding and walk in darkness. The 82nd Psalm goes on to proclaim, "You are gods, sons of the Highest, all of you; nevertheless you shall die like humans."8 God is asked to judge the Earth and all its nations.
Later Psalms, such as the 120th, lament the lack of peace and complain of those who are for war. The 140th asks for deliverance from violent men, who plan evil and stir up wars continually; their tongues are sharp, and in their mouths is poison. The Psalmist prayed that the slanderer may not be established in the land and that the violent man may be hunted down quickly by evil. The just and upright give thanks to the Lord, who maintains the cause of the afflicted and executes justice for the needy.
Solomon and the Wisdom Books
When David was very old, Adonijah assumed that he would be the next king; but Bathsheba and Nathan told David how Adonijah was acting as if he were king. So David had Solomon anointed as king. In fear Adonijah clutched the horns of the altar until Solomon promised that he would not die unless he was wicked. During his last years David was given the beautiful Abishag the Shunammite to keep him warm. When David died, Adonijah asked Bathsheba to intercede with King Solomon so that he could have Abishag as his wife. For this request Solomon had Adonijah killed, and he expelled the priest Abiathar. When Joab heard this news, he fled to the altar and caught hold of its horns; but Solomon ordered Joab killed anyway for his guilt in shedding the blood of Abner and Amasa without cause. For murdering Adonijah and Joab on the king's orders Benaiah was put in charge of the army. Shimei was allowed to live but ordered not to leave his house in Jerusalem. When he did three years later to go after slaves who had run away, Shimei was also killed by Benaiah.Solomon made an alliance with Egypt by marrying Pharaoh Siamen's daughter. According to the first book of Kings Solomon loved the Lord. When asked by God in a dream what he wanted, Solomon asked for an understanding mind to govern his people so that he might discern between good and evil. The Lord was so pleased with this wise request that he granted Solomon not only wisdom but long life and wealth as well. His wisdom was demonstrated when two women came before him arguing over whose baby had survived when the other baby was negligently killed in bed by the sleeping mother. Solomon ordered that the living baby be divided in two, giving half to each mother. The woman who immediately gave up her claim so that the child might live was judged the true mother and given the child.
Solomon ruled over a kingdom that was said to have stretched from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt. Solomon must have demanded considerable tribute, for he did become extremely wealthy and built a lavish temple and palace, buying timber and skilled workers with grain and vegetable oil from King Hiram of Tyre with whom he made a treaty and lived in peace. King Solomon appropriated 30,000 men in forced labor to bring the wood from Lebanon and 70,000 burden-bearers and 80,000 hewers of stone in the hill country. Forced labor was also used at Millo, Hazor, Megiddo, and in rebuilding Gezer, which the Egyptians had destroyed by fire before it was given to Solomon as a dowry with Pharaoh's daughter. According to Kings these forced levies of slaves were taken from the remaining Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, but not the people of Israel who served as soldiers, officials, and horsemen. Supervisors of the work numbered 3,300. In dedicating the temple Solomon prayed to God that the guilty have their conduct brought upon their heads and the good be rewarded according to their deeds. He asked for forgiveness and that each person be treated according to their hearts, which God knew.
Famed for wealth and wisdom, Solomon was visited by the queen of Sheba. Solomon loved many foreign women and was said to have had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. The religious author criticized Solomon for worshiping other gods and goddesses, and the prophet Ahijah declared that the Lord was going to take the kingdom from Solomon and give ten tribes to his son Jeroboam. For this reason Solomon sought to kill Jeroboam, but he fled to the court of Shoshenk I, who ruled Egypt for 21 years starting about 945 BC. Like David, Solomon was said to have ruled for forty years. He was succeeded by his son Rehoboam.
According to Kings Solomon spoke three thousand proverbs and composed a thousand and five songs. The books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon are traditionally ascribed to him, but they are probably the products of many minds and hands over the centuries. TheProverbs begin with the quest for wisdom and advice for avoiding violence.
The Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:The author trusted that God gives wisdom to the upright, protects those who have integrity, guards the paths of justice, and preserves the way of the saints. The reader is advised not to turn away from one's neighbors nor plan evil against them. One should not contend for no reason with someone who has done no harm. The violent are not to be envied nor are their ways to be chosen; for the perverse are an abomination to the Lord and cursed while the upright are in God's confidence and blessed. Scorners are scorned, but the humble are shown favor. The wise inherit honor; the fools get disgrace. The Lord particularly hates haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry toward evil, false witness, and one who sows discord among brothers.
That people may know wisdom and instruction,
understanding words of insight,
receive instruction in wise dealing,
goodness, justice, and equity;
that prudence may be given to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
the wise person also may hear and increase in learning,
and the person of understanding acquire skill,
to understand a proverb and a figure,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
Reverence for the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Hear, my son, your father's instruction,
and reject not your mother's teaching;
for they are a fair garland for your head,
and pendants for your neck.
My son, if sinners entice you,
do not consent.
If they say, "Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood,
let us wantonly ambush the innocent;
like Sheol let us swallow them alive
and whole, like those who go down to the Pit;
we shall find all precious goods,
we shall fill our houses with spoil;
throw in your lot among us,
we will all have one purse" -
my son, do not walk in the way with them,
hold back your foot from their paths;
for their feet run to evil,
and they make haste to shed blood.
For in vain is a net spread
in the sight of any bird;
but these men lie in wait for their own blood,
they set an ambush for their own lives.
Such are the ways of all who get gain by violence;
it takes away the life of its possessors.9
Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but those who pervert their ways will be found out. Criticism is not to be avoided because closing one's eyes can cause trouble; but reproving boldly brings about peace. "The mouth of the good is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses."10 The wise lay up knowledge, but the babbling of a fool brings about ruin. Those who conceal hatred have lying lips, and uttering slander is foolish. The basic faith is that the evil will not go unpunished while the good will be delivered. The fool will serve the wise, and whoever troubles one's own house will inherit the wind.
Actions have their consequences and words their fruit. The work of one's hand comes back. Fools believe their way is right in their own eyes, but the wise listen to advice. Fools become vexed at once, but the prudent ignore insults. Rash words can be like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Truthful words endure forever, but lying is for the moment. Those who plan good have joy, but the wicked are filled with trouble. Those who walk with the wise become wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. It is a sin to despise one's neighbor, but happy are they who are kind to the poor. Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but a hasty temper exalts folly. Whoever oppresses a poor person insults one's Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors the Maker. The wicked are overthrown by their wrong-doing, but the good find refuge in integrity.
Those who are greedy for unjust gain make trouble for their household. Pride goes before destruction and a fall. The crooked do not prosper, and one with a perverse tongue falls into calamity. A cheerful heart is good medicine. A fool takes no pleasure in understanding but only in expressing one's opinion. Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord and will be repaid. "Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom for the future. Many are the plans in the mind of a person, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will be established."11 It is an honor to keep aloof from strife, but every fool will be quarreling.
To do goodness and justiceWhen justice is done, it is a joy to the good but dismay to wrong-doers. Does not the one who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will you not be requited according to your work? If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; if they are thirsty, give them water to drink; for you will heap coals of fire on their heads, and the Lord will reward you. Beware of creating negative consequences, for you may fall into the pit you dig, and a stone may come back upon the one who started it rolling. A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin. The poor who walk in integrity are better than the rich who are perverse in their ways. When the good are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked rule, the people groan. By justice a king gives stability to the land, but one who exacts gifts ruins it. The good know the rights of the poor; the wicked do not understand such knowledge.
is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.
Haughty eyes and a proud heart,
the lamp of the wicked, are sin.
The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance,
but everyone who is hasty comes only to want.
The getting of treasures by a lying tongue
is a fleeting vapor and a snare of death.
The violence of the wicked will sweep them away,
because they refuse to do what is just.12
Ecclesiastes expresses the cynical view that "all is vanity and a striving after wind" because everyone ends in death. Nevertheless wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. Yet everything has its own time.
For everything there is a season,In this moral relativism wisdom is still valued; even when in a youth it is better than a foolish king, who will no longer take advice. The advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of the one who has it. In the end the preacher admonished us to respect God and keep the commandments; for this is the human duty, and God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
What gain has the worker from his toil?
I have seen the business
that God has given to the human sons to be busy with.
He has made everything beautiful in its time;
also he has put eternity into the human mind,
yet so that one cannot find out
what God has done from the beginning to the end.13
The Song of Solomon is a collection of love songs, both from the male and female points of view. Here sensual love is greatly valued, though the following advice is given: "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you stir not up nor awaken love until it please."14
The Book of Job, the other wisdom book in the Old Testament, is thought to have been based on a folktale as old as the second millennium BC, though the extended philosophical discourses are surely from a later period. In this story evil is personified as the adversary Satan, who asks the Lord to test Job's faith by removing all the rewards he has gained from his good deeds. The Lord allows Satan to take away other things without touching Job's person. After losing his material possessions and the lives of his seven children, Job still worships God, saying, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."15
Next Satan is allowed to go after Job's body but has to spare his life. Suffering various diseases, Job's wife suggests that he curse God and die; but Job says that he has received good from God, asking should he not receive evil also? Thus Job did not sin, but before his friends he curses the day of his birth and prays for death to end his suffering. There follows a long dialog in which his three friends argue the traditional view that God is just and that Job must therefore have done wrong, or he would not be suffering this. Yet Job replies that he cannot repent until he knows what he has done wrong. God is surely more powerful than humans but seems to be unjust to the just as well as the unjust when disaster strikes.
Once again Job's three friends attack him as godless and unrepentant. Job responds by asking for mercy and pity rather than judgment, and he questions whether the universe is just. Job praises wisdom though, recalls his good deeds, bewails his wretchedness, and asserts his integrity, asking to be weighed on a just scale. Job is still baffled why the wicked thrive and the just suffer so much. A fourth person, Elihu, angrily condemns Job and justifies the ways of God, marveling at the greatness of God.
Finally the Lord speaks to Job out of the whirlwind, asking him, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?"16 God's omnipotence and omniscience are truly overwhelming. God boldly declares, "Who has given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine."17 Job must acknowledge that God can do anything and that in comparison he has little understanding. Thus he repents in dust and ashes. God now expresses more anger at Job's friends, demanding sacrifices from them while restoring the fortune of Job with twice as much as before. This amazing book challenges us to recognize the greatness of God in spite of the undeserved suffering we seem to experience in this life.
Israel and Judah Divided
When Jeroboam heard that Solomon had died and Rehoboam was king, he returned from Egypt to the assembly of Israel at Shechem. Rehoboam also came to Shechem, where the assembly and Jeroboam asked him to lighten the hard service that Solomon had placed on them. Rehoboam asked some elders for counsel but disregarded their advice, following the youths, who said he should add to the burdens of the people and punish them even more severely. So the people of Israel turned away from the house of David and went home to their own tents. When King Rehoboam sent Adoram to be taskmaster over forced labor, he was stoned to death. Rehoboam quickly retreated to Jerusalem, and the assembly made Jeroboam king of Israel. Rehoboam gathered 180,000 warriors from the remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin to win back the rest of the kingdom, but the word of God came to a holy man named Shemaiah that they should not go up and fight their kinsmen but return to their homes. They followed this message, though there was said to be a continual war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam during their reigns.2 Chronicles 13 recorded a major battle in which Jeroboam brought an army of 800,000 against the 400,000 of Abijah, who had succeeded his father Rehoboam as king of Judah. Josephus amplified Abijah's speech to include the following:
Yet certainly there is no strength at all in an armyAbijah asked northern Israel to repent, stop the prosecution of the war, and remember the laws of their country. While Abijah was speaking, Jeroboam sent his forces to surround Abijah's army; but Abijah encouraged his forces to trust God; priests blew the trumpets, and the soldiers of Judah shouted and then killed 500,000 of their enemies in a victory that established an equilibrium between the two southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin and the other ten tribes of the north. The two kingdoms remained divided as King Asa of Judah and King Baasha of Israel warred throughout their reigns as well.
of many ten thousands, when the war is unjust;
for we ought to place our surest hope
of success against our enemies
in goodness alone and in piety towards God.18
Baasha had replaced the son of Jeroboam, Nadab, whom he had killed along with the rest of his family. However, after he ruled 23 years and died, his son Elah was killed by Zimri, a military officer. Zimri did not spare his family either because according to the prophet Jehu, the Lord wanted the house of Baasha destroyed. When the troops besieging the Philistines learned that Zimri had killed the new king, their commander Omri was made king. The siege was transferred to Tirzah, where Zimri burned the royal house and died. Omri was succeeded by his son Ahab, who married a princess from Sidon named Jezebel, who was criticized for worshipping Baal. The prophet Elijah predicted a famine. Elijah lived on the food ravens brought him until the brook Cherith dried up; then he went to live with a widow, whose son he brought back to life.
According to 1 Kings 18, Ahab organized a contest between 450 prophets of Baal and Elijah on Mount Carmel to see who could magically light the sacrificial fire. When Elijah won this contest, at his word the people killed all the prophets of Baal. King Ahab won two military victories over Benhadad, king of Syria, killing 100,000 Syrian troops in one day. When Ahab coveted a neighbor's vineyard, Jezebel got the local people to accuse and stone to death the owner and his sons. The Lord sent Elijah to the vineyard to tell Ahab his blood would be licked by dogs there also. In 853 BC King Ahab supported the Aramaean kingdoms of Syria with 2,000 (Some scholars change this to 200.) chariots and 10,000 infantry in a major but indecisive battle against Assyria's Shalmaneser III at Karkar on the lower Orontes River. Next Ahab wanted to reoccupy Ramoth-gilead, and he asked King Jehoshaphat of Judah to help him. They consulted Ahab's four hundred prophets, who assured them of success; but Micaiah saw how the Lord was enticing Ahab to the battle with false prophets so that he would be killed there; this came to pass even though Jehoshaphat was dressed like a king, and Ahab was in disguise.
As Ahab's son Ahaziah became king, Moab rebelled against Israel; but Ahaziah soon fell through a lattice, leaving him in critical condition. He sent to an oracle of Baal for advice; but his messenger met Elijah, who reprimanded him for ignoring the God of Israel and predicted the King would die. When Ahaziah sent a captain and fifty men to Elijah summoning the prophet, Elijah called down fire from heaven and killed these men to prove that he was a man of God; the same thing happened a second time with another captain and fifty more men before the Lord allowed Elijah to go to the court with the third group. Ahaziah did die; but so did Elijah, who was carried up to heaven, an event witnessed by Elisha, who was to replace him. Moab refused to continue giving the King of Israel a hundred thousand lambs and the wool of a hundred thousand rams every year. So Ahab's other son Jehoram mustered Israel and marched out of Samaria; he was joined by the kings of Judah and Edom. They consulted Elisha, who told them that they would conquer the Moabites and devastate their land.
Like his predecessor Elijah, Elisha also stayed with a widow, and he revived her dead son. He also told Naaman, the commander of Syria's army, how he could be cured of leprosy by washing seven times in the Jordan. However, Elisha's servant, who accepted money for this, was given leprosy. When the Syrian army tried to capture Elisha, he prayed to the Lord that they be blinded temporarily; but he did not order their execution, and they were allowed to return to Syria.
In Judah 2 Chronicles 19 credited Jehoshaphat with appointing judges and admonishing them to be impartial and not take bribes. When Jehoshaphat died, his son Jehoram became king of Judah and married Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel and sister of the other Jehoram. Edom revolted, setting up their own king. In the north King Benhadad of Syria mustered his troops and besieged Samaria, causing a famine so severe that cannibalism occurred. Frustrated, the King (probably Jehoram of Israel) sent someone to kill Elisha; but changing his mind, he followed after him. Elisha ordered the door shut until the King came. Elisha predicted meal would be available the next day when the Syrians, afraid of being attacked by Hittites and Egyptians, fled their camp, which was then plundered.
Elisha sent a young prophet to anoint as king the army commander Jehu, who formed a conspiracy and shot Israel's King Jehoram with an arrow, killing him. They also pursued another Ahaziah, the king of Judah, and shot him also; he died after fleeing to Megiddo. At Jezreel Jehu got some eunuchs to throw Jezebel to her death from a window. Jehu then ordered the massacre of the house of Ahab—their great men, friends, and priests. Forty-two more were slain at the pit of Beth-eked. All those related to Ahab in Samaria were killed because of the word the Lord had spoken through Elijah. Next Jehu gathered together the worshipers of Baal and had his soldiers slaughter them with swords.
In Judah Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, ruled for six years until the priest Jehoida arranged for the crowning of seven-year-old Joash, who had been hidden away and escaped Athaliah's slayings. Jehoida commanded the captains to take Athaliah out of the temple and kill her. After the priest Jehoida died, King Jehoash had his son Zechariah stoned to death for criticizing him. Jehoash ruled for forty years until he too was murdered by a conspiracy of his servants. Amaziah began his reign by killing the servants who had killed his father; however, the law of Moses restrained him from murdering their children. He also was responsible for killing ten thousand Edomites when taking Sela by storm. Amaziah was defeated and captured by Jehoash, King of Israel, at the battle of Bethshemesh in Judah. Nevertheless Amaziah outlived Jehoash by fifteen years until a conspiracy arose against him in Jerusalem, killing him after he fled to Lachish.
Amaziah was succeeded by Uzziah (also called Azariah), who ruled Judah for fifty-two years during which he made war against the Philistines, the Arabs of Gurbaal, and the Meunites. The Ammonites paid tribute, and the fame of his power spread as far as Egypt; but according to 2 Chronicles 26 he was punished with leprosy for burning incense in the temple without authorization from the priests. At about the same time Jeroboam II ruled for forty years in Israel and was even more powerful than Uzziah, for these two rulers maintained excellent relations with each other.
Jeroboam II's son Zechariah ruled only six months before he was killed by the conspiracy of Shallum, who was struck down after only one month by Menahem, who also sacked Tappuah and murdered its pregnant women. Menahem bought off the king of Assyria with a thousand talents of silver. Menahem was succeeded after ten years by his son Pekahiah, who was murdered two years later by his captain Pekah. Pekah and Resin, the king of Syria, besieged Jerusalem, possibly because Judah’s King Ahaz ignored Isaiah’s advice to trust God but instead sent money to and made an alliance with Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria. According to 2 Chronicles 28, Pekah's forces killed 120,000 men in Judah in one day, but the prophet Oded persuaded them not to take away 200,000 captured women and children.
Assyrian King Tiglath-pileser III then invaded Syria, taking Damascus and accepting the capitulation of Tyre; Israel lost some territory, and the people captured were taken away to Assyria. Hoshea's conspiracy, aided by Tiglath-pileser, killed Pekah. Northern Israel's last king Hoshea paid tribute to Assyrian King Shalmaneser until Hoshea decided to ask for help from Egypt. Assyria besieged Hoshea's Samaria for three years, and in 722 BC Israel was captured by the Assyrians; its people were deported to Assyria and Media, where the survivors of these ten tribes were eventually assimilated. Other people from the Assyrian empire came to Samaria and settled there.
Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Micah
In the middle of the eighth century BC during the reigns of Uzziah in Judah and Jeroboam II in Israel, a shepherd named Amos came from the Judean village of Tekoa to announce messages from the Lord to the powerful nations of the area. Amos accused and warned that the Lord would punish Damascus for threshing Gilead with sledges of iron, the Philistines for carrying off people to Edom, Edom for pursuing their brothers with the sword without pity, the Ammonites for enlarging their territory and killing pregnant women, Judah for rejecting the law of the Lord, and Israel for selling good people for money and the needy for a pair of sandals. Those who "store up violence and robbery in their strongholds" do not know how to do right.Amos declared that the people of Israel hate the one who reproves them and abhor the one who speaks the truth; they pervert justice by taking bribes, use false scales, and turn aside the needy at the gate. Amos prophesied that they would be the first to go into exile. For his unpopular statements Amos was expelled from the sanctuary at Bethel and told by their priests to go back to Judah. Once again he predicted that Israel would go away into exile, but in the end the Lord promised to restore the fortunes of the people Israel so that they might plant vineyards and gardens and eat their fruit.
Not long after Amos spoke, Hosea was guided by the Lord to take a harlot for a wife to symbolize the unfaithfulness of Israel. He warned that the house of Jehu would be punished for the blood spilt at Jezreel. Hosea also held out the vision of a better relationship with God.
And I will make for you a covenant on that dayAt that time though, Hosea found no faithfulness, kindness nor knowledge of God in the land; there was swearing, lying, killing, stealing, adultery, and they broke all bounds with murder following murder. Hosea found the spirit of harlotry in their religious observances. He said the Lord wants "steadfast love and not sacrifice, knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings."20 Those who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. Plowing iniquity, they have reaped injustice and eaten the fruit of lies because they trusted in their chariots and many warriors; so the tumult of war shall arise among them, and all their fortresses shall be destroyed. Thus Hosea advised with the help of God that they should return and hold fast to love and justice, waiting continually on God. Assyria would not save them. The wise would understand that the ways of the Lord are right; the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble.
with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air,
and the creeping things of the ground;
and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land;
and I will make you lie down in safety.
And I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you to me in goodness and in justice,
in steadfast love, and in mercy.
I will betroth you to me in faithfulness;
and you shall know the Lord.19
The visions of Isaiah were announced in the reigns of Judah's kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. The Lord was concerned that the sons he had raised had rebelled against him; their hands were full of blood. According to Isaiah they needed to wash themselves clean, cease doing evil, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, defend orphans, and plead for widows. The Lord called them to reason together, promised to make their scarlet sins as white as snow or wool if they were willing and obedient; but those who rebelled would be devoured by the sword. Isaiah proclaimed that the law and the word of the Lord out of Zion may teach the ways of God.
He shall judge between the nations,The good shall do well and eat the fruit of their deeds, but what the hands of the wicked have done will be done to them. The mighty shall fall by the sword in battle. Yet the survivors of Israel will be called holy. The Lord looked for justice but saw bloodshed. Isaiah predicted that within 65 years Ephraim would be broken to pieces and no longer be a people. The wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria would be carried away to Assyria.
and shall decide for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.21
Nevertheless Isaiah had a vision that a child would be born who would take the government; he would be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government would increase and bring endless peace with justice and goodness. In his time Isaiah railed against iniquitous decrees, oppression, neglect of the needy, robbing the poor of their rights, and taking advantage of widows and orphans. The one who comes with the Spirit of the Lord with wisdom and understanding will judge the poor with goodness and decide with equity for the gentle of the Earth. His breath shall slay the wicked. The wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, the calf and the lion shall all be together led by a child. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all the holy mountain, for the Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord.
Isaiah pleaded that the outcasts of Moab be allowed to sojourn among them and be given counsel and justice as a refuge from the destroyer. When there is no oppressor any more, and destruction has ceased, when those who trample on others have vanished from the land, then a throne of steadfast love will be established by one who judges and seeks justice. In 711 BC when Assyria attacked Ashdod, which had been abandoned by Ethiopian-ruled Egypt, Isaiah predicted that Egypt and Ethiopia would also be conquered by Assyria. Ten years later when Egypt tried to help Judah, they were defeated by Assyria.
In his apocalyptic vision Isaiah saw a universal judgment, but in all the destruction and desolation he said that the one whose mind stays on God and trusts in God will be kept in perfect peace. The way of the good is level, and their path is smooth. Yet the Lord warned that those who draw near with their mouth and honor him with their lips, while their hearts are far away, will find their wisdom perishing and their discernment hid. Those who hide their deeds in the dark and think no one sees them have turned things upside down, for how can the potter be regarded as the clay? Should the thing made say of its maker, "He did not make me"? God will hear your cries and answer. Though you may have to suffer affliction, yet the Teacher will be revealed; your ears will hear, "This is the way; walk in it." But woe to those who rely on horses, chariots and horsemen but do not look to the Holy One or consult the Lord! Woe to the destroyers who will be destroyed, for those who deal treacherously will be dealt with treacherously. When the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, then justice and goodness will be in the fruitful field yielding peace, quietness and trust forever.
Isaiah spoke the words of the Lord to King Hezekiah, saying that the Assyrians would return to their own land, and the Assyrian King Sennacherib did in fact depart to Nineveh. At first Isaiah said that Hezekiah would die, but Hezekiah prayed to the Lord. His prayer was answered, and he was allowed to live fifteen more years while the city of Jerusalem was delivered from the hands of the Assyrians.
The prophet Micah, a common man from the Judean hills near Jerusalem, was a slightly younger contemporary of Isaiah. He too spoke for social justice and against the violence of war. He complained of those who "strip the robe from the peaceful, from those who pass by trustingly with no thought of war,"22 of those who drive women out of their houses and take away their young children. Micah, who was probably unpopular, criticized lying prophets who might preach wine and strong drink or who cry "Peace" when they have plenty to eat but declare war against those who do not feed them. Micah also criticized the rulers of Israel, who abhor justice, pervert equity, and build Zion with blood and wrong, giving judgment for a bribe. He spoke against priests who teach for hire and prophets who divine for money. To Micah, none seemed upright, as they lie in wait for blood and hunt their brothers; princes and judges ask for bribes, and the great utter the evil desires of their souls.
Like Isaiah, Micah declared that God would judge between peoples and decide for strong nations far off, repeating the vision of swords beat into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not fight against nation when they learn to war no more; but everyone will sit under their vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid. Micah predicted that they would be rescued and redeemed by the Lord from their enemies. Micah wrote, "What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"23
Judah's Fall and Jeremiah
While Hoshea was still ruling in Israel, Hezekiah became king of Judah. Hezekiah attacked and killed Philistines as far away as Gaza. He had a tunnel built so that Jerusalem would have spring water, and he stored up food reserves. After Assyrian King Sargon II was succeeded by Sennacherib, Judah with an army of conscripted troops joined with Egypt and some Philistine cities in a rebellion against Assyria in 701 BC; but they were defeated when Lachish was besieged and taken. The Assyrians claimed to have captured 46 fortified towns of Judah and deported 200,150 of its people. Hezekiah was taken prisoner and paid a tribute of three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold stripped from the doors of the temple. Sennacherib demanded the surrender of Jerusalem, but a timely plague caused the Assyrians to withdraw, a deliverance prophesied by Isaiah.Hezekiah was succeeded by Manasseh when he was only twelve, and Manasseh ruled Judah for fifty-five years. According to 2 Kings 21 Manasseh burned his own son as a sacrificial offering and shed very much innocent blood. His son Amon was only king for two years before he was assassinated by a conspiracy of servants, who were then slain "by the people of the land;" these made Josiah king of Judah when he was only eight. Ten years later a book of the law was discovered, and Josiah instituted reforms even more sweeping than those of his great-grandfather Hezekiah. Josiah made a covenant with the Lord with all his heart and soul to follow the laws of the book. All Canaanite and foreign elements were removed from religious practice, and the houses of the male cult prostitutes were torn down; he also had the high priests of the high places in Samaria killed. During Josiah's 31-year reign the Assyrian empire receded as Babylonian power increased and took the Assyrian capital at Nineveh in 612 BC. Judah expanded its influence in all directions; but when Josiah tried to stop Egypt from helping Assyria in a battle at Megiddo in 609 BC, he was wounded by the Egyptians and died on his retreat to Jerusalem.
Josiah's son Jehoahaz was only king for three months before Egyptian Pharaoh Neco had him put in bonds and taken to Egypt (where he died) along with a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and one of gold. Jehoiakim was made king of Judah and served Babylonian King Nebuchadrezzar for three years before rebelling. His son Jehoiachin had been king for only one hundred days when he surrendered Jerusalem in 597 to Nebuchadrezzar and was deported to Babylon with a substantial portion of the population. The Babylonians appointed his uncle Zedekiah king in Jerusalem. Nine years later Zedekiah joined Egypt in a revolt. Nebuchadrezzar returned with his army, and Jerusalem's starving inhabitants surrendered after two years of siege in 586 BC. Zedekiah was blinded and sent to Babylon along with most of the remaining Jewish population.
Zephaniah prophesied in the early years of the reign of Josiah, calling the people to come together in an assembly and follow the Lord's commands before the anger of the Lord came upon them. He predicted the destruction of Assyria and the desolation of Nineveh. The Lord promised to renew their love and remove disaster from them by dealing with their oppressors. The lame and the outcasts will be saved and gathered, changing shame to praise and renown among all the peoples of the Earth.
The writing of Nahum also prophesied that the Lord would destroy the Assyrian empire and waste its capital Nineveh. His short work concludes:
Your shepherds are asleep,The prophet Habakkuk asked the difficult questions,
O king of Assyria;
your nobles slumber.
Your people are scattered on the mountains
with none to gather them.
There is no assuaging your hurt,
your wound is grievous.
All who hear the news of you
clap their hands over you.
For upon whom has not come
your unceasing evil?24
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,Habakkuk predicted the Chaldeans were coming with violence, terrorizing and gathering captives like sand. They scoff at kings and rulers and laugh at fortresses—the "guilty men whose own might is their god!"26 Habakkuk acknowledged God as everlasting, knowing we shall not die. The Lord ordained them as a judgment and for chastisement; yet God seemed to look on the faithless silently even though the wicked swallow up the good. How long will nations be mercilessly slain?
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you "Violence!"
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see wrongs
and look upon trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
So the law is slacked
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the good,
so justice goes forth perverted.25
The Lord told Habakkuk to write the vision. Those not upright will fail, but the good shall live by their faith. The arrogant and greedy, who never have enough, like death, will not last. Woe to those who heap up what is not their own! Their debtors will arise; those who have plundered many nations will be plundered by the remaining people "for the blood of men and the violence to the earth."27 Those who get evil gain have devised shame for themselves and will forfeit their lives. Woe to those who build a town with blood and found a city with iniquity! For the Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. False glory will become contempt and shame; the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm them. Habakkuk prayed to the Lord for renewal so that in the wrath mercy might be remembered.
Jeremiah wrote that the word of the Lord came to him in the days of Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah until the captivity of Jerusalem. The Lord touched his mouth and gave him words to denounce the nations and the sins of Judah in particular. He predicted that out of the north evil would break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. As with many of the prophets, the Lord was most concerned that his people had forsaken him for other gods. Instead of thanking God for rain and the harvest, their iniquities had kept these blessings away.
For wicked men are found among my people;Jeremiah found that from the least to the greatest they were greedy for unjust gain; all the prophets and priests dealt falsely. They said, "Peace, peace," when there was no peace. Yet the Lord still promised that if they would truly amend their ways by practicing justice with one another, by not oppressing the alien, orphans, or widows, by not shedding innocent blood, and by not going after other gods, then the Lord would dwell in the land with them forever. Yet everyone was wary of their neighbor and trusted no brother, for they were supplanters, slanderers, deceivers, and commit iniquity and were too tired to repent. Thus Jeremiah counseled: let not the wise glory in their wisdom, the might in their power, the rich in their wealth; but let glory be found in understanding and knowing the Lord, who practices steadfast love, justice, and goodness on the Earth.
they lurk like fowlers lying in wait.
They set a trap;
they catch men.
Like a basket full of birds,
their houses are full of treachery;
therefore they have become great and rich,
they have grown fat and sleek.
They know no bounds in deeds of wickedness;
they judge not with justice
the cause of the fatherless, to make it prosper,
and they do not defend the rights of the needy.
Shall I not punish them for these things?
says the Lord.28
According to Jeremiah the horror that the Lord would bring was because of what Manasseh did in Jerusalem, also because the people had gone after other gods, forsaken the Lord and not kept the law.
The heart is deceitful above all things,Jeremiah warned the people of Judah to turn away from evil ways when Jehoiakim first became king. His prophecy of destruction was greatly resented by the priests, prophets, and the people, who called for his death; but others said he did not deserve to die. Jeremiah's prophecies were written down by Baruch and came to the attention of King Jehoiakim, who listened to them read but then had them burned.
and desperately corrupt;
who can understand it?
"I the Lord search the mind
and try the heart,
to give to every man according to his doings."
Like the partridge that gathers a brood which she did not hatch,
so is he who gets riches but not by right;
in the midst of his days they will leave him,
and at his end he will be a fool.29
After many Jews were deported from Jerusalem in 597 BC and Zedekiah was made king by the Babylonians, the Lord told Jeremiah to put on a yoke as a symbol that they must serve King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon. The prophet Hananiah took the yoke-bars from the neck of Jeremiah and broke them; but the Lord told Jeremiah to tell Hananiah that he was not sent from the Lord and would be removed from the Earth that year; in the seventh month Hananiah died.
When the King of Babylon did return, and only Jerusalem, Lachish, and Azekah held out against the Babylonian forces, Jeremiah advised King Zedekiah to free all the Hebrew slaves; for the law of Moses said slaves must be set free after six years. Apparently Zedekiah commanded the release of slaves; but the princes and people went back on this when Jerusalem was besieged. For this breaking of the covenant Jeremiah prophesied that they would be given into the hands of their enemies.
Jeremiah warned that they could not rely on Egypt as other prophets had said; he said the King of Babylon would renew the war against Jerusalem with a siege, a famine, and would destroy people, take others into captivity, and burn the city. However, Jeremiah saw a way out, a choice between life and death. He said that whoever stayed in the city would die by the sword, famine or pestilence; but those, who went out and surrendered to the besieging Chaldeans, would live. Those, who were sent away to the land of the Chaldeans, would be replanted like good figs; but those, who remained in Judah, would be destroyed like bad figs. The whole land of Judah would become a ruined waste. Jeremiah sent a letter to those already in exile telling them to pray for their city of exile, for they would find welfare there; they would serve the King of Babylon for seventy years until Babylon was punished for its iniquity in wasting the land. Then they would be brought back, and their fortunes would be restored.
When Jeremiah tried to go home to his birthplace of Anathoth, he was accused of deserting to the Babylonians. He was arrested, taken to the rulers, and tortured. When eighteen months of siege had caused famine and pestilence in Jerusalem, Jeremiah cried out from prison that the people should open the gates to the King of Babylon, for in that way they would be preserved. He said if they did not surrender, they would be destroyed. Many rulers complained to the King that Jeremiah was a madman disheartening their minds and weakening the resolve of the soldiers. Even though King Zedekiah was not perturbed by this, he allowed them to put Jeremiah in a cistern of mire until an Ethiopian told the King what they did and got him released.
Jeremiah was then called before Zedekiah, but he was reluctant to speak, fearing that what he would say would get him condemned to death. When the King promised not to kill him, Jeremiah told him to deliver the city to the Babylonians if he wanted to escape danger and prevent the destruction of the city. However, if he did not do this, Zedekiah would bring about miseries on the citizens and calamity on his whole house. Though he promised compliance, Zedekiah continued to struggle against the siege. When Jerusalem fell, Zedekiah was captured near Jericho with his family. They were brought before King Nebuchadrezzar, who accused him of ingratitude, commanded his sons and the Judean nobles with him to be killed, and had Zedekiah blinded and carried to Babylon.
Jeremiah was with the captives in chains on their way to Babylon when the captain of the guard released him so that he could join Gedeliah, who had been appointed governor by the King of Babylon. With the temple in Jerusalem destroyed, Jeremiah prophesied that the Lord would make a new covenant with Israel and put the law within them, writing on their hearts. The Lord would still be their God, and they would be his people. No longer would each person teach one's neighbor because they would all know the Lord from the least to the greatest, and their sins and iniquities would be forgiven.
Many Jews came to Gedeliah at Mizpah, and some warned him that Ishmael would take Gedeliah's life; Jotham offered to kill Ishmael. However, Gedeliah refused to believe that someone, whom he had not treated badly, could be so wicked; even so, he would rather be killed than destroy someone who had come to him for refuge. At a banquet Ishmael and ten men did murder Gedeliah; they also killed many Jews and the Chaldean soldiers there and others who came. Ishmael and his men took the people of Mizpah captive and set out for the land of the Ammonites; but Johanan led a revolt and rescued the captives, though Ishmael escaped with eight men.
Johanan and the people went to Jeremiah for advice. Jeremiah warned them not to go to Egypt as they planned; but they went anyway, taking him and Baruch with them. Jeremiah prophesied that the Lord would smite Egypt through the King of Babylon and pestilence, consuming the remnant of Judah that went to Egypt. Nebuchadrezzar did invade Egypt on a punitive expedition in the 37th year of his reign (568-567 BC). Jeremiah also prophesied that the King of Babylon would be punished just as the King of Assyria had been for the evil they had done to Zion.
The Lamentations over the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC was attributed to Jeremiah; but scholars believe that it was probably written by someone else. Among these dirges can be found the following consoling passage:
For the Lord will notThe prophet Obadiah criticized the Edomites for betraying their brothers; they should not have gloated over the ruin of Judah, looted its goods in the days of calamity, cut off its fugitives, and delivered its survivors in their distress.
cast off forever,
but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
for he does not willing afflict
or grieve the sons of men.
To crush under foot
all the prisoners of the earth,
to turn aside the right of a man
in the presence of the Most High,
to subvert a man in his cause,
the Lord does not approve.30
Ezekiel and Babylonian Isaiah
Ezekiel, a priest, wrote about the visions of God he saw while in Babylon starting in 593 BC, the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin. His writings claimed to have foreseen the coming siege of Jerusalem, predicting that a third of the people would die of pestilence, a third of famine, and a third by the sword. The disasters he saw were because of bloody crimes and violence; the worst of nations would take possession of their houses, and their holy places would be profaned. The Lord stated through Ezekiel that he was only doing to them according to their own judgments. Some of the people were to be saved, and Ezekiel saw how those who lamented the abominations were being marked so that they would not be touched by death.Ezekiel traveled in Spirit to Jerusalem and described the men who devised iniquity and gave bad counsel to the city. The number of killed in the city had multiplied. They had feared the sword, and the sword would be brought upon them. The Lord predicted they would be given into the hands of foreigners. After they were removed and scattered, they would be gathered again in Israel. Their hearts of stone would be replaced with hearts of flesh. Ezekiel gave signs and allegories how the inhabitants of Judah were to be captured and taken into exile. He described Jerusalem as an unfaithful wife who played the harlot, but instead of accepting money she even paid for her own harlotry. He predicted that the King of Babylon would come to Jerusalem and take their king to Babylon, a king who had rebelled against him by sending ambassadors to Egypt asking for a large army; but the large armies of the Pharaoh would not help against the siege.
Ezekiel expressed the belief that the Lord judges the good and bad by their individual actions. Those who do not worship idols nor defile their neighbor's wife nor oppress anyone but restore their pledges to debtors, commit no robbery, give bread to the hungry and cover the naked with a garment, do not lend at interest, refrain from iniquity, execute justice in human relations, walk in God's statutes observing the ordinances—these are good and will surely live, says the Lord. Those who have done the opposite will surely die for those abominations. However, if the son of such an evil one does good, he shall not die for his father's iniquity. Yet the one who turns away from past sin and does what is right will live while the previously good, who commit wrong, will die. Thus everyone is judged according to their ways. Ezekiel exhorted them, "Repent and turn from all your transgressions which you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!"31
Ezekiel warned that things could not remain as they were, recommending that they exalt the low and abase the high. He accused the princes of Israel of shedding blood. Fathers and mothers were treated with contempt. Sojourners suffered. Orphans and widows were wronged. Holy things were despised, and the Sabbath was profaned. Men slandered to shed blood, committed lewdness, humbled unclean women, defiled daughters and sisters, took bribes to shed blood, and collected interest and extorted gain. Priests had violated the laws and profaned holy things. Princes were like wolves destroying honest lives for gain. Prophets provided whitewash and divine lies for them. People practiced extortion and committed robbery, oppressed the poor and needy, and extorted from sojourners. For these reasons the Lord was going to scatter them among the nations that their filthiness might be consumed out of them. Ezekiel's wife died when Jerusalem was taken in 586 BC. Ezekiel was guided not to mourn but remain silent until the news of Jerusalem's fall reached Babylon.
Like the watchman, who warns the people the sword is coming, Ezekiel was sent by the Lord to warn the wicked to change their ways. The watchman can be blamed if he fails to blow the trumpet, and the people are taken away in their iniquity. If the wicked are warned and do not turn from evil ways, they will die; but the prophet will be saved. If the wicked restore their pledges, give back what they have robbed, walk in the statutes of life, and do no iniquity, they shall live.
The Lord told Ezekiel that people may come and sit before him, hear what he says but not do it. With their lips they show much love, but their heart is set on gain. The prophet is like one who sings love songs to them; they hear them but do not do it. Ezekiel prophesied against the shepherds of the people who have been feeding themselves instead of the sheep. They eat fat, clothe themselves with wool, slaughter the fatlings, but do not feed the sheep. The weak they have not strengthened; the sick they have not healed; the crippled they have not supported; the strayed they have not brought back; the lost they have not sought; with force and harshness have they ruled. Thus they were scattered because there was no real shepherd; they became food for all the wild beasts.
The Lord promised to be the shepherd now by bringing them out from the countries and gathering them in Israel. The Lord will feed them with good pasture, seek the lost, and bring back the strayed, helping the crippled, strengthening the weak, and watching over the strong. The Lord will judge the sheep and set over them a shepherd, David, who will feed them. The Lord will be their God and make a covenant of peace with them, banishing wild beasts from the land so that they may be secure. The Lord will send down showers of blessing; trees will yield fruit and the earth its increase. They will know the Lord when he breaks their yoke and delivers them from those who have enslaved them. The cities will be inhabited again and the waste places rebuilt. No longer will nations prey upon them. Such was the promise the Lord made through Ezekiel.
Ezekiel had a vision of dry bones in a valley which came to life from his prophecy of the restoration of Israel. He also described a detailed vision of a new temple. The Lord warned the princes of Israel though to cease evicting people, to put away violence and oppression, and to practice justice and goodness. Ezekiel also reported oracles against Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt. In 571 BC Ezekiel prophesied that Nebuchadrezzar would destroy Egypt.
In Babylon Jehoiachin and his sons were given food as royal hostages. In 561 BC Nebuchadrezzar's successor Amel-Marduk (Evil-Merodach) removed them from prison to his royal palace. Jehoiachin's oldest son Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel. Much of the great literature of the Old Testament was written in the Babylonian exile. However, after Nabonidus became king of Babylon in 552 BC, pious and patriotic Jews were persecuted with heavy labor even for the aged. More vocal or active Jewish critics were put in dungeons, whipped, beaten, and insulted.
In this situation a prophet arose who looked toward Cyrus, the king of Persia, as a deliverer of the exiled Jews. His name is not known, but his writing was added to the book of Isaiah as chapters 40-55. Cyrus had become king in 559 BC and had conquered Persia's former masters, the Medes, in 550 and Lydia in Asia Minor in 546 BC. The second or Babylonian Isaiah began his writing by comforting the Jews that their warfare was ended and their iniquity pardoned by the Lord for double all their sins. He proclaimed that a voice was crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord with a straight highway for God. Valleys will be raised, and mountains and hills brought low. Rough ground will be made smooth. God's glory will be revealed, and everyone will see it; God's word lasts forever.
Jerusalem should herald that God is coming with power bringing rewards and recompense. God is like a shepherd feeding his flock. Who can compare with God? Even the nations are like drops in a bucket or dust on the scales. Yet God gives power to the faint and strength to the patient. God tramples kings under foot; the earth trembles. Everyone helps and encourages their neighbor. Israel has been chosen and will be helped. Those who contend against them will be nothing. The Lord will provide water for the thirsty. Another power from the north will come and trample on the rulers.
Second Isaiah saw a servant of the Spirit who will bring justice to the nations of the Earth with law. God has called people in goodness and given them as a covenant and a light to the nations to open the eyes of the blind and release prisoners from their dungeons. Former things are passing away as the new springs forth. "Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth!"32 The blind will be led; in unknown paths they will be guided. Darkness will be turned to light, rough places made smooth, because those who see do not observe, and those with ears do not listen. Yet the Lord will redeem Israel, which is forgiven, and God's spirit will be poured forth on them; for their sake Babylon will be broken. Cyrus will fulfill the purpose of the Lord; Jerusalem and the cities of Judah will be built. The God, who created the heavens and formed the Earth, will be worshipped. The prisoners will go forth from Babylon; God will arrange the restoration of Israel.
God's law goes forth, and divine justice is a light to the peoples of the world; for even the heavens will vanish like smoke, and the Earth will eventually wear out like a garment; but salvation is forever. This prophet asked those who knew goodness and had the law in their hearts to listen and not fear reproaches from men. Jerusalem must rouse itself and stand up. The people of Israel have suffered much, but the good tidings that publish peace and salvation are beautiful, knowing that God reigns. Sing for joy to see the return of the Lord to Zion.
Next the prophet described a servant, who was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows who bore their grief. He was wounded for their transgressions, taking on the chastisement that made them whole. He was oppressed and afflicted, but kept his mouth shut like a lamb going to be slaughtered. He was oppressed by a judgment, taken away, and cut off from the land of the living for the sake of the people's transgressions, although he had done no violence and had no deceit. This was the will of the Lord, a sacrifice that would make many become good. His soul was poured out with the criminals even as he bore the sin of many and interceded for them. This description of the suffering servant probably described a martyr, who was persecuted for taking on the collective karma (or sin) by revealing what reforms were needed to improve the society, while committing no fault of his own. It would serve as a heroic model for such redemptive sacrifices.
Jews in the Persian Empire
The Persian King Cyrus captured Babylon in 539 BC and made himself its king. According to the account of Josephus, Cyrus acknowledged the all-powerful God and the prophecies that foretold his coming. Cyrus graciously decreed that the Jews could freely return to Judah; he even gave back to them precious items so that they could be restored in their temple. In addition to Babylon, all of Palestine was now part of the Persian empire. Cyrus appointed Zerubbabel governor of that region across the Euphrates, and Joshua, the grandson of the last high priest, became high priest. In 537 BC about 50,000 people, counting the proselytes who acknowledged the God of Israel, journeyed back to Jerusalem escorted by Persian guards in the joy and peace foreseen by second Isaiah.Many of their neighboring Samaritans wanted to help them rebuild the temple and participate in its religious rites. A council was gathered, and Zerubbabel informed the Samaritans that they would not be allowed to join with the Judeans. Conflicts with the various tribes in the area developed as they had when the Hebrews first came into Canaan. Drought and hail resulting in poor harvests led to much suffering. However, after the death of Persian King Cambyses in 521 BC ended wars in the region, his successor Darius looked more kindly on Judea. A story in Josephus tells how Zerubbabel went to Persia and impressed Darius with his wisdom by explaining that truth is more powerful than even wine and women. The favor he asked for was that the temple in Jerusalem be rebuilt with the King's support. The wealthy and powerful people in Jerusalem did not want the temple rebuilt yet; but the prophets Haggai and Zechariah encouraged the people, and by 516 BC, seventy years after its destruction, the rebuilt temple was dedicated.
However, a conflict developed between Zerubbabel, supported by Haggai, and Joshua, whom Zechariah declared should wear the crown, a rivalry won by Joshua. When Joshua was succeeded as high priest by his son, the authority of the high priest in the Jewish community had been established, though a governor was appointed by the Persians as an administrator who did not reside in Jerusalem. Since the Samaritans and others did consider themselves part of the same religion, many Jews married them. Those who had been in Babylon tended to follow the law more closely which forbade marriages with Moabites and Ammonites until the tenth generation after conversion. Ezra, who was descended from the priest who carried the book of the Law to Babylon, was able to study the written law. Ezra began to teach based on his studies and received more attention even than the prophets. In 458 BC Ezra gathered 1,600 men and their families and went from Persia to Jerusalem. King Artaxerxes even sent gifts along with them.
Some people complained to Ezra about the mixed marriages, which Ezra considered a sin. He tore his clothes and pulled out his hair and beard, fasted, grieved, went to the temple, and threw himself down. A man there named Shechaniah suggested that they make a covenant to put away all the strange wives and their children. Ezra immediately accepted the idea and demanded that all present swear they would repudiate their foreign wives. The assembly of elders summoned all those with mixed marriages to appear within three days on pain of excommunication. This rigid wall of separation naturally caused much sorrow and became an artificial barrier between Jews and other people. It was during this period that the charming book of Ruth was written to show that a foreign wife could become a good and loyal Jew. In this conflict the opposition led by Sanballat even attacked Jerusalem, tearing down its walls and destroying its buildings, although they spared the abandoned temple. Many people took back their wives and made peace with their neighbors.
Other Jews went for aid to the Persian court, where the Judean Nehemiah was cupbearer to King Artaxerxes. The King allowed the zealous Nehemiah to go to Jerusalem if he would return after twelve years, and he appointed him governor. Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem with an armed escort and secluded himself for three days. Then Nehemiah organized the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem; this was done by workman having swords and shields nearby for when scouts and trumpeters sounded the alarm. Many wealthy families secretly communicated with the enemies, and they also oppressed the poor by taking their lands, goods, and even their children as slaves when they could not pay their debts. Nehemiah called a great assembly and demanded that the slaves, goods, and property of the poor be returned to them and their debts be canceled; no interest should be charged. Nehemiah also refused to eat the food allowance that was due him as governor, advancing money and grain to the poor.
Gradually Jerusalem was rebuilt and repopulated. More people were needed, and a tenth of the people in surrounding areas were chosen by lot; but Nehemiah made sure that only truly Israelite families were selected. To educate the people Ezra came forward, and at an outdoor festival he read aloud the Law. Nehemiah also had houses built for the poor; after twelve years he returned to the court of Artaxerxes as he had promised. Later Nehemiah wrote to justify himself for contending, cursing, and beating those who gave their daughters to foreigners in his efforts to "cleanse them" from everything foreign.
The book of Joel was probably written during the Persian period, though his call for warmaking and beating plowshares into swords and pruning hooks into spears could be much earlier before it was nobly reversed by Isaiah; or his condemnation of Tyre and Sidon for selling Judeans into slavery to the Greeks could reflect later times under Greek domination. Joel also prophesied desolation on Egypt and Edom for the violence they did to the people of Judah.
The imaginative story of Jonah, which resembles a cartoon, is set way back in the early eighth century BC, but its opposition to narrow Jewish nationalism would place it in the late Persian period. Jonah was a reluctant prophet, whose story may be based on accounts of cetaceans saving a human. Jonah asked people to turn from their evil ways so that God would repent of his anger, which happened, making Jonah angry. Then the Lord showed him that he did not do well to be angry over this; for it was good that God took pity on the people of Nineveh.
Malachi wrote in the fifth century BC and asked whether we all have one father, the God who created us. If so, then why are we faithless to each other? Yet he left this universal view to complain that Judah had married the daughter of a foreign god. Malachi believed that God hated divorce as well as violence. He criticized the moral decline of his times when the bad were thought good, and people asked, "Where is the God of justice?"33
The book of Esther is set in the reign of Xerxes (r. 485-464 BC) and is probably a fictional account of a Jewish woman who is made queen of Persia by Xerxes so that she can stop the evil plans of Haman to have the Jews killed by royal decree. Esther uses her influence with the King to save her father Mordecai and have Haman hanged on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. The evil plan Haman had paid for was averted, but instead "the king allowed the Jews who were in every city to gather and defend their lives, to destroy, to slay, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, with their children and women, and to plunder their goods, upon one day throughout all the provinces."34 According to this violent fantasy 75,000 were slain by the Jews, although they did not take any plunder.
Eventually the Samaritans built their own sanctuary on Mount Gerizim; they accepted only the five books of the Torah because of the later writings' frequent mention of Jerusalem. Yet in Judaism collecting the writings of the prophets along with the histories and wisdom books gave the prophets' words more influence than they probably had in their own time. Concepts of the devil, hell, paradise, and resurrection were adopted from the Magian religion of the Persians. Weakened by their own divisions and perhaps awakened to the futility of war by the prophets, Israel was mostly a bystander to the battles between the Persians, Egyptians, and the Greeks. Legend has it that Alexander had a dream with the God of the Jews advising him he would conquer Persia, and therefore he spared the Jews and worshipped God at Jerusalem; but scholars doubt it. However, the Samaritans did rise up and killed Alexander's governor Andromachos in 331 BC, bringing on the conqueror's wrath with tortures, executions, and a harsh military rule in Samaria. Thus Alexander favored the Judeans and gave some of the Samaritan territory to them.
Judea in the Hellenistic Era
Judea in the Hellenistic Era
Under the Ptolemies Israel and Judah were combined into Judea and were administered by their own Jewish council of elders as before for about a century until the Zadokite priest Onias II withheld taxes. So Ptolemy III transferred authority to Tobias, and the Tobiad family became the tax collectors for Egypt. When Manetho and other Hellenistic historians contradicted the Hebrew account of the Exodus from Egypt, writing that they had been deported so as not to spread infectious diseases, Jewish scholars in Alexandria got together and published a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures called the Septuagint after its seventy translators.
After the Egyptians were defeated by Antiochus III at Panion in 200 BC, the Seleucids restored the Zadokite priest Simon the Just and exempted the shrine at Jerusalem from taxes. However, the reparations the Seleucids had to pay Rome after the treaty of Apamea brought about a land tax in Judea of one-third of the crop. Many Jews, notably the Hasidim, resented Hellenistic influences; others did not. Onias III was suspected of using the Temple treasure for Ptolemaic subversion and was assassinated after his brother Jason took over the high priesthood by offering more tribute to Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The Zadokite line was replaced though when pro-Greek Menelaus offered even more gifts in 172 BC. Jason went into exile but came back and regained his priesthood, put Menelaus in prison, closed the gymnasium at Antiochia, and expelled the foreign troops from the Akra fortress. This brought Antiochus IV to Jerusalem, where he had its walls torn down, took the temple treasure, and reinstated Menelaus and the Syrian garrison to protect the Hellenizers. Antiochus IV Epiphanes tried to replace Judaism with Hellenic religion by forbidding circumcision and in 167 BC even rededicated the Jerusalem temple to Olympian Zeus.
Mattathias refused to make a pagan sacrifice and killed a Jew who did and the Seleucid officer enforcing the sacrifice; then he escaped to the hills with his five sons. After some of these revolutionaries were killed on the Sabbath when they refused to fight, Mattathias and his friends decided that they must defend themselves on the Sabbath. Mattathias died the next year, but his son Judas led a guerrilla movement that attacked Seleucids and any Hellenizers. Judas persuaded his men that it was not the size of their army but strength that comes from heaven that gave them victories. After they defeated a force from Samaria led by Apollonius, Antiochus IV appointed Lysias governor of the region, and he sent 40,000 soldiers and 7,000 cavalry. According to the First Book of Maccabees Judas with 3,000 men defeated a force led by Gorgias of 6,000, of which half were killed. Lysias came back the next year with 65,000, and the Jews killed 5,000 of them.
In December 164 BC the Maccabees took over the temple at Jerusalem, dedicating it with the festival of Lights (Hanukkah). Many more battles were fought, and even more more killed. Judas' men killed every male in the city of Bozrah, but an attack by Joseph and Azariah cost 2,000 Jewish lives. According to the First Maccabees author, Antiochus IV died regretting the evils he had done to Jerusalem, but according to Polybius he died because he intended to plunder the temple of Artemis in Parthia.
Antiochus V attacked Jerusalem with 100,000 infantry and 20,000 cavalry; but because of the Sabbath year and a famine, a peace was made with the Jews. Demetrius I seized the Seleucid throne and had Antiochus V and Lysias murdered. Bacchides was appointed governor and a Hellenizer called Alcimus high priest. The Hasidim trusted him, but Alcimus had sixty of them killed in one day. Command of the army was given to Nicanor, who had intended to raise the tribute due to the Romans by selling Jews as slaves at the rate of ninety for a talent. The Jews defeated the army led by Nicanor, who was killed and beheaded. However, facing an army of 22,000, most of the 3,000 Jews slipped away; Judas, fighting with the 800 who remained, was killed in 160 BC. Alcimus also died that year, and so Judas' brother Jonathan combined both leadership roles until he too was captured and killed in 142 BC. The last Maccabean brother Simon expelled the Seleucid garrison from Jerusalem, captured the Gazara fortress, secured an alliance with Rome, and established a free Jewish state.
When Simon was assassinated by his son-in-law in 135 BC, Antiochus VII reconquered Judea; but with his death six years later Simon's son John Hyrcanus I regained control by renewing the Hasmoneans' treaty with Rome, annexing Samaria, Galilee, and Idumea. Hyrcanus forced Idumeans to convert to Judaism by circumcision, and his resentment against the independent Samaritans destroyed their town and shrine at Mount Gerizim. According to Josephus, Hyrcanus was the first Jew to use the wealth of the sepulcher to maintain foreign troops.
Jews had divided into Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes. Sadducees were nationalistic aristocrats, officers, soldiers, and the wealthy, who believed in authority, force, and strict punishments. The Pharisees were more liberal in interpreting the scriptures and allowed more mercy, though emphasizing the law. Matthai of Arbela said, "Take a teacher, win a friend, and judge every person from the presumption of innocence."4 The Essenes were mystics, who sought purity through cleanliness, asceticism, celibacy, communal living, and meditative prayer away from the temple and synagogues. When Hyrcanus asked the Pharisees if they had any criticism of him, Eleazar ben Poira suggested he appoint another high priest, since he should not be such as the son of a prisoner. Hyrcanus reacted by appointing Sadducees to offices in the temple, courts of law, and on the council, while the Pharisee judges sentenced Eleazar to 39 lashes.
Hellenizing increased though, as John Hyrcanus' son Aristobolus I called himself Philhellen; after replacing her as head of state, he was said to have starved his mother to death in prison and had his brother Antigonus killed; but he ruled only a year. His widow let his brothers out of prison, making Alexander Janneus king (r. 103-76 BC); he expanded his realm by force of arms using mercenaries, taking from the Nabateans Gaza and twelve cities across the Jordan. Alexander was influenced by the Sadducee Diogenes; when as high priest he snubbed a ritual cherished by the Pharisees at the feast of Tabernacles, they threw fruit at him; in reaction his mercenaries killed 6,000 within the precincts of the temple in 93 BC. Six years of bloody uprisings followed, and the Pharisees even turned to Seleucid king Demetrius III, who invaded Judea with 40,000 troops; however, several thousand Pharisees left the Syrian camp to join Alexander, and Demetrius had to retreat. Other Pharisees were forced to surrender, and Alexander ordered 800 of them crucified, causing thousands of Pharisees to flee Judea while the Sadducees feasted. He had strong fortresses built near the Dead Sea at Alexandrion and Machaerus, though Hyrcanus had already built Hyrcanion.
Alexander was succeeded on the throne by his widow Salome Alexandra, who in correcting his wrongs was greatly influenced by the Pharisees, as prisoners were released and exiles came back. The Sadducees were removed from the Sanhedrin. Her brother Simon ben Shetach deferred presidency of the great council to Judah ben Tabbai, who came from Alexandria; both these men promoted education and improved administration of the law, though after Simon ben Shetach succeeded Judah eighty women were crucified for witchcraft at Ascalon. Alexandra's son was high priest and as John Hyrcanus II claimed the throne in 67 BC,;but he had to fight a civil war for six years against his brother Aristobolus II, who took the side of the Sadducees. According to Josephus, who may have exaggerated, 50,000 Jews died in this war. A good man named Onias was stoned to death for trying to bring the two sides together.
Bribed by Antipater, the Nabatean king Aretas marched into Judea with 50,000 men to aid Hyrcanus' forces in besieging Jerusalem. The Roman Pompey, who was fighting the Armenian king Tigranes, sent Scaurus to Judea. Aristobolus' gift of 300 talents inclined him to give an ultimatum to Hyrcanus and the Arabs that they lift the siege. While Aretas fled to Philadelphia (Amman) and Scaurus went back to Damascus, Aristobolus pursued the retreating Jews, killing 6,000. Hyrcanus II and Antipater appealed to Pompey, urging him to repudiate the violent methods and unjust claim of Aristobolus II; thus they gained the support of the Roman army. Pompey then denied the appeals of Aristobolus, kept him in custody, and besieged Aristobolus' Sadducees in Jerusalem, finally using a Sabbath day to build up his earthworks and take the city. Pompey made Judea a Roman province in 63 BC, designated Hyrcanus high priest and ethnarch but not king, appointed Antipater governor, ordered the walls of Jerusalem razed and the city taxed, and had the zealots beheaded, though he kept Aristobolus and his family as prisoners. Josephus blamed the Roman takeover on the conflict between Hyrcanus II and Aristobolus II.
Alexander, the son of Aristobolus II escaped, but the Roman army led by Gabinius defeated the Jews at Jerusalem, killing 3,000 and capturing 3,000. Gabinius divided Israel into five parts, and the Jews were ruled by an aristocracy instead of a monarch. Aristobolus also escaped from Rome and quickly gathered an army of 8,000 in Judea; but they were also overwhelmed by the Romans at Machaerus, and for a second time Aristobolus went as a captive to Rome. Jewish uprisings continued to occur, but Antipater helped the Romans win over the rebels or put them down.
The Roman Crassus, betraying his promise, plundered the temple treasury of gold worth 10,000 talents and was killed fighting the Parthians in 53 BC. When Julius Caesar took power in Rome, he released Aristobolus II and gave him two legions to bring over Judea to his side. When Pompey died, Antipater went over to Caesar, who in gratitude for military help from Antipater and John Hyrcanus II, appointed the latter ethnarch and made Antipater administrator to collect Roman taxes. Caesar also enacted laws protecting Jewish communities in the empire. Jews did not have to go into the Roman army and were permitted to meet and practice their religion. They were no longer forced to provide winter quarters for Roman legions, but they had to give a fourth part of their harvest every other year to the Roman soldiers. Antipater's son Herod, to please the Romans, captured and executed a band of zealots led by Hezekiah. However, Hyrcanus II was urged to put Herod on trial for killing people contrary to Jewish law; though when Herod appeared unrepentant with an armed guard, Hyrcanus adjourned the court. Sextus Caesar in Damascus appointed Herod governor of lower Syria.
After assassinating Caesar, Cassius raised Roman armies and oppressed Judea, demanding 700 talents and reducing Emmaus, Gophna and two other cities to slavery when they did not readily comply. Herod brought in a hundred talents from Galilee and was made a general over a fleet and an army. Antipater brought another hundred talents and (according to Josephus) persuaded Cassius not to execute Malichus, who turned around and had Antipater poisoned, though Herod and Cassius plotted the murder of Malichus in revenge. This caused Helix with the support of Hyrcanus II to attack Herod's brother Phasael. Herod expelled Marion, whom Cassius had made autocrat of Tyre. Marion brought back Antigonus, the other son of Aristobolus II; but Herod banished him and then betrothed Mariamme, daughter of Aristobolus' son Alexander and grand-daughter of Hyrcanus II.
After Cassius was defeated at Philippi, bribes convinced Antony to appoint Herod and his brother Phasael tetrarchs over all Judea; those who complained were imprisoned, and some were killed. Two years later a Parthian army, led by prince Pacorus and commanded by Barzapharnes and supporting the claim of Antigonus to Hyrcanus' throne, invaded Syria. Herod and Phasael's forces fought and guarded Jerusalem against the Jews supporting Antigonus, who sent Pacorus as a mediator. Phasael naively welcomed Pacorus into Jerusalem and went as an envoy along with Hyrcanus II to Barzapharnes, from whom they learned that Antigonus had promised the Parthians 500 Jewish women (according to Josephus). Herod avoided being lured into their trap, escaped from Jerusalem, fought against Jews, deposited his closest friends and family at Masada while scattering his forces in Idumea, and escaped to Petra in Arabia. The Parthians then plundered Jerusalem and enthroned Antigonus, who personally chewed off the ears of Hyrcanus II so that he could not serve as high priest according to Mosaic law. Phasael killed himself by smashing his head, and Hyrcanus was taken in chains to Parthia.
Herod went to the Nabatean king, who pressured by the Parthians, expelled him to Egypt. From there Herod made his way to Rome, where his gifts to Antony encouraged the senate to make him king in order to help fight the Parthians. Herod raised money for mercenaries in Antioch, marched through Galilee gaining support, took Joppa, rescued his friends at Masada, and then attacked Jerusalem. Herod arranged for Silo's Roman army to winter at Jericho and cleared the zealots and garrisons of Antigonus out of Galilee. Herod then used his forces to help Antony to take Samosata. However, Herod's brother Joseph and some Romans were wiped out near Jericho by Antigonus. Antony made Sossius governor of Syria and ordered him to assist Herod with Roman legions. Herod with one legion marched through Samaria, killing many and burning the houses. The combined armies of Herod and Sossius besieged Jerusalem while Herod married Mariamme; the Jews resisted for four months and then were slaughtered mercilessly by the frustrated soldiers in 37 BC. Herod tried to stop the looting of the kingdom he wanted to rule but gave the gold and silver to Antony, who ordered the captured Antigonus beheaded.
Hyrcanus II was returned to Judea, though Herod appointed Ananel high priest, but replaced him with Aristobolus III at the urging of his mother, wife, and Cleopatra of Egypt; however, Herod had his men drown the young Aristobolus. Herod was given Samaria, but several territories including Jericho Antony handed over to his mistress Cleopatra VII in Egypt. Herod attacked the Nabatean Arabs, according to Josephus, accusing them of violating international law by murdering his envoys; but when Cleopatra sent a force led by Athenion to assist King Malich, Herod was defeated; yet he roused his troops and eventually conquered the Nabateans, making Malich his vassal. Herod had refused to accept 500 talents when the Arab water supply dried up, killing and imprisoning many thousands. Herod accused Hyrcanus of having plotted with the Nabatean king and executed him, and he replaced the Sanhedrin, which had criticized him for brutality, executing 45 of its 71 members, though he spared the chairmen and influential teachers Hillel and Shammai. When Antony and Cleopatra were defeated at Actium in 31 BC, gifts and Herod's abilities persuaded Octavius at Rhodes to give Herod back a larger Judea; rival governors were put to death. Many Jewish lives had been lost in resistance, but Roman power eventually made this cunning Idumean king of the Jews under their empire.
Several apocryphal (hidden) books written during the Hellenistic era were included in the Septuagint, but only the book of Daniel made the later canon. Its prophecies indicate that at least part of Daniel was probably written about 164 BC during the Maccabean revolt, the point at which the prophecies go astray. The first part of the book tells the story of the heroic Daniel, who is able to perceive and interpret the dreams of Babylonian king Nebuchadrezzar. His three friends, who prove that their vegetarian diet is more healthy than the king's rich food, are miraculously protected in a burning furnace, and Daniel himself survives caged with lions. The second half of the book contains Daniel's visions and prophecies of the future; but the speculation about the northern king (Antiochus Epiphanes), who would take action against the holy covenant and set up an abomination of desolation, that he would conquer Egypt and Libya and then die there did not occur, as the 6th chapter of First Maccabees indicates he never conquered Egypt and died in Babylon.
A story of sexual harassment was added to the book of Daniel in which Susanna is falsely accused of adultery by two judges, who try to use their position to make her lay with them. She refuses and is convicted of adultery; but a young Daniel senses something is wrong and by questioning the two judges separately proves that their stories do not match; thus she is saved, and the two judges are executed. In another detective story Daniel demonstrates to the Babylonian king that the god does not eat the daily sacrifices by spreading ashes to show the footsteps of those who come in to take the food. This story carries the common theme that the one spiritual God is more real than the many gods depicted as idols and images.
A philosophical story in Esdras asks what one thing is strongest. One man says wine, because it overcomes people; another says the king, who rules over people; Zerubbabel first says women, who give life and can control men; but then he notes that truth is stronger than all of these, which can be unjust, because the truth is never unjust.
Tobit is about an angel rewarding the family of Tobit, who cares enough to bury the abandoned corpses of Jews. He advises his son Tobias to be disciplined in his conduct, not to drink to excess, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and all his surplus to charity. Occult or Egyptian influences are indicated in the way the angel guides Tobias to use magic to chase away the demonic lover of Sarah so that he won't die like the others when he marries her; magic also cures the blindness of his father Tobit. Then the angel advises them to praise God and do good, indicating that prayer is good when accompanied by fasting, almsgiving, and justice; those who give charity will have a full life, but those who sin are the enemies of their own lives.
Like Esther the story of Judith is another violent fantasy of revenge in which a beautiful widow seduces Nebuchadrezzar's commander Holofernes into trusting her so much that she is able to cut off his head and so inspire the Jews to defeat his decapitated forces and take their booty. Prior to this assassination the Jews are clearly the innocent sufferers, as the only reason for the war against them is that they refused to join Nebuchadrezzar in his war. The theme of the story is indicated by the advice of Achior to Holofernes that God will defend the Jews as long as they do not sin.
The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach was written about 180 BC and translated into Greek by his grandson about fifty years later. After a brief prologue the book begins with the idea that all wisdom comes from God, and there is much wisdom in this collection of proverbs. Unjust anger can tip the scale to ruin, but a patient person will endure until the right moment and then find joy bursting forth. Exalting oneself can lead to a fall and dishonor. A son should help his father in his old age and not grieve him; even if he lacks understanding, one should show forbearance. As water extinguishes fire, charity atones for sin; and whoever requites favors provides for the future. Further advice is to deliver the wronged from wrong-doers and not to be fainthearted in judging a case. Be like a father to orphans instead of like a husband to their mother.
Wisdom (Sophia) is personified as female. Whoever obeys Wisdom will judge the nations, and whoever gives heed to her will live securely. Whoever loves her loves life, and those who seek her early will be filled with joy. "Never speak against the truth, but be mindful of your ignorance."5 Refuse to lie, for lying serves no good. The teacher warns against the dangers of riches and notes the disadvantages of poverty. "A rich man does wrong, and he even adds reproaches; a poor man suffers wrong, and he must add apologies."6 Much practical advice for seeking wisdom and avoiding fools is given. The idea that evil will roll back on the one doing it is expressed. Vengeance lies in wait like a lion for the proud who mock and abuse. It is suggested that if one forgives others, one will be pardoned when praying. The last part of the book praises the lives of Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Phinehas, Joshua, Caleb, Nathan, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Josiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zerubbabel, and Simon ben Onias, who was high priest about 219-196 BC.
The Second Book of Maccabees includes a martyrdom story of a mother and her seven sons, who one after another are tortured and killed for refusing to eat pork forbidden to the Jews. The Fourth Book of Maccabees places this story in the context of the Stoic philosophy, which demonstrates that reason can overcome the passions. God gave the law by which one may order oneself through prudence, justice, virtue, and courage.
The Wisdom of Solomon was probably written by a Jew in the first century BC although the persona of the ancient sage king is used to praise wisdom. The author considered the reasoning unsound of the atheistic hedonists, who deny there is a spiritual life beyond the body and thus whose values are only material and short-sighted. The ungodly are punished by their reasoning and sinners by their own actions in disregarding the just, for whoever despises wisdom is miserable. The most severe judgment falls on those in high places. Wisdom begins with the desire to learn, and the love of wisdom leads to keeping her laws. She teaches self-control, prudence, justice, and courage.
Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Empires
Notes
1. Genesis (Revised Standard Version), 3:22.2. Ibid., 4:9.
3. Exodus 20:3-17.
4. Joshua 11:20.
5. Psalms 15.
6. Ibid. 37:3-4.
7. Ibid., 51:5.
8. Ibid., 82:6-7.
9. Proverbs 1:1-19.
10. Ibid., 10:11-12.
11. Ibid., 19:20-21.
12. Ibid., 21:3-7.
13. Ecclesiastes 3:1-11.
14. Song of Solomon 8:4.
15. Job 1:21.
16. Ibid., 38:4.
17. Ibid., 41:11.
18. The Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus, tr. W. Whiston, 8:11:2.
19. Hosea 2:18-20.
20. Ibid., 6:6.
21. Isaiah 2:4.
22. Micah 2:8.
23. Ibid., 6:8.
24. Nahum 3:18-19.
25. Habakkuk 1:2-4.
26. Ibid., 1:11.
27. Ibid., 2:8.
28. Jeremiah 5:26-29.
29. Ibid., 17:9-11.
30. Lamentations 3:31-36.
31. Ezekiel 18:30-31.
32. Isaiah 42:10.
33. Malachi 2:17.
34. Esther 8:11-12.
Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian Empires
by Sanderson Beck
Assyrian Empire 967-664 BCAssyrian Empire 664-609 BC
Neo-Babylonian EmpireZarathushtraPersian Empire to 500 BCPersian-Greek Wars 550-404 BCPersian-Greek Wars 404-323 BC
Parthian Empire
Mani and Manichaeism
Sasanian Persia 224-531Sasanian Persia 531-651
This chapter has been published in the book Mideast & Africa to 1700.For ordering information, please click here.
Sumer, Babylon, and Hittites
The twelfth to the ninth centuries BC in Mesopotamia are considered a dark age because very little is known about that time period. From the thirteenth century BC to the middle of the sixth century is called the iron age with increasing use of that new technology. A powerful Elamite kingdom led by Shutruk-nahhunte and his son Kutir-nahhunte conquered several hundred settlements and captured Babylon, ending the Kassite dynasty and taking away the statue of Marduk in 1157 BC. Kutir-nahhunte died about 1140 BC and was succeeded as king of Elam by his brother Shilkhak-Inshushinak, who used Babylonian tribute to build up their capital of Susa. Shilkhak launched military campaigns against Aramaean settlements to the west and north along the Tigris River. The 46-year reign of Ashur-dan was ending with a struggle for power in Assyria. Ashur-resh-ishi (r. 1133-1116 BC), claimed to be the "avenger of Assyria," strengthened their defenses, rebuilt the palace, and repaired the Ishtar temple.A new Babylonian dynasty emerged in Isin; Nebuchadrezzar I (r. 1124-1103 BC) attacked Elam and, after an early defeat and plague, triumphed and regained the statue of Marduk. However, his attacks against Assyria were successfully resisted. Both the Babylonians and the Assyrians fought against the Lullubi tribes in the eastern hills and the nomadic tribes in the western deserts. Assyrian King Tiglath-pileser I (r. 1115-1077 BC) defeated the Mushki, who were invading the Tigris valley from the north. Tiglath-pileser also led his troops to the west as far as Lebanon. However, these victories were not followed up with effective imperialistic administration as the Aramaeans were able to fight back later. Tiglath-pileser entertained himself hunting big game and claimed he killed 920 lions. He organized water projects and collected literature in the world's oldest extant library. Tiglath-pileser did attack Babylon and plunder it, but he withdrew.
For the next two centuries Assyria and Babylon co-existed. In the eleventh century BC Nebuchadrezzar I was celebrated in an epic poem; Sinleqeunnimi of Uruk produced a humanized version of the Epic of Gilgamesh; and another poet expressed the workings of divine justice, an important concept in Babylonian religion. Tiglath-pileser's son Ashur-bel-kala (r. 1074-1057 BC) fought with Babylon against the Aramaeans, but Ashurnasirpal I (r. 1050-1032 BC) could not preserve the conquests of his famous grandfather; his prayers lamented his adversity and asked for forgiveness for not teaching his subjects to reverence God sufficiently. Assyrian laws were stricter and their treatment of women worse than among the Babylonians, Hittites, and Israelites. In Assyria women could be divorced for no reason without being given any money, could be killed or maimed for adultery, and had to wear a veil outside the house, except for prostitutes who were forbidden to wear a veil.
Assyrian Empire 967-664 BC
In spite of the efforts of Assyrian kings Tiglath-pileser II (r. 967-935 BC) and Ashur-dan II (r. 934-912 BC), the Aramaeans had spread around the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. In his reign (911-891 BC) Adad-nirari II fought numerous military campaigns of expansion and made a treaty with Babylon that lasted eighty years. His son Tukulti-Ninurta II began reporting hostile attacks as justification for his campaigns and rebuilt the walls of Ashur. Continued expansion by his son Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BC) used extensive cavalry, battering rams, cruel treatment of defeated enemies, deportation, plunder of precious metals, horses, cattle, and sheep, followed by bureaucrats and annual tribute to create an empire. Ashurnasirpal rebuilt Kalakh and made it his capital; 69,574 guests attended the opening ceremonies at his new palace.Ashurnasirpal's son Shalmaneser III (r. 858-824 BC) conquered northern Syria but was unable to take Damascus, though Israel's King Jehu paid him tribute. In Babylon Marduk-zakir-shumi called upon Shalmaneser and the Assyrians to help him establish his kingship against a challenge by his younger brother, who was defeated by Shalmaneser's army in 850 BC. Shalmaneser went on to defeat and take tribute from the Chaldeans and plunder the land of Namri. The next year Shalmaneser led an army of 120,000 against Arzashkun, the capital city of Urartu's King Aram (r. 858-844 BC) and killed 3,400 troops.
Aram was overthrown by Sarduri I, whose dynasty in Urartu lasted a quarter of a millennium. Urartu kings Menua (r. 810-785 BC) and Argishti (785-753 BC) expanded the Urartu kingdom, the latter bragging about the number of men killed and animals stolen. Urartu King Sarduri II (753-735 BC) claimed he captured 21,989 people from north of Mt. Ararat, but he was defeated by Tiglath-pileser III in 736 BC.
At the end of his reign the crown prince rebelled against Shalmaneser; the dying King turned to his younger son who became Shamsi-Adad V, won the civil war with Babylon's help, and reigned for a dozen years, ungratefully attacking Babylon and the Chaldeans. Shamsi-Adad's Queen Sammuramat, the legendary Semiramis of Greek historians, ruled as regent (or at least was influential) for her son Adad-nirari III, who in 806 BC invaded Syria and collected tribute from the Neo-Hittites, Phoenicians, Philistines, Israelites, and Edomites. After Adad-nirari III died in 783 BC, his four sons ruled in succession; but none of them were noteworthy until the fourth, Tiglath-pileser III, became king of Assyria in 745 BC, though some believe that he was not a royal son but a general who took power by force.
Tiglath-pileser III conquered the Syrian allies of Urartu at Arpad and the Medes on the Iranian plateau, declaring that he "smashed them like pots." Then he turned their lands into Assyrian provinces, reorganized the army by replacing conscription with permanent contingents from around the empire, and broke the power of the lords by reforming the administration into smaller districts directly accountable to the King. Massive deportations were used to break up regional loyalties. In 744 BC 65,000 Iranians were displaced, and later 154,000 were moved; 30,000 Syrians were sent to the Zagros mountains while 18,000 Aramaeans from the Tigris area went to northern Syria. Such policies increased the hatred of Assyria, and thus rebellions would continue in the years ahead anyway.
A siege against Urartu failed, but Tiglath-pileser III returned to the Mediterranean to defeat a Philistine revolt led by Askalon and Gaza and to collect tribute from Amon, Edom, Moab, and Judah. When Judah's King Ahaz asked for Assyrian aid against Damascus and Israel, Tiglath-pileser captured Damascus and half of Israel while establishing Hoshea as king in Samaria. When a Chaldean gained the throne of Babylon, Tiglath-pileser removed him and in 728 BC made himself king of Babylon; but he died the next year.
Tiglath-pileser's son Shalmaneser V was king of Assyria barely long enough to besiege Samaria for three years. The deportation of 27,290 Israelites was supervised by his successor Sargon II (r. 721-705 BC). Sargon may have had to struggle to get the throne because he thanked the citizens of Ashur for helping him by exempting Ashur and Harran from the taxes imposed by Tiglath-pileser, and he punished "6,300 criminals" of Ashur by sending them to Harran. Assyria's growing empire had interfered with the trade routes and made enemies of Urartu in the north and Egypt, which supported numerous rebellions in the years ahead.
Before Sargon could consolidate his power, the Chaldean Marduk-apal-iddina II (Merodach-baladan in the Bible) had taken the throne in Babylon. Assyria's first attack on Babylon was defeated by Elam. A decade later Sargon attacked the cities of Kish, Nippur, and Dur-Atkhara while the Babylonian-Elamite coalition fought a guerrilla defense from swamps, flooded areas, the hills, and the tribal peripheries. Abandoned by Elam, Marduk-apal-iddina eventually surrendered at his tribal capital of Dur-Yakin, which was destroyed. Sargon deported more than a hundred thousand Aramaeans and Chaldeans to western Asia, cooperated with the priests, stayed three years governing the area, and imported foreign captives.
Sargon II put down Egyptian-supported revolts in Syria and Palestine, and he conquered the independent city of Carchemish, making it an Assyrian province. In 714 BC after a long march through the mountains of Kurdistan, Sargon led a surprise attack on Urartu, causing their King to flee. He persuaded his army that an eclipse of the moon was not a bad omen for them but for their enemy at Musasir, Urartu's sacred city, which they then easily plundered. Sargon had tens of thousands of workers build his own capital just north of Nineveh; but before it was finished, he was killed fighting in Iran. His son Sennacherib believed Sargon's death was a punishment from the gods and left his corpse unburied.
Sennacherib left Sargon's new city unfinished and built a huge palace at Nineveh. Marduk-apal-iddina once again assumed the throne of Babylon but was forced to withdraw when Sennacherib and the Assyrians defeated a coalition army of Babylonians, Aramaeans, and Elamites, deporting 208,000 Babylonians. Bel-ibni was appointed king of Babylon in 702 BC; but two years later when he seceded from the Assyrian empire, Sennacherib replaced him with his son Ashur-nadin-shum. In 701 BC Sennacherib defeated a coalition of Phoenicians, Palestinians, and Egyptians in Syria. Judah’s King Hezekiah bought off Sennacherib with 300 talents of silver and 30 of gold. When Sennacherib came back, probably late in his reign, Hezekiah, advised by Isaiah, did not surrender; the Assyrians withdrew the siege probably because of a plague, though the number of 185,000 Assyrian dead in the Biblical account could be an exaggeration.
Sennacherib ordered the building of a fleet of ships in Nineveh, and in 694 BC they attacked Elam on the Persian Gulf. However, the Elamites counter-attacked, took the throne of Babylon, and the war went on for seven years. After a great battle, which the Assyrians claimed was a victory although it probably was not, Sennacherib ordered the destruction of Babylon and even plundered its temples, a serious offense to Assyrians, who shared many religious beliefs with the Babylonians. Then a myth was developed that the god Marduk himself was brought before a tribunal for his transgressions, and in the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish Marduk was replaced by Ashur. In 681 BC Sennacherib was assassinated in a temple of Ninurta at Nineveh, probably by his eldest sons. Many believed that Sennacherib had mistreated the god Ninurta as well as Marduk and that his death was a divine punishment, a belief ironically he had held about his own father's death.
Appointed by the imperial council and supported by the army, a younger son of Sennacherib named Esarhaddon became King while his older brothers fled to Urartu. Esarhaddon ordered the rebuilding of Babylon, the restoration of its gods, and made a peace treaty with Elam, although later his messengers, attempting to collect taxes from the impoverished Babylonians, were pelted with clods. In the north Esarhaddon fought off the Cimmerians and then made peace with them by giving his daughter in marriage to the Scythian chief Bartuta. When Sidon revolted in 677 BC, he tore down the Phoenician city, beheaded its king, deported the inhabitants, and gave Sidon's territory to its rival city of Tyre.
These measures enabled Esarhaddon to pursue his major ambition of conquering Egypt. His first attempt failed, but in 671 BC the Assyrian army besieged revolting Tyre on the way to capturing Memphis. The Ethiopians were deported; the collection of tribute from Egypt's 22 provinces was organized; and the worship of Ashur was instituted. However, two years later the Ethiopian King of Egypt, Taharqa, who had fled to the south, organized a rebellion. Esarhaddon was on his way back to Egypt when he died in 669 BC. Three times the superstitious Esarhaddon had substituted temporary "kings" so that he could pretend to be a peasant and escape bad omens such as a lunar eclipse, which astronomers could predict. Putting to death the substitutes at the end of their term and attempting to fool the gods insulted his religion. Esarhaddon did make it clear in his treaties with vassals that when he died, the crown prince designate Ashurbanipal was to be obeyed.
The best educated and most literate of Assyria's kings, Ashurbanipal ruled for 42 years during the height and greatest decline of the empire. He began by sending an army to Egypt to recapture Memphis. Once again Taharqa fled to Thebes, and twenty-two native kings and governors appointed by Esarhaddon who had fled the rebellion were reinstalled. However, when their conspiracy with Taharqa was discovered, they were exiled to Assyria and executed there, except for Necho, who was set up in Sais to rule Egypt. When Taharqa died, his nephew Tanutamen marched from Thebes to Memphis, where in 664 BC he killed Necho and defeated the Egyptian princes of the Delta. When the Assyrian army returned, Tanutamen retreated from Memphis to Thebes, from which he fled when it was destroyed by Ashurbanipal's army. Necho's son Psamtik was appointed ruler in Sais. According to Herodotus a decade later Psamtik aided by Ionian mercenaries expelled the Assyrians from Egypt while Assyria was battling Elam.
Assyrian Empire 664-609 BC
Tyre was besieged until its ruler Baal submitted and offered his daughter and nieces and much treasure to the Assyrians. Elam had attacked Babylon in 664 BC; but eleven years later when Ashurbanipal would not surrender the Elamite King's rivals, another attack by the Elamites was defeated by the Assyrian army. The King of Elam was killed in battle, and Ashurbanipal replaced him with his rivals. In 651 BC Ashurbanipal's brother Shamash-shum-ukin, who was King of Babylon, tried to form an alliance with Phoenicians, Philistines, Judah, Arabs, Chaldeans, Elamites, and even Lydia and Egypt, closing the gates of Sippar, Babylon, and Barsippa to the Assyrians. Ashurbanipal besieged Babylon for two years until Shamash-shum-ukin set fire to his own palace and perished. Ashurbanipal made Kandalanu (possibly another name for himself) king of Babylon and then attacked the Arabian rebels in the desert. So many camels were captured that the price of a camel in Assyria dropped to less than one shekel.By 639 BC Elam was completely devastated as its capital at Susa was destroyed and plundered. Salt and thorny weeds were scattered on their land, and Elam's 3,000-year-old civilization would never rise again. Ashurbanipal marched in triumph with three Elamite princes and a king of Arabia harnessed to his chariot. Jews, Aramaeans, and Lydians had been subjugated, and Assyria was rich with plundered booty. Yet the annals of Assyria came to an end in 639 BC; apparently they did not like recording their defeats. Within thirty years the Assyrian empire would be no more.
The Medes attacked Assyria, but the northern Scythians saved Nineveh and forced the Medes to pay them tribute for 28 years. When Ashurbanipal (and Kandalanu) died in 627 BC, his son Ashur-etil-ilani fought a civil war with his brother Sin-shar-ishkun. The Chaldean Nabopolassar took the throne of Babylon in 626 BC and according to one chronicle fought with Sin-shar-ishkun for two years before the latter became King of Assyria in 623 BC. For a dozen years Babylon and Assyria fought each other. The Medes led by Cyaxares tipped the balance and in 616 BC attacked Nineveh but were beaten back by the Scythians. However, in the next two years the Medes conquered Arrapkha and Ashur. When the Medes joined with the Babylonians to attack Nineveh, Assyria's attempted alliance with Egypt was too late. By the end of 612 BC Nineveh and the major cities of Assyria had been destroyed. Ashur-uballit II replaced the dead Sin-shar-ishkun and retreated to Harran; but two years later this city was destroyed, and by 609 BC the remaining Assyrian army capitulated.
Probably the most significant piece of Assyrian literature was the epic of "Erra and Ishum." Ashurbanipal and his scholars certified this work, which was probably written or given its final form around 700 BC when Assyrians were attacking Babylon. Its fierce warlike qualities typify the most salient feature of Assyrian culture. Even the hero Ishum, who finally manages to lessen the war-making somewhat, is referred to as a "pious slaughterer whose hands are adept at carrying his furious weapons and making his fierce axes flash!"1 The seven gods express the love of battle when they speak to Erra, whose heart already was urging him to make war.
Why do you stay in town like a feeble old man?Nevertheless Ishum reprimands Erra for planning evil for the gods in plotting to overthrow countries and destroy their people, asking him to turn back. Bragging of his powers and explaining that Marduk has neglected his word, Erra promises to overwhelm the people of Marduk (Babylonians). Yet the setting up of weapons of the privileged men is described as an abomination to the gods Anu and Dagan. Ishum asks Erra if he does not fear Marduk and says that he has changed his divine nature and become like a human. He has taken his weapons into Babylon like a braggart to seize the city. He has ensnared them in a net and destroyed them.
How can you stay at home like a lisping child?
Are we to eat women's bread,
like one who has never marched on to the battlefield?
Are we to be fearful and nervous as if we had no experience of war?
To go on to the battlefield is as good as a festival for young men!
Anyone who stays in town, be he a prince,
will not be satisfied with bread alone;
He will be vilified in the mouths of his own people, and dishonored.
How can he raise his hand against one who goes to the battlefield?
However great the strength of one who stays in town,
How can he prevail over one who has been on the battlefield?2
The army saw you and donned their weapons.The great lord Marduk saw and cried, "Woe!" clutching at his heart. An insolent governor was set over them who would not treat them kindly. The warrior Erra put to death the just and unjust. The people abandoned justice and turned to atrocities. Erra declares that the Subartians, Assyrians, Elamites, Kassites, Suteans, Gutians, and Lullubeans have not even spared their own kind as brother even slays brother until an Akkadian shall rise up and fell them all and shepherd the rest. Ishum pleaded with Erra that he rest, and finally Erra was placated and left a remnant. This poem portrays the bitterness of the battles between the Assyrians and Babylonians at this time.
The governor, who had treated Babylon well, became enraged,
Directed his troops to loot like enemy looters,
Incited the leader of the army to crime,
"You are the man whom I shall send to that city!
You shall respect neither god nor man.
Put young and old alike to death.
You shall not leave any child, even if he still sucks milk.
You shall pillage the accumulated wealth of Babylon."3
Another pessimistic literary work is a dialog between a master and his servant in which the master proposes to ride to the palace, to dine, to hunt, to lie in wait for his adversary, to build a house, to remain silent, to start a rebellion, to love a woman, to sacrifice to his god, to give food to his country, to help his country, and finally to kill his servant and then himself, but each time he changes his mind and negates the plan, except for the last. Then the servant asks if his master would want to live even three days without him.
Assyrian civilization was focused around its powerful king with a militaristic hierarchy supported by officials, artisans, farmers, and slaves. The king was chief judge, lawmaker, commander-in-chief of the army, and head of the religion, although he was not deified himself. Established traditions and customs stabilized the culture and the king. The only revolutions in Assyrian history were by powerful generals or palace officials as the social hierarchy was never seriously challenged. Governors and priests, in fact any official, could be directly ordered by the king. Kings and officials need not be literate because they all were assisted by scribes. Offices and professions tended to be hereditary, or appointments were based on patronage. Aramaeans did rise to high positions, but the process took generations.
Social classes were rigidly determined by one's position in the hierarchy. Captives in war and debtors were made slaves, though the latter could marry a free person, testify in court, conduct business, and own property. Women were entirely dependent on their male relations, raised the children and cared for the home, and were not even allowed to associate with males who were not relatives. If a man lived with a widow for two years, they were considered married. Adultery could be punished by the husband killing both or mutilating the wife and castrating her lover; though if he did not punish the wife, the lover could not be punished either. Homosexuality, which was tolerated in Babylon, was punished by the Assyrians. The king maintained a harem of women and eunuchs. Foreign princes and nobles were also kept in the Assyrian court to assure treaties.
Laws operated primarily by the decisions of the king and officials based on precedents. Contracts were made on tablets. Prostitution was allowed but not common; drunkenness was discouraged; theft was limited; and violence and murder were usually settled by private vendetta. A few people were imprisoned but usually for political reasons. The economy was primarily based on agriculture, supplemented by crafts, trade, and tribute and plunder from war, though the movement of wealth from the periphery of the empire to the center tended to cause misery and rebellions. All land was considered the property of the god as represented by the king, but in fact temples, wealthy lords, and private individuals did own land or held it in exchange for performing some service to the state.
In war the Assyrians excelled in developing siege engines, and numerous horses were requisitioned for their chariots and cavalry. Cities were persuaded to submit, and excessive cruelty of those who resisted was calculated to make others submit more readily. As the empire grew, more foreign troops filled the ranks of the army. Hunting of lions, wild bulls, and elephants was so popular that elephants became extinct in the area.
Most of the gods were adopted from the Babylonians except for Ashur, the supreme god. Ishtar was the only goddess if one does not count the consorts of the gods; but she too could be warlike. The use of divination for guidance regarding the future was used extensively by Assyrian kings. Astrological astronomers made detailed observations and attempted to correlate human events with celestial signs. Their calendar became quite accurate when they figured out they could add seven lunar periods every nineteen years; they could predict eclipses. Astrology still allowed for divine and human initiative.
Medical theory was based primarily on the belief that disease was a punishment inflicted by the gods on humans for their sins, although dust, dirt, food and drink, as well as contagion were taken into consideration. Physicians attempted to diagnose the symptoms and might prescribe drugs, poultices, enemas, or a change in diet. Libraries of cuneiform tablets were kept, and Ashurbanipal in particular gave instructions to gather any tablet that could be found. Assyrian society was fairly stable itself, but continued conquest and the imperial exploitation of other peoples eventually brought about its inevitable reaction.
Neo-Babylonian Empire
The Chaldean dynasty, founded by Nabopolassar when he became King of Babylon in 626 BC, was to rule over the empire they took over from the Assyrians when they defeated their army in 609 BC. This King had declared his son Nebuchadrezzar crown prince when the renovation of the palace was celebrated early in his reign. Father and son were together when the last Assyrian king surrendered at Harran. From there Nabopolassar went to Babylon while Nebuchadrezzar seized and burned forts and gathered much booty for three months. Then the King marched up the Euphrates to set up garrisons against the expected Egyptian attacks while the prince raised support for this war from the temple authorities. When the Egyptians did invade, killing intervening Judah king Josiah along the way, Nebuchadrezzar took command of the army. In a battle in which Greek mercenaries fought on both sides he defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish in 605 BC, allowing "not a single man to escape to his country." He was in the west asserting control over this part of the empire when Nabopolassar died. Nebuchadrezzar immediately marched through the desert and was crowned king in Babylon three weeks later.Nebuchadrezzar II returned to Syria to collect tribute from Damascus, Tyre, Sidon, and Jerusalem while destroying rebellious Ascalon. In 601 BC the kings of Egypt and Babylon fought a great open battle that was costly for both sides. Egypt retreated from Asia. The Babylonians had to spend a year re-equipping and retraining themselves while Jehoiakim of Judah abrogated the obligations that had been imposed by Babylon. The Babylonians raided the Arabs in the desert and got the Aramaeans, Moabites, and Ammonites to invade Judah. Then Nebuchadrezzar besieged Jerusalem and captured the city and its King in 597 BC. Zedekiah was appointed as regent, and 3,000 Jews were deported to Mesopotamia. Encouraged by Egyptian operations against Gaza, Tyre, and Sidon, Zedekiah revolted against Babylonian hegemony. Nebuchadrezzar besieged Jerusalem again as he had a decade before, and after eighteen months Zedekiah was captured trying to escape. His sons were killed, and he was blinded and deported with thousands of Jews. Jerusalem was looted; its walls were broken down; and the temple was destroyed.
Less is known of the later years of Nebuchadrezzar's reign. In 585 BC he mediated a truce between the Medes and the Lydians, and it was said that his siege of Tyre lasted thirteen years. He did claim to have pacified Lebanon so that he could exploit its timber, and he invaded Egypt in 568 BC. Nebuchadrezzar II had Babylon rebuilt and ruled for 43 years until his death in 562 BC. He claimed to have been a just king and to have suppressed bribery to please the god Marduk and better all peoples.
Nebuchadrezzar's son Amel-Marduk ruled for only two years, but according to Jeremiah 52:31-32 he released Judah's King Jehoiachin from prison and gave him a seat of honor in Babylon. A leading official and landowner named Neriglissar, who had married Amel-Marduk's sister, organized a conspiracy that overthrew the King. Neriglissar led military campaigns against Piriddu in Cilicia but died in 556 BC. His son ruled only three months before he was slain in turn by a conspiracy led by Nabonidus, who was chosen king.
Nabonidus may have helped mediate the peace between the Medes and Lydians in 585 BC. His mother was devoted to the moon god Sin at Harran, lived to be over one hundred, and was given a queen's funeral in 547 BC. Nabonidus continued the effort of Neriglissar to defend Syria from northern invasion, bringing 2,850 captive slaves back to Babylon to rebuild its walls and restore the temple of Sin at Harran. By divination he decided to dedicate his daughter as a priestess at Ur. Although he did shift religious emphasis to Sin, he still provided supplies to the temples of Marduk and Nabu. While campaigning in Amanus he gathered plants for Babylon's famous hanging gardens that Nebuchadrezzar had built. Nabonidus spent ten years at Tema in the Arabian desert putting down a rebellion and controlling the region, not even leaving to attend his mother's funeral. While he was away, his son Belshazzar ruled in Babylon.
Finally after a drought, divination and abundant rainfall showed favorable omens, and Nabonidus returned to Babylon. Sin was restored to his temple at Harran, and Nabonidus celebrated the New Year's festival in Babylon, taking the hand of the statue of Bel (Marduk) to show his divine kingship. Then Cyrus II of Persia launched a victorious attack on Babylonian Opis. Nabonidus fled, and two days later Persian forces, having redirected the water, charged into Babylon through the dry channels; then Guti’s Governor Gubaru entered the city without a battle. Belshazzar was killed, and Nabonidus surrendered. The holy places were protected, and two weeks later Cyrus entered Babylon proclaiming peace to all the people and giving audience to the rulers of the former Chaldean empire. Cyrus claimed that he was fulfilling the will of Marduk, reaffirmed the privileges of Babylon, ordered exiled deities returned, and decreed that the Jews would be allowed to return to their country.
These privileges were granted to citizens of sacred cities such as Babylon, Sippar, Nippur, and Borsippa as the Assyrians had done with Ashur and Harran. These urban dwellers believed that their cities were protected by the god of their temple and that if the King violated justice, he and the land would be punished, as indicated in the following Akkadian text from the seventh century BC:
If a king does not heed justice,The people's sense of their own rights and power are seen in a letter that warned Assyrian King Esarhaddon by quoting the opening and closing lines from this text. This is the same Esarhaddon whose tax collectors were pelted with clods. Another document has Esarhaddon claiming that he restored this lost protection and privilege to the people of Babylon, including tax exemption.
his people will be thrown into chaos, and his land will be devastated.
If he does not heed the justice of his land, Ea, king of destinies,
will alter his destiny and will not cease from hostilely pursuing him.
If he does not heed his nobles, his life will be cut short.
If he does not heed his adviser, his land will rebel against him.
If he heeds a rogue, the status quo in his land will change....
If the sons of Nippur are brought to him for judgment,
but he accepts a present and improperly convicts them,
Enlil, lord of the lands,
will bring a foreign army against him to slaughter his army,
whose prince and chief officers will roam the streets like fighting cocks.
If he takes the silver of the sons of Babylon
and adds it to his own coffers,
or if he hears a lawsuit involving men of Babylon
but treats it frivolously,
Marduk, lord of heaven and earth, will set his foes upon him,
and he will give his property and wealth to his enemy.
If he imposes a fine on the sons of Nippur, Sippar, or Babylon,
or if he puts them in prison,
the city where the fine was imposed will be completely overturned
and a foreign enemy will make his way into their prison.
If he mobilized the whole of Sippar, Nippur, and Babylon,
and imposed forced labor on the people,
exacting from them corvée at the herald's proclamation,
Marduk, prince of the gods, the prince, the councilor,
will turn his land over to his enemy
so that the troops of his land will do forced labor for his enemy,
for Anu, Enlil, and Ea, the great gods, who dwell in heaven and earth,
in their assembly affirmed the freedom
of those people from those obligations.4
Because of the survival of cuneiform clay tablets much is known of Babylonian business transactions during this period. Citizens of these cities, who were exempt from military conscription and corvée, met in assemblies, but after attainment of the empire royal power dominated the assemblies. Nabonidus may have done much to stop judges from taking bribes and not defending the poor, robbing of the weak, usury, violence, and even the taking of fields. These assemblies often settled minor civil and criminal cases. In 594 BC the Borsippa assembly executed and confiscated the property of a general for plotting against Nebuchadrezzar. The local governor usually presided over the assembly. Only free men were in the assemblies that excluded foreigners as well as slaves and women, though poor artisans were included.
Many aliens lived in Babylonia, intermarrying and being assimilated or forming their own self-governing communities. There were Elamites, Persians, Medes, Cilicians, Jews, Ionians, and most numerous of all, Egyptians. Conflicts over ethnicity or religious differences were not apparent. Most aliens worshiped their own gods and the Babylonian gods as well with the notable exception of the Jews.
The King appointed judges to administer the laws. Polygamy was rare, and the husband had to pay the first wife compensation unless she was childless. Women could engage in contracts and own property, though they were rarely witnesses to contracts. Seals or thumbnail impressions were used as signatures. Loans were secured with either fields, houses, slaves, children, cattle, money, or other possessions; these might be exploited in place of interest, which was usually 20% annually. A debtor might have to work off the debt but could not be made a slave, though his children could. This desperate measure rarely occurred except during starvation due to famine, a long siege, or a devastating war. The time limit for slavery in Hammurabi's code had been abolished. These laws were still copied though, and the thirty-fold payment for stolen temple and palace property was still in effect.
The state got revenue from taxes, and the temples received tithes, which averaged about ten percent of income. The Eanna temple of Uruk owned more than 5,000 cattle and over a 100,000 sheep. Those who could not pay the tithe might borrow it or even give their children to the temple as slaves. Scribes served not only government administration but as business accountants as well. In 553 BC Nabonidus appointed a royal commissioner in the Eanna temple to make sure that the state got its taxes from the temple. Temples also had to provide services to the palace, and the King began to regulate temple rations to slaves, salaries, and rental rates. Such policies may have induced the priests to prefer Cyrus to their own king.
Barley and dates were the largest crops, and people were often paid in these. The state owned and controlled the canals used for irrigation. The owner of the land usually received one-third of the crop, leaving two-thirds for the lessee. Most craftsmen worked for the temples or the wealthy, who could afford to train slaves. Most farmers worked on land belonging to the state, temples, or the wealthy.
The King usually gave prisoners of war over to the temples to be used as slaves. However, the 10,000 Jews and their women and children that were deported in 597 BC were not enslaved but settled near Nippur to work land that had been neglected. There was a limit to how many slaves could be absorbed into the economy effectively. Slaves could earn and own property including even other slaves, but they could not buy their own freedom. Only their master could free them, and successful slaves were usually kept. The wages of the slave went to the master, removing the incentive the free worker had to work hard, thus making slavery less productive.
Babylon was the busiest center of trade at this time connecting Egypt, Phoenicia, and Syria to Cyprus, Asia Minor, and Elam. Weighed silver was the primary currency as there were no minted coins. In the sixth century BC while most people were suffering hardship, powerful capitalists arose, particularly the Egibi family in Babylon, with fortunes in real estate, slaves, money-lending, commerce, agriculture, and banking. These inequities were probably factors in Babylon's loss of political autonomy.
Persian Empire to 500 BC
Zarathushtra
Zarathushtra is said to have lived 258 years before Alexander. Since Alexander had taken over the Persian empire by 330 BC when Darius III died, and as Zarathushtra was about forty years old when he converted King Vishtapa and lived to be 77, the approximate dates of his life are 628-551 BC. Other traditions hold that he was born long before that, and some scholars believe he lived between 1400 and 1200 BC. It is also possible that there could have been more than one Zarathushtra. Little is known about the life of Zarathushtra, who was called Zoroaster by the Greeks, but his influence on Iranian religion was very great. The name Zarathushtra has been translated as "he of the golden Light," and legend indicates that as a child he glowed with radiant light.The Aryans, who settled in Iran and those who invaded India, shared a common religion originally, as indicated by a Mitannian treaty with Hittites from the 14th century BC which acknowledged the Vedic gods Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and the two Nasatyas. The names Mitra and Varuna were often linked together in the Hindu Vedas as a dual compound. The Iranian god Ahura shared the characteristics of the early Varuna, and Zarathushtra added the attribute of wisdom (Mazda) and declared that the one true God is Ahura Mazda. Apparently when the split occurred between the Hindus and the Iranians, they eventually demonized some of each other gods and spirits. The divinities the Hindus call devas became evil spirits or devils to the Iranians and Zarathushtra, while the Hindus called evil spirits asuras.
According to tradition Zarathushtra was born smiling or laughing as the third of five sons in the Spitama family in the pastoral Median town of Rhages near what is now Tehran. He was initiated into the priesthood at age fifteen. He left home on a spiritual quest when he was twenty and at thirty recognized the Wise Lord (Mazda Ahura) when Good Thought (Vohu Manah) came to him and asked him who he was. Zarathushtra declared that he was a foe to the Liar and a supporter of what is right. Zarathushtra criticized aggressive violators of order as followers of the Lie, and his teachings were opposed by the religious authorities. Zarathushtra was tempted to give up his new faith but continued on with great determination. For ten years he wandered around with very few followers.
Traveling east as he preached, Zarathushtra struggled for two years to convert a Chorasmian prince named Vishtapa. Opposed by greedy Karpan priests and critical of their corruption, intoxicated orgies, and animal sacrifices, Zarathushtra was put in prison until he was aided by Vishtapa's consort Hutaosa; then Vishtapa accepted the new faith and promoted it actively. The court of Vishtapa was drawn into the religion, Zarathushtra marrying a daughter of one of the nobles whose brother married Zarathushtra's daughter by his first wife. The new religion was promulgated so actively that two holy wars were fought in its defense, and in the second one Zarathushtra was killed at the age of 77 while attending a fire ceremony.
The teachings of Zarathushtra were passed down through the ancient poetry of the Gathas. Zarathushtra declared that there is one God, the Wise Lord he called Ahura Mazda, transforming the polytheism of the Aryan religion into monotheism. This God he identified as the creator and governor of the universe through the Holy Spirit. The most important characteristic of God is Asha, which means truth or what is right (justice, law). This God is profoundly ethical, rewarding the thoughts, words, and actions of the good, and bringing recompense to those of the evil. All spirits and beings are free to choose between the good and evil. The twenty names Zarathushtra gave to God are I am, Giver of Herds, Strong One, Perfect Holiness, All-Good, Understanding, Having Understanding, Knowledge, Having Knowledge, Blessing, Causing Blessing, Lord, Most Beneficent, Not Harming, Unconquerable, Truthful, All-Seeing, Healing, Creator, and Wise (or Omniscient).
Zarathushtra taught that God has seven major attributes. Spenta Mainyu is the Holy Spirit through which everything is created. God communicated to Zarathushtra through the Vohu Manah or Good Mind. Asha Vahishta means best order or justice. The Khshathra Vairya, which obviously has the same etymology as the Kshatriya or ruling caste of India, means Absolute Power, Desirable Dominion, and the Ultimate Paradise to be established on Earth in the end time which came to be called the kingdom or sovereignty of heaven by Jesus. Yasna 41:2 states, "May we be granted thy good government (khshathra) for ever and ever, O Wise Lord. May a good governor, whether it be a man or a woman, rule over us in the two worlds."5 The two worlds refer to the spiritual and material worlds. Armaiti means Devotion and Piety and came to be associated with the sustaining nurturing of Mother Earth. Haurvatat is Wholeness, Health, and Perfection. The seventh attribute Ameretat is Immortality.
Because God allows free choice, some spirits, who were originally created by the one God, chose badly and became Druj or the spirit of Deceit that can lead people astray. All thoughts, words, and actions have their consequences for good or bad. The Yazata or Adorable Ones give rewards to the good. The Guardian Spirit of humanity is called Sraosha, who along with Mithra and Rashnu, judges the souls after death. Sraosha also has a sister called Ashi Vanguhi, which means Holy Blessing or Good Reward of Deeds. She also protects married life and guards the chastity of women while abhorring the unfaithful wife. Mithra listens to appeals and represents contracts. He and Rashnu represent truth and light, and the sin of deceiving Mithra can even affect one's family.
For Zarathushtra fire was a symbol of the divine flame and pure truth that glows in the heart of every being. Xerxes, who found an ever-burning lamp in the temple of Athere Polias at Delos, spared the sanctuary out of respect for Zarathushtran fire worship. The Holy Spirit is the highest next to God, but it is opposed by the Evil Spirit and its offspring, the daevas, providing a constant challenge for humans to choose wisely. The human soul (urvan) and spirit (fravashi) use the faculties of knowing energy (khratu), wisdom and consideration (chisti), intelligence and perception (ushi), mind (manas), consciousness and memory (bodha), practical conscience (ahu), free will (kama), speech (vachas), and action (shyaothna) as well as the instrument of the living body (tanu). Above all these is daena, the gift of vision or revealed religion.
In addition to the strong mandates to tell the truth and be just, Zarathushtra also taught practical things like tilling the soil, raising grain, growing fruits, rooting out weeds, reclaiming wasteland, irrigating barren ground, and treating animals kindly, especially cows who serve farmers. He severely castigated the Turanian nomads, who after killing cattle as sacrifices went out on violent raids, destroying fields and produce.
After death the soul comes to the Bridge of the Separator, and all one's actions, words, and thoughts are evaluated in terms of good and evil. The good are able to cross the bridge into the heavenly world, but the bad fall down below. However, Gatha 49:11 makes it clear that Zarathushtra originally taught that such souls come back to Earth by reincarnation, though this concept was later dropped from the religion.
But among evil rulers, evil doers, evil speakers,This makes sense because Zarathushtra taught that eventually all souls will be purified and brought out of hell when the world enters a new cycle free of all evil and misery, ever young and rejoicing with all souls, enjoying ineffable bliss and glory. This is also referred to as the Resurrection(Ristakhez), another idea that greatly influenced Judeo-Christian religion. The essence of the teachings of Zarathushtra can ultimately be summed up in three words, "BE LIKE GOD."
among evil egos, evil thinkers, and followers of Untruth,
Souls do come back by reason of dim insight;
truly they are dwellers in the Abode of Untruth.6
Through missionaries the religion of Zarathushtra spread rapidly throughout the Persian empire. Darius I showed in his own proclamations that survived in inscriptions how much he was influenced by Zarathushtra's emphasis on truth and justice. At Behistun Darius declared that Ahura Mazda helped him because he was not disloyal and did not follow the Lie. He did not do wrong but walked in justice. He wronged neither the weak nor the powerful. He was warned not to befriend those who do wrong but punish them. In the Naqshi-i Rustama inscription Darius praised Ahura Mazda, who created the Earth, sky, humans, human happiness, and who bestowed wisdom on him. He declared that the weak should not have wrong done to them by the powerful nor the reverse. He claimed that he controlled his anger by his thinking power. Darius also wrote that he rewards those who cooperate and punishes those who do harm according to the damage they have done.
Persian Empire to 500 BC
The civilization on the Iranian plateau is very ancient; copper was smelted there about 5500 BC, and Elam in the lowlands lagged only slightly behind Sumer in the development of hieroglyphic writing 5,000 years ago. However, the Elamites adopted the written language of Akkadian as the most universal language of the area for two millennia. An overlord in Susa ruled over vassal princes. The oldest written document of a treaty found so far was between the Akkadian Naram-Sin and an Elamite king about 43 centuries ago. Much of what is known about Elamite civilization comes to us from Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian records. The cities of Susa and Anshan were important links for trade and communication between Mesopotamia and the Harrapan culture of the Indus valley. Elam overthrew the Third dynasty of Ur in the 21st century BC; three centuries later they were conquered by Babylon's Hammurabi, but they were able to defeat his son.In the 17th century BC when the Kassites began to take over Babylon, they also dominated Elam. Aryans came through Iran on their way to India bringing Indo-Iranian languages in the first half of the second millennium BC. Elam clashed with Assyria in the thirteenth century BC but reached its height of power in the twelfth century BC when Shutruk-nahhunte I overthrew the Kassites in Babylon, and his son took the statue of Marduk to Susa. King Shilkhak-Inshushinak invaded Assyria as far as Ashur and besieged Babylon, establishing a brief Elamite empire, which used the proto-Elamite script in its inscriptions. However, before the twelfth century was over, Babylon's Nebuchadrezzar I defeated the Elamites and took Marduk's statue back. For the next three centuries little is known of Elamite culture. Assyrian military campaigns against Elam in the eighth century BC increased in the seventh century, climaxing in 639 BC when Ashurbanipal's armies destroyed Susa and sowed the land with salt. Elam continued to exist for another century but never rose to power again.
The name Iran derives from the word "Aryan," and in the first half of the first millennium BC Iranian-speaking peoples moved gradually into the area of the Zagros mountains, the largest groups being the Medes and the Persians. More effective use of iron tools and irrigation from the ninth to the seventh centuries BC enabled the Iranians to farm more successfully and increase population in the plains. The Aryans brought horses and chariots, and their use of cavalry stimulated the Assyrians to do the same. The Assyrian King Tiglath-pileser III conquered and deported 65,000 Medes, replacing them on the plateau with Aramaeans. Urartu led by its King Rusas I tried to fight back against the Assyrians, and the semi-legendary first king of the Medes, Daiukku, was said to have united dozens of tribal chiefs to join the effort. According to Herodotus Daiukku had been made king because of his reputation for making fair judgments. Assyria's Sargon II defeated dozens of Median chiefs and settled 30,000 captured Israelis in the towns of the Medes in the late eighth century BC. From the northwest came Scythians and Cimmerians, who devastated Urartu so badly that Rusas committed suicide.
While Assyrian King Sennacherib was busy fighting Babylon, Elam, Egypt, and Judea, the Medes rallied around Khshathrita (called Phraortes by Herodotus), the son of Daiukku. With Cimmerians as allies and Persians as vassals they attacked Nineveh in 653 BC but were defeated; Khshathrita was killed. The Scythians took advantage of this opportunity by invading and subjugating the Medes for 28 years. Herodotus told how the next Median king Cyaxares killed the drunken Scythian chieftains at a banquet and went on to recover Median power. The prophet Nahum indicated that the growing hatred of the Assyrian nobility, priests, military, administrators, and merchants was going to bring about the downfall of that empire. Adopting the specialized military units that had been used by the Urartians and Assyrians for more than a century, the Medes marched west and took Arrapkha in 615 BC, surrounded Nineveh the next year, and then went on to take Ashur by storm. Nineveh fell in 612 BC with help from the Babylonians. The Assyrian empire was divided between the Medes and the Babylonians.
Babylon ruled over the fertile crescent while Media controlled the north and east. The Medes came into conflict with Lydia, the major power in Asia Minor, and fought with them for five years before an eclipse of the sun stimulated them to agree to a truce mediated by Babylonians in 585 BC. That same year Astyages succeeded as Median King and ruled for 35 years. Perhaps influenced by Zarathushtra, Astyages was reluctant to engage in continual conquest and thus alienated the ambitious aristocracy. A plot of the nobles was organized by Hypargus, and border tribes were incited to rebel by Oebares and others. After Persian King Cyrus II revolted, Babylonian King Nabonidus took back Harran in 553 BC while the Medes were defeating Cyrus, who was forced to retreat. Faced with the Persian revolt and the betrayal of the aristocracy, Astyages was captured; the royal city of Ecbatana had to submit to Cyrus, according to Ctesias because Cyrus threatened to torture his daughter Amytis, whom Cyrus later married.
Cyrus II inherited a Persian kingdom in the Median empire from his father Cambyses I in 559 BC. The mother of Cyrus was a daughter of the Median King Astyages. Herodotus, who delighted in relating stories of how oracles and dreams unexpectedly came true, wrote that because of a dream Astyages tried to have Cyrus murdered when he was a baby; but Hypargus did not want to kill him and left it to another who saved the child. When the boy was found to be acting like a king, he was discovered and returned to his true mother and father. This ironic story may have been fabricated to justify Cyrus for overthrowing his grandfather.
As a vassal king in Anshan, Cyrus ruled from his capital at Parsagarda and united seven Persian princes into a royal council under his leadership. Cyrus initiated diplomatic relations with Babylon’ King Nabonidus and was able to win over Hypargus and much of the Median aristocracy when he revolted against Astyages and took over the Median empire in 550 BC. Cyrus bypassed the fortresses of Babylon and marched north to capture the Assyrian cities of Arbela and Ashur, whose gods' statues had been taken to Babylon. Harran, the city sacred to Nabonidus, must also have fallen as Cyrus proceeded on to invade Cilicia, Cappadocia, and Armenia. In each of these cases Cyrus allowed native kings to retain power under his rule as he established satrapies.
Croesus, who held the regional power as king of Lydia, formed an alliance with Egypt's Amasis, Babylon's Nabonidus, and the Spartans who wanted to defend the Greek city states in Asia. Believing the Delphic oracle, which declared he would destroy a great empire, Croesus refused to be a king under Persian sovereignty. Croesus crossed the Halys River, which divided the empires, and began to devastate the Syrian lands in Cappadocia and enslave the inhabitants not driven out. The Median general Hypargus suggested placing camels in the front line which intimidated the Lydians' horses and enabled the Persians to win a victory and take Sardis after a two-week siege. Herodotus told how Croesus was saved from being burned to death by rain and a reprieve from Cyrus. The great empire Croesus destroyed was his own Lydian empire. Croesus blamed Apollo for his defeat, saying, "No one is fool enough to choose war instead of peace—in peace sons bury fathers, but in war fathers bury sons."7 Yet he had chosen war.
Since Miletus was the only Greek city state to surrender, the others were conquered by the Persian army led by Hypargus; then the islanders surrendered. Cyrus once again was able to use local disaffection for another easy victory over a Mesopotamian power, this time Babylon, winning over their general Gobryas, who took Uruk in 546 and Babylon in 539 BC, becoming satrap of the new province of Babirush. Nabonidus was severely criticized by Persian propaganda. The Akkadian gods were returned to their temples as Cyrus tried to legitimize his taking the kingship of Babylon. Business went on without much change under Persian rule, but the Jews were allowed to return to their homeland under generous conditions that allowed them to take the precious utensils that had been stolen from their temple a half century before by the Babylonians. Cyrus had been heralded as the Lord's anointed by Jewish prophets.
Cyrus also expanded the Persian empire greatly in the east to the edge of India; but if he was influenced by the new religion of Zarathushtra, it did not quell his desire for imperial conquest. Near the Jaxartes River he ran into the Massagetae led by Queen Tomyris, who sent him the following message:
King of the Medes, I advise you to abandon this enterprise,In 529 BC a bloody battle was fought, destroying most of the Persian army and killing Cyrus.
for you cannot know if in the end it will do you any good.
Rule your own people, and try to bear the sight of me ruling mine.
But of course you will refuse my advice;
as the last thing you wish for is to live in peace.8
Eight years before his death Cyrus had made his son Cambyses King of Babylon while a second son Bardiya administered the eastern provinces. When Cambyses II succeeded his father, he had his brother Bardiya secretly assassinated and then invaded Egypt. With the advice of a defecting Greek general, Cambyses was able to get Bedouin help in crossing the desert. In a battle in which Greek mercenaries fought on both sides the Egyptian forces of Psamtik III fled to Memphis, which then fell to the Persians. From Egypt Cambyses tried to attack Carthage, but his Phoenician allies refused to fight against their own colony. According to Herodotus a venture against a Libyan oasis failed because of a sandstorm. Cambyses did manage to invade Nubia, but the Persians suffered great losses on their return. Greek accounts of Cambyses’s atrocities in Egypt probably reflect Egyptian resentment for the Persian domination they suffered until 402 BC. In 522 BC a man saying he was Bardiya rose up and tried to rule in Persia; Cambyses headed home but died on the way.
Darius, a prince and governor of Parthia who had commanded the ten thousand immortals against Egypt, led a group of seven Persian nobles, maintained control of the army, and put down the revolt, killing the false Bardiya two months after the death of Cambyses, though it took two years to put down the various revolts in the empire. Darius sent forces led by Otanes to help Syloson, the exiled brother of Polycrates, to retake the island of Samos. He appointed Zerubbabel governor of Judah, and when the order of Cyrus to restore the temple was discovered, Darius supported that project. In 519 BC Darius himself crossed the Caspian Sea and led the invasion of the eastern Scythians, and the following winter he marched to Egypt, where he sought wise men and reinstated the former Egyptian laws. He also ordered the digging of a canal 150 feet wide from the Nile River to the Gulf of Suez.
After seizing a great empire, Darius endeavored to judge it by establishing laws. The empire was divided into twenty provinces, each ruled by a Persian satrap and a commander-in-chief. The Persians were exempted from taxation, and India's gold provided nearly a third of the total annual tribute valued at 14,500 talents of silver. Inspectors called "the ears of the king" kept him informed and had their own armed forces. The laws were intended to keep the stronger from destroying the weak. Judges were appointed for life unless they were removed for miscarriage of justice. Darius claimed that he loved what is right and hated lies and what is wrong, that he was not angry but restrained those who were angry. Those who injured he punished. Those who did not speak the truth he did not trust, believing that anyone who lies destroys. He even withdrew a death sentence when he realized that he had violated his own law not to execute anyone for only one crime; but in weighing the man's services against his crime he ended up making him a governor. However, the death penalty was used for offenses against the state or the royal family, and mutilation was common for lesser crimes.
Darius encouraged trade and economic development in a number of ways. He standardized weights and measures and coinage on a bimetallic system of gold and silver that had been introduced by Croesus in Lydia. Darius created a network of roads including a royal highway from Susa to Sardis in Lydia. He commended the satrap of Asia Minor and Syria for transplanting fruit trees from beyond the Euphrates. Sesame spread to Egypt, and rice was planted in Mesopotamia. Generally large estates were worked by serfs and war-captured slaves who belonged to the land. Industry not only produced luxury goods made from precious metals, but also trade of useful tools, household products, and inexpensive clothing raised the living standards of many people. However, the empire did have to be supported, and there were taxes on ports, internal trade, and sales as well as on estates, fields, gardens, flocks, and mines. The wages of skilled workers, laborers, and even women and children were strictly regulated.
The Indus valley had been subdued and made into the satrapy of Hindush by 513 BC when Darius crossed the Bosphorus and led an attack against the European Scythians. With the vassal help of hundreds of Greek ships the Persians defeated the Getae and got the Thracians to submit. However, the Scythians destroyed their own land and while retreating harassed the Persian army with arrows from horsemen. King Darius fled back to Asia but left behind 800,000 soldiers led by Megabazus, satrap of Dascyleium, to continue the fighting. The next year Libya was conquered after a nine-month siege of Barca while Megabazus was taking the towns of Thrace one by one and deporting their warriors to Phrygia. Envoys demanded of Macedonia's Amyntas earth and water, the sign of submission, and he complied. Darius appointed his brother Artaphrenes satrap in Sardis to oversee the Greek cities of Ionia, and he replaced Megabazus with Otanes, who controlled the grain trade through the straits, cutting off the Scythians from Greek art treasures, Milesian business, and threatening the food supply of the European Greeks. Megabazus strengthened this blockade by capturing the islands of Lemnos and Imbros.
Persian-Greek Wars 500-404 BC
Neo-Babylonian Empire
In 500 BC the Greek Ionian cities revolted and burned Sardis. The war went on sporadically until the Persians defeated the Greek fleet off Miletus in 494 BC. Most of the men in Miletus were killed, and the women and children were enslaved. The next spring Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos were taken along with mainland cities. Handsome boys were made eunuchs, and beautiful girls were put in the royal harem. Cities and temples were burned. Only the historian Hecataeus, who had opposed the revolt, was spared. The Ionian cities that had been allowed local autonomy before were now brought under imperial administration. Private wars between cities were no longer allowed but were arbitrated. A census was taken, and the taxation imposed on the weakened cities was burdensome. Darius appointed his son-in-law Mardonius, who according to Herodotus, ejected irresponsible despots from Ionian cities and set up democracies. The Persians took gold-rich Thasos even though it had not been hostile, after which much of the Persian fleet and over 20,000 men were destroyed by a storm off Athos. At the same time a Thracian tribe of Brygi inflicted heavy losses on the Persian army on land while wounding Mardonius, who eventually subdued them before retreating to Asia.In 490 BC Darius sent envoys to Greek cities demanding the earth and water of submission. The trading island of Aegina cooperated, but Sparta and Athens were determined to resist. The Persian attack was led by Datis. When the people of Naxos fled to the interior, the city was burned. Eretrians were divided but decided only to defend themselves, not to attack. After the Persians had assaulted Eretria for six days, two democrats betrayed the city, hoping their party would gain power; but the Persians made the moral mistake of destroying the temples and enslaving the people. This stimulated the Athenians to attack the Persians on the plain of Marathon, defeating them so badly that the Persians fled for home.
In Egypt, where graft had been rampant, Darius instituted a new code of laws. Suffering under a heavy Persian garrison and severe taxes, Egyptians complained that the great building projects in Persepolis, Susa, and Ecbatana had been financed by Egyptian wealth. The Egyptian satrap Aryandes was executed for violating Persian coining laws, probably for melting down royal coins with the King's image and selling the bullion at an enormous profit, which was considered treason. Upset by the heavy taxation imposed to raise money for the war against Greece, in 486 BC a revolt erupted in Egypt and was soon followed by the death of Darius.
His oldest son by Queen Atossa, Xerxes, who had been administering Babylon as viceroy for twelve years, became king of the Persians and the Medes and spent his first royal year putting down the Egyptian revolt. Xerxes inflicted more severe treatment than his predecessors had there and also in Babylon after their satrap Zopyrus was killed in a revolt in 482 BC that was ruthlessly defeated. Not only were the Babylonian fortifications demolished and the temples destroyed, but the great, solid-gold statue of Marduk was removed and melted down. No longer could anyone take the hand of Bel to show their divine-approved rulership at the Babylonian New Year's festival. Babylon was incorporated into the Assyrian satrapy, which had to provide a thousand talents of silver and 500 boys for eunuchs. Even the name Babylonian was banned, and after this time they were known as Chaldeans.
Urged on by the war party led by Mardonius, Xerxes amassed a huge army formed from 46 nations and commanded by 29 Persian generals to launch an attack against Greece. Gold raiment marked the 10,000 immortals, elite Persian and Median soldiers allowed to bring their concubines and servants on the march. The navy of 1,200 ships was mostly furnished by the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Anatolians, and by Dorian, Aeolian, and Ionian Greeks. Half of the Persian imperial army was used—about 180,000 men. So confident were they that when they caught three men in Sardis spying for the Greek allies, they showed them the vast army and let them go make their report.
However, the Persians suffered losses when they met determined resistance from 300 Spartans at the Thermopylae pass, though eventually the Spartans were killed. The Thebans surrendered and were branded. The army of Xerxes then burned deserted Plataea and Thespiae before entering Athens and burning the acropolis. In the major naval battle at Salamis the imperial navy lost 200 ships, the Greek allies only 40. Xerxes reacted by executing the Phoenician captains, causing the Phoenicians and Egyptians to go home. Xerxes then went back to Sardis, leaving Mardonius in command. At Plataea both armies had been promised victory by seers if they stayed on the defensive. Mardonius refused to retire and use bribery. When the allies were withdrawing, which might have broken up the coalition, the Persians attacked, causing the desperate Greeks to fight. Mardonius himself entered the battle and was slain along with his guard of a thousand Persians. This and news of the Persian defeat at the island of Mycale caused the imperial army to withdraw from Europe.
Xerxes retired to his harem and used bribery and diplomacy to try to win over the Greeks, who formed the Delian league led by Athens which attacked Thrace in 476 BC, driving Persian imperialism out of Europe except at Doriscus. Xerxes in his romantic affairs aroused the jealousy of the Queen, who at the New Year's feast requested the woman be mutilated. The victim's family fled and was going to raise a revolt, but they were overtaken and killed. Another Achaemenid prince violated a virgin from a prominent family and was ordered to circumnavigate Africa; but when he returned without matching the Phoenician feat, he was impaled. In 466 BC two hundred Greek ships invaded Caria and shot arrows into besieged Phasaelis, persuading them to pay ten talents and join the war to liberate Greek cities. Xerxes sent a navy, but eighty ships were delayed at Cyprus and captured after the battle at the Eurymedon. The Persian threat against Europe had been replaced by Greek influence in Asia Minor.
In 465 BC Xerxes was assassinated in the royal bedchamber by a conspiracy led by Artabanus, Megabyzus, and the eunuch chamberlain Aspamitres. Artabanus was able to persuade 18-year-old Artaxerxes that his older brother Darius, who hated Xerxes for seducing his wife, had killed their father, causing Artaxerxes to murder his brother Darius. When Artabanus tried to get rid of Artaxerxes, he was betrayed by Megabyzus and killed after wounding the young King. The eunuch Aspamitres was tortured to death. Hystaspis, another brother of the new King, revolted in Bactria and was defeated by Artaxerxes, who then made sure that all his brothers were killed. Artaxerxes ruled the Persian empire for forty years, collecting annual taxes that totaled about 10,000 talents plus nearly half as much again from India. Little value from this ever went back to the satrapies that provided it except in payment to imperial soldiers from their countries. Taxes were so heavy that many had to borrow money at 40% interest until they were ruined and lost their land to the original owners, who were also being taxed. Many revolts resulted from this oppression.
In Egypt Inaros, a son of Psamtik of the Saite line, drove out the tax collectors and requested aid from Athens in 460 BC. The satrap Achaemenes was killed, and most of Memphis was taken. While this revolt continued, Ezra was given permission by Artaxerxes to take the written law of the Jews from Babylon to Jerusalem. Persian money aided Sparta in defeating Athens at Tanagra in 457 BC, and a pacified Judah allowed safe passage of the Persian army led by Syrian satrap Megabyzus on its way to Egypt, where it drove the Athenians out of Memphis, capturing 6,000 Greeks. Inaros and the Greeks were taken to Persia, and several years later the Queen ordered him and fifty Greeks executed. Some Greeks were still holding out in the Nile Delta when Cimon of Athens attacked Cyprus with 200 ships, but the Persians successfully resisted this and the ships that were sent to Egypt.
In 449 BC a peace treaty was made between Athens and Persia which confirmed what had been the situation before the long war. Persia acknowledged the autonomy of the Greek cities in Asia while the Athenians renounced attempts to liberate others there as long as the Persian King would recognize the autonomy of his vassal Greek cities and their low tribute amount from before the war. A demilitarized zone was proclaimed around the borders between the two empires. Athens also agreed not to support rebellions in Egypt and Libya. However, when the Queen had the Greeks and Inaros executed, Megabyzus, upset that his pledge had been violated, revolted in Syria. After redeeming his honor in two victories against the empire, Megabyzus agreed to return to loyalty provided he remain satrap. This Syrian revolt may have stimulated rebellious feelings in Jerusalem, where the walls were being rebuilt. Artaxerxes ordered this building stopped and the work destroyed; but later his cupbearer Nehemiah with the help of wine persuaded the King to allow him to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the city, and Nehemiah was even given an armed guard for his journey.
Herodotus recited his History in Athens in 445 BC, as Pericles made a thirty years' peace with Sparta and moved toward challenging the Persian empire by accepting a large present of gold and grain from Libyan rebel Psamtik and establishing tribute districts from cities in Caria, Ionia, Hellespont, and the islands. When democratic Miletus appealed to Athens after having been defeated by oligarchic Samos, Pericles in 441 BC sent an expedition to re-establish the democracy. The oligarchs driven out turned to Pissouthnes, the satrap of Sardis, who allowed 700 mercenaries to be hired to recover the island and capture the Greek garrison for the satrap. Samos, however, was taken over by the Athenians when Phoenician ships failed to defend it. Thus the peace treaty was broken. Persia regained some cities, and Pericles countered with imperial gains in the Black Sea area.
Megabyzus, who on a hunt had saved Artaxerxes from a charging lion, was exiled for killing an animal before his master; his son Zopyrus, aided by Athenians, assaulted Caunus and was killed. Megabyzus eventually was invited back to the King's table; but when he died, his wife Amytis, the King's sister, became the mistress of a Greek physician, who, when it was discovered, was buried alive for polluting the royal blood, Amytis dying the same day.
Jews complained of the Persian taxes, but Nehemiah, who as governor was supported by the imperial bureaucracy, blamed the rich Jews and said he loaned money without interest. Nehemiah's criticism of the wealthy probably led to his recall by Artaxerxes in 433 BC, but he returned to Jerusalem again to institute reforms such as forbidding commerce on the Sabbath. Meanwhile a plague spread from Ethiopia through Egypt and into Athens and the Persian empire that further oppressed the overtaxed. The Persian court sent the great beauty Thargelia and courtesans to gather information from lusty Athenian statesmen.
When Artaxerxes and his Queen died on the same day in 424 BC, Xerxes II became King but was killed a month and a half later while sleeping after heavy drinking at a festival. Secydianus, the assassin, was a son of Artaxerxes by a Babylonian concubine; but he was replaced by a different Babylonian concubine's son, who raised an army in Babylon and declared himself Darius II, promising Secydianus half the kingdom but half a year later causing his death; other conspirators in the assassination of the King were put to death or committed suicide. His sister and wife Parysatis became an influential queen especially on behalf of Cyrus, who was the next son born to them. Darius II began by renewing the treaty with the Athenians, but continued imperial taxation caused more fields to go out of cultivation and only be used for grazing.
In 413 BC Pissouthnes in Sardis revolted; Persian forces led by Tissaphernes compelled him to surrender, and Darius II ordered him killed. When Darius' own son Amorges rebelled in Caria with Athenian aid, Darius decided to help the Spartans fight the Athenians. Governing Sardis now, Tissaphernes started collecting taxes from the Greek cities and offered to support Spartan troops in Asia. Clazomenae, Teos, Lebedos, Ephesus, Phocaea, and Cyrene accepted Persian garrisons and paid their owed tribute. Persia signed a treaty with Sparta through Tissaphernes, agreeing to wage war together against Athens. However, in Sparta politicians refused to ratify a treaty that recognized Persian territory that had belonged to ancestors of the Persian King. When the Spartan ambassador Lichas demanded this change in 411 BC, Tissaphernes left in a rage. Meanwhile the Athenian Alcibiades, who had gone over to the Spartan side, persuaded Tissaphernes to delay most payments to the Spartans because a triumphant Sparta would challenge Persian imperialism. In a third treaty Sparta acknowledged Persian taxes in Asia while excluding them from Europe and the islands, and Tissaphernes agreed to pay for Spartan ships. Miletus and Cnidus reacted to this Spartan abandonment by driving the Persian garrisons out.
Darius II had to contend with a revolt by the Medes which he put down and palace intrigues that included a eunuch who tried to make himself king but failed. In Egypt a revolt was motivated by the desire to destroy the Jewish temple at Elephantine that was offensive because of its animal sacrifices. In 409 BC the Athenians invaded Asia and burned the grain in Lydia. The Queen got her 16-year-old son Cyrus appointed commander of the Persian forces in Asia Minor, and he began paying Sparta what had been promised; but he kept the Spartan general Callicratidas waiting two days while he drank. Cyrus also had two sons of the King's sister executed for showing their hands in his presence. Recalled to his ill father, Cyrus turned his money over to Lysander; this enabled the Spartans to win the battle at Aegospotami and cut off grain supplies from Russia, starving Athens into surrender in 404 BC.
Persian-Greek Wars 404-323 BC
By the time Darius II had died in 404 BC, Egypt had revolted and was lost to the Persian empire. Artaxerxes II began his rule by cruelly executing Udiastes for having assassinated Teriteuchmes. Cyrus was caught plotting to murder the new King at his coronation; but their mother pleaded for her favorite, and Cyrus was allowed to return to his satrapy. Cyrus was able to win over the Ionian cities abandoned by the Spartans except for Miletus, which was held by Tissaphernes after they banished their aristocrats. The exiles were received by Pharnabazus, giving Cyrus a reason to gather an army that included 13,000 Greek mercenaries to besiege Miletus. As Cyrus and his army headed east, the mercenaries demanded more money. At Cunaxa near Babylon Cyrus met the Persian army that might otherwise have been used to reconquer Egypt. Cyrus wounded Artaxerxes but was then killed. The next year the Queen-mother Parysatis poisoned Queen Stateira and was banished to her native Babylon, but later the forgiving Artaxerxes recalled his mother.Tissaphernes succeeded Cyrus as margrave of Anatolia, but ungrateful Sparta, roused by accounts of the ten thousand mercenaries' escape from Persia, sent Thibron to liberate Asian Greek cities. He incorporated into his army the mercenaries, who had made it to the Black Sea after their generals were killed. Accused of allowing his troops to plunder their allies, Thibron was replaced by Dercylidas, who made a truce with Tissaphernes and attacked Pharnabazus. He was supported by the Dardanian widow Mania and her Greek mercenaries until she was murdered by her son-in-law Meidias. He allied himself with Spartan Dercylidas and used Mania's treasure to pay 8,000 soldiers for a year. The Spartan army plundered Bithynia, and agreeing to another truce, Pharnabazus returned to the King to urge a naval war. Five hundred ships were to be built at Cyprus and put under the command of Athenian Admiral Conon and the satrap.
The Spartans marched into Caria, but Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus joined together to defend it and then attacked Ionia; then these two satraps and Dercylidas agreed to a truce for a year. In 396 BC Spartan King Agesilaus himself arrived, and after a three-month truce which enabled Tissaphernes to send for reinforcements, he was ordered to leave Asia. With Caria defended, Agesilaus invaded Phrygia and captured towns of Pharnabazus, whose attacks were avoided by using captives as screens. While Pharnabazus sent Persian money to stir up rebellion against Sparta in Europe, Agesilaus defeated Tissaphernes and captured their camels, the Greeks plundering much unprotected land. Forgiven and plotting once again, Parysatis arranged to have Tithraustes sent to murder Tissaphernes, which was accomplished by Ariaios and his men.
Since Agesilaus would not leave Asia without instructions from home, Tithraustes gave him 30 talents to invade Pharnabazus' satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia again. Pharnabazus reacted by confiscating the property of Tissaphernes and giving 220 talents to the Athenian Conon. Tithraustes provided another 700 talents to his generals Ariaios and Pasiphernes for diplomatic maneuvering. By these bribes and diplomatic machinations the Greek cities of Asia were garrisoned by Persian money. Conon had to fight off mercenaries at Cyprus and then went to the winter palace at Babylon to get funds from Artaxerxes II. After ravaging Phrygia, Agesilaus was recalled to Sparta; he said it was because of the King's ten thousand golden archers, by which he meant the gold coins used for diplomacy. Obviously we know more about this west side of the Persian empire and these long wars because of Greek sources; yet the lack of business documents in this period may be because of the devastation and looting in these wars which accomplished little except destruction.
In 394 BC the Persian navy, manned by Phoenicians and Greeks, defeated the Spartan navy off Cnidus. The old alliance of Persia and Athens established democracies in numerous Asian cities under the auspices of the Persian empire. Only Abydos and Sestos resisted. The Persians and Athenians even ravaged European Laconia and established a Persian garrison on the island of Cythera, threatening the Peloponnese. The allies at Corinth were given money, and the walls of Athens were rebuilt by Conon. However, the new satrap of Sardis from Armenia, Tiribazus, now feared the Athenian Empire and had Conon imprisoned and secretly gave money to Antalcidas to build up the Spartan navy. At a peace conference in Sparta, representatives of Athens, Thebes, Corinth, and Argos agreed on a treaty, but Athens rejected it by denouncing and banishing their delegates. At the same time Tiribazus was replaced by Struthas as satrap of Ionia, and he sided with Athens against Sparta. Thibron returned from Ephesus and resumed the war; but he was slain by Struthas at a discus game, and his army was devastated by the Persian cavalry. However, Thibron's successor Diphridas held some cities loyal to Sparta and got money for mercenaries by ransoming the daughter of Struthas and her husband Tigranes.
In all this confusion many rulers showed their independence by issuing coins, including Euagoras of Cyprus, Milkyaton of Citium, Hecatomnus of Caria, and Autophradates of Lycia. Autophradates and Hecatomnus were ordered to put down the rebellion of Euagoras while the Spartan governor of Abydos regained Aeolian cities from Pharnabazus. Athenians assisted Euagoras and replaced Milkyaton and his coins. Athens even allied itself with Egypt, stimulating Artaxerxes to change sides again and to replace both Autophradates and Struthas with the pro-Spartan Tiribazus. Sparta responded by sending Antalcidas from Ephesus to Susa to meet the King. Then Tiribazus and Antalcidas used Spartan and Syracusan fleets to destroy the Athenians guarding the Hellespont, threatening Athens with the same starvation that ended the Peloponnesian War seventeen years before. Delegates soon gathered at Sardis in 386 BC and agreed to the King's Peace named after Antalcidas in which Persia retained the cities in Asia and the islands of Clazomenae and Cyprus, except that Lemnos, Lesbos, and Scyros would belong to Athens as they had before. The Persian empire had lost Egypt, but they had retained Asia.
Imperial taxation was still oppressive, stimulating many revolts and uprisings by workers that were often put down by local tyrants while newly minted coins indicated a growing wealthy class and economic development. Barred by the peace treaty from helping Cyprus, Athenian mercenaries led by Chabrias went to defend Egypt, which thus was able to resist for three years and turn away the long delayed Persian invasion to regain Egypt while Euagoras of Cyprus allied himself with Egypt and invaded Cilicia and Phoenicia, capturing Tyre. The Persian army led by Aroandas (Orontes) regained Cilicia and invaded Cyprus to restore Milkyaton at Citium. With the help of pirates, Euagoras tried to cut off their food, causing a mutiny by the Ionian mercenaries which was put down; but after losing a naval battle Euagoras had to submit, asking to be treated as a king, which was denied in 380 BC, the same year Isocrates tried and failed to raise a crusade against the Persians at the Olympic games.
When Pharnabazus complained that Chabrias' mercenary activity in Egypt violated the treaty, Athens recalled him on pain of death. Though Tiribazus was winning over mercenaries with money, the rivalry of Aroandas caused Artaxerxes II to have Tiribazus arrested; but Aroandas had to accept the terms of Euagoras at Cyprus that Tiribazus had rejected. The Cadusian revolt was so nearby that Artaxerxes took the field himself; after much suffering, a peace was made, and the Persian King only escaped on foot. Out of this frustration Artaxerxes had several nobles executed for disloyalty. With Cyprus settled, Pharnabazus prepared to invade Egypt again and enlisted Athenian General Iphicrates to lead the Greek mercenaries. In Asia Bithynia was independent, and Hecatomnus passed on his rulership of Caria to his son Mausolus in 377 BC. Three years later Artaxerxes imposed another treaty on the Greeks and with the younger Dionysius of Syracuse.
By 373 BC Pharnabazus had gathered 300 triremes, 12,000 Greeks, and countless Persians and easterners to invade Egypt. They landed on the Delta; but unable to take Memphis, they had to retreat from the flooding Nile to Asia. In 371 BC Thebes won a big victory over Sparta at Leuctra and refused to accept the latest King's Peace. A year later Jason of Pherae, who united Thessaly and aimed at conquering Persia, was assassinated. The King's money was also used to contribute to the famed oracle at Delphi, but Thebes still refused to accept the imperial terms.
Within the Persian empire revolts led by Datames and Ariobarzanes were breaking out. Needing the loyalty of Carian satrap Mausolus, Artaxerxes II punished envoys who had complained about Mausolus. When Aroandas felt he had been demoted from Armenia to Mysia, he accepted the leadership of the coalition of revolting satraps. Ordered to send tribute, Mausolus merely collected more money for himself. Aroandas' presence in Syria stimulated more rebellions there and among Lycians, Pisidians, Pamphylians, and Cilicians; even Autophradates joined him, and Artabazus was imprisoned. The Persian empire had lost half its revenues.
Djedhor, the new king of Egypt in 361 BC, known to the Greeks as Tachos, seized on this opportunity, and with the help of rivals Agesilaus of Sparta and Chabrias of Athens he joined the revolted satraps and invaded Palestine and Phoenicia. However, his brother in Egypt used resentment against taxes to put forth as king of Egypt his son Nekht-har-hebi, who had joined the satrap revolt in Syria. All kinds of rebellions were breaking out, and Nekht-har-hebi was forced by the feudal chiefs to abandon Asian conquest and return to Egypt, where he was saved from a siege by Agesilaus; but when his uncle Tachos was captured by the Persian prince Ochus and died on his return to Egypt to be a vassal king for Artaxerxes, Nekht-har-hebi ended up ruling Egypt from 359 to 340 BC. All this enabled the army of Artaxerxes to slowly advance and cross the Euphrates, and Aroandes, abandoned by the Egyptians, returned to loyalty and surrendered the other rebels with him. Autophradates also freed Artabazus and came to terms with the empire. Then Aroandes and Artabazus fought the mercenaries, and Datames was eventually murdered at a conference of the revolting satraps by Mithridates, who had also betrayed his own father Ariobarzanes to crucifixion.
Darius, the oldest son of Artaxerxes II by Queen Stateira, was executed for plotting with fifty of the King's sons by concubines to kill their father. Ochus, the youngest son of the queen, persuaded his only other brother of the queen to take poison, because he thought his father was angry at him. Arsames, another son, beloved by Artaxerxes for his wisdom, was also murdered, and the King soon died of grief in 359 BC after ruling the Persian empire for 45 years. Ochus became Artaxerxes III and ruthlessly had his relatives killed regardless of age or sex. He ordered the satraps in Asia Minor to get rid of their mercenaries, causing Artabazus to revolt and appeal to Athens when an army of 20,000 was raised against him in Phrygia. In 356 BC Mausolus organized a confederacy with Rhodes, Chios, Cos, Erythrae, and Byzantium, his coins showing himself as a Heraclean leader. Artabazus got 5,000 mercenaries from Thebes, but sensing treachery from agents bribed by the King, he fled to Philip in Macedonia. Aroandes, who had joined his revolt, held out for a while in Lydia but eventually came to terms again. Mausolus, whose magnificent funeral sculptures in Halicarnassus his wealth financed, coined the word "mausoleum" and died in 353 BC.
Ochus spent a year campaigning in Egypt, but once again the Persian army had to retire in 350 BC. However, seven years later as the captives taken at Sidon entered Babylon and Susa, Egypt finally fell to the Persian reconquest that was supported by 10,000 Greek mercenaries. Nekht-har-hebi retreated to Ethiopia and claimed to rule from there. The Greeks and Persians fought over the spoils, and Ochus carried off the leading Egyptians to Persia.
In 338 BC while Philip of Macedonia was on his way to defeating the Athenians and Thebans at Charoneia, Ochus was poisoned by his physician by order of the eunuch Bagoas. Arses, the son of Ochus, became king and refused to pay reparations to Philip for Persia's having helped Perinthus. So Philip led a Greek crusade to liberate all the Greek cities under Persian domination. Arses tried to poison Bagoas but was poisoned himself, and all his children were killed. Bagoas found a 45-year-old Achaemenid noble remaining he made Darius III but, trying to poison him too, had at last to drink his own brew.
Philip's assassination was blamed on the King of Persia by his son Alexander. Macedonian troops already in Asia were defeated by the Persian fleet at Magnesia, and Darius III was able to put down a revolt in Egypt. In 334 BC Alexander's army crossed the Hellespont into Asia at the same place Xerxes' army had come the other way 146 years before. The Greeks won a narrow victory over the Persian army at Granicus. Persians who surrendered were sent home, but Alexander had most of the captured Greek mercenaries slaughtered, sending the rest to Macedonia as slaves. Halicarnassus was burned during a siege. Alexander replaced the Persian satrap, general, and treasurer of each conquered province with Macedonians. At Issus the Greeks met the army of Darius, who fled. Parmenio then took Damascus, the Persian baggage train, and the rest of the royal family. The Phoenician cities surrendered to the Greeks except Tyre, which was destroyed after a seven-month siege. After taking Gaza, where he was wounded, Alexander was welcomed by the Egyptians glad to be rid of the hated Persians.
Offered half the empire by Darius III, Alexander refused and crossed the Euphrates and Tigris rivers unopposed. The two armies met again at Gaugamela in 331 BC, and once again Darius deserted his army. Alexander entered Babylon and ordered the temple of Bel that had been destroyed by Xerxes rebuilt. The major capital of Susa surrendered to the Greeks without resisting, and the immense treasure accumulated by the Persian empire was found in the palace. Alexander began to train Persians by his new military methods. More treasure was found at the other main capital at Persepolis, where the men were killed, the women were enslaved, and the city was burned, perhaps in revenge for the burning of Athens in 480 BC. Alexander then went east in pursuit of the viceroy of Bactria who had imprisoned Darius. By 330 BC Darius was dead, and Alexanderruled over his former empire. Uncooperative satraps were punished, and others were retained by Alexander, who founded numerous cities named after himself. Two years were spent in putting down the resistance of the Sogdians in the north. Alexander went as far as India before his troops demanded to return; by 324 BC they were back in Susa.
Alexander married the daughter of Darius III and had 10,000 of his men marry Persian girls, hoping to breed an army for his new empire. He was already treating Persians equally with Greeks and using them in his army, and the Persian nobility was being educated by Greek teachers. The Persian treasure was coined as money and distributed. Warned that if he entered Babylon he would die, Alexander finally did and succumbed to an illness or was poisoned in 323 BC. The immense empire was divided and ruled by the Greek generals of the armies that had conquered it. The Persian empire was no more, and the Hellenistic era had begun.
Alexander married the daughter of Darius III and had 10,000 of his men marry Persian girls, hoping to breed an army for his new empire. He was already treating Persians equally with Greeks and using them in his army, and the Persian nobility was being educated by Greek teachers. The Persian treasure was coined as money and distributed. Warned that if he entered Babylon he would die, Alexander finally did and succumbed to an illness in 323 BC. The immense empire was divided and ruled by the Greek generals of the armies who had conquered it. The Persian empire was no more, and the Hellenistic era had begun. After the Macedonian conquest of the Persian empire and Alexander’s death in 323 BC, Hellenistic culture dominated this region under the Seleucid empire and Egypt under the Ptolemies. Later Roman imperialism impinged on the western part of the Mideast. Much information on that region during this period can be found in Volume 4 Greece and Rome to 30 BC in the chapter on the “Hellenistic Era” and in Volume 5 Roman Empire 30 BC to 610.
Parthian Empire
Persian historians recorded that the Arsacid dynasty of Parthia was founded by a descendant of Persian kings called Ashk or Arsaces in 247 BC. His revolt began in the north, and by 238 BC he controlled the kingdom called Parthia, invading and annexing Hyrcania. When Seleucus II invaded Media, Arsaces retreated to the territory between the Oxus and the Jaxartes, where he was protected by nomadic Aspasiacae. He established Dara (Dareium) as the Parthian capital. He was succeeded by his son Arsaces II in 217 or 214 BC. He extended Parthian territory by defeating the Seleucid Achaeus and taking the Median capital at Ecbatana; but he fled from there when Antiochus III invaded Armenia and Media in 209 BC. Arsaces II and the Parthians used guerrilla tactics; but the Seleucids managed to preserve water systems and seized Hecatompylus. Arsaces II agreed to an alliance with Antiochus III, who ventured further east into Bactria and India in imitation of Alexander’s invasions. In 191 BC Arsaces II was succeeded by his son Phriapites (Priapatius), and about 176 BC his son Phraates I became King of Parthia. He took over the Mardi and built Charax in Media Rhagiana. When the Seleucids were defeated by the Romans at the battle of Magnesia in 190 BC, they lost control of Asia Minor, Armenia, and much of Iran. In Armenia the general Artashes I (r. 189-160 BC) founded the Artashesian dynasty that lasted two centuries.In 171 BC Phraates was succeeded by his brother Mithridates I, who was friendly to Greeks and receptive of Hellenistic culture. He expanded the Parthian empire by taking over Mesopotamia, including Elymais and Persis. When the Bactrians invaded to the east beyond the Hindu Kush, Mithridates took the opportunity to encroach on their western territory. After the Seleucid Timarchus died in 160 BC, Mithridates invaded Media and suppressed a revolt in Hyrcania. When the Bactrian King Eucratidas was murdered by his son in 148 BC, the Parthian King was able to take over Ecbatana in Bactria. Mithridates invaded Babylonia and took over Seleucia in 141 BC; after proposing peace, he treacherously attacked and captured Seleucid King Demetrius II the next year. Demetrius escaped his luxurious captivity at Hyrcania but was recaptured by Phraates II, who succeeded his father Mithridates about 138 BC. Phraates released Demetrius before attacking and defeating the Seleucid Antiochus VII Sidetes near Ecbatana in 129 BC. The Parthian empire had replaced the Seleucids but now had to face the Seleucids’ nemesis Rome.
During the early Han dynasty of China in the second century BC, the northern Huns called Xiongnu about 163 BC drove the Yuezhi nomads west into the Saka Scythians, who consequently invaded the Parthians. Apparently defections by Greeks resulted in Parthian defeats by the nomads. Artabanes II, who succeeded Phraates II in 127 BC was killed by the Saka three years later. Eventually the Saka were assimilated into the eastern portion of the Parthian empire. Mithridates II (r. 124-88 BC) was the first monarch this far west to develop communication by making a trade treaty with China in 115 BC. This Parthian King also suppressed a revolt by his Babylonian viceroy Himerus. Armenia under Artavazd I (r. 160-115 BC) also became independent of the Seleucids. He was succeeded by his son Tigran I (r. 115-95). Parthians led by Mithridates II invaded Armenia and put Tigran II on that throne in 95 BC. Tigran later took back ceded regions and some Parthian territory. After Romans took over Cilicia in 102 BC, Lucius Sulla invaded to the Euphrates River but rejected an alliance proposed by a Parthian ambassador in 92 BC. Mithridates II yielded to the Roman advance.
While Rome was fighting a series of wars against King Mithridates VI (r. 120-63 BC) of Pontus, Parthia was divided by a civil war with Gotarzes (r. 95-87 BC) ruling in the east and Orodes I (r. 90-77 BC) governing in the west. These conflicts enabled Armenia under Tigran II (r. 95-55 BC) to take upper Mesopotamia and Media Atropatene from the Parthians, and by 74 BC he ruled over what had been the Seleucid empire. In 77 BC eighty-year-old Sinatruces, brother of Mithridates II, returned from exile among the Scythians to restore order to Parthia. He was succeeded by his son Phraates III in 70 BC.
Romans led by Lucullus invaded Armenia in 69 BC, but his soldiers refused to advance into the Ararat mountains. Pompey replaced Lucullus and negotiated with Parthia’s Phraates III, granting him Corduene and Adiabene in exchange for Parthia as an ally against Armenia, which had taken them; but when Pompey later expelled the Parthians from these two provinces and gave them back to Armenia, the Parthians resented the betrayal. Two years after Pompey left, Phraates was assassinated by his two sons in 57 BC. Orodes II deposed his elder brother Mithridates III for cruelty, assigning him to govern Media Magna; but the latter revolted and fled to Gabinius, the Roman governor of Syria. However, Gabinius was lured into invading Egypt by an enormous amount of money, and Mithridates, supported by Seleucia, fled to Babylon, where he was captured and executed by Orodes.
In 55 BC Marcus Licinius Crassus led a Roman invasion across the Euphrates before returning to Syria for the winter. Armenian King Artavazd II (r. 55-35 BC) offered him 16,000 cavalry and 30,000 infantry against the Parthians. Crassus already had seven legions with 42,000 men. An Arab shaikh from Osrhoene, spying for Orodes II, persuaded Crassus to seek booty across the open steppe in 53 BC. Orodes also managed to keep the feared Armenian cavalry out by making a peace treaty with Artavazd. Orodes sent his Surena (commander-in-chief), who used the Parthian tactics of retreating and shooting arrows at the Romans, annihilating a Roman detachment led by Publius, the son of Crassus. At Carrhae the Surena offered a truce but then treacherously killed Crassus and half his men. About 10,000 Romans escaped, but an equal number were captured and settled at Margiana.
Two years later, Pacorus, son of Orodes, led a Parthian invasion of Syria, which was defended by the Cassius who later assassinated Julius Caesar. After Cassius retreated to Antioch, Pacorus began plotting against his father, who found out about it and recalled him. During Rome’s civil war between Caesar and Pompey, the latter asked for help from the Parthians but rejected it when they demanded Syria. After Caesar’s assassination, Parthians led by Bassus supported Cassius at Philippi in 42 BC, the only time the Parthians ever fought in Europe. Two years later Orodes sent forgiven Pacorus with the Roman general Labienus to invade Syria, where they took Apamea and Antioch, defeating Decidius Saxa. Tyre resisted successfully, and in Palestine the bribe of a thousand talents and 500 Jewish women enabled Antigonus to buy Parthian help that enabled him to overcome his rival uncle Hyrcanus and rule for three years. Meanwhile Labienus killed Decidius Saxa in a second battle and took over southern Asia Minor.
In 39 BC Mark Antony sent Publius Ventidius to recover Syria, and his Roman legions killed Labienus and drove Pacorus back across the Euphrates. The next year Pacorus came back across the river but was defeated and killed. Aging Orodes abdicated and let his son Phraates IV succeed him; but he had his many brothers and complaining father murdered in 37 BC. This reign of terror discouraged nobles, and the General Monaeses told Antony this was an opportunity. Antony asked for the Roman standards and prisoners taken from Crassus; but Phraates pardoned Monaeses while Antony made a secret treaty with Armenia’s Artavazd II. The latter persuaded Antony to attack lucrative Praaspa, the capital of Media Atropatene. However, Antony’s extended forces were divided, and the Parthians defeated those led by Statianus, killing 10,000 Romans and forcing Antony to make a difficult retreat. Media’s King quarreled and rebelled against Phraates, in 34 BC, offering an alliance to Antony, who then captured Artavazd with a stratagem. Antony returned the next year to help the Media King take territory from Armenia.
After Antony went back to struggle against Octavian, Parthia’s Phraates IV made an alliance with Artashes II (r. 30-20 BC), son of Artavazd, and captured the Roman garrisons in Armenia so that it could become independent of Rome, though under Parthian influence. Also in 33 BC the Parthian Tiridates revolted and was crowned king, ruling Parthia for three years before Phraates returned with a force of nomads. Tiridates fled with a son of Phraates, who became a hostage in the court of Octavian. Seven years later Emperor Augustus (Octavian) began negotiating to get back the Roman standards, which were regained when Augustus visited the region in 20 BC.
Parthia was ruled by a hereditary monarchy, and the King was crowned by the hereditary military commander called the Surena. Many followed a nomadic life on horses, and there was no standing army beside the royal guard. Polygamy was common, and women were subordinate. Little is known about Parthian culture because they left behind little writing. They followed the Zoroastrian religion primarily, and the Magi priests were the most educated and influential. In the cult of Mithras this Aryan god was created by the supreme God Ahura Mazda as Light to overcome evil and govern the world in prosperity. A series of seven initiations corresponding to the five planets, sun, and moon became very popular among soldiers, merchants, and slaves. The cult was introduced in Rome by Cilician pirates captured by Pompey and was a major rival to early Christianity. However, monotheism and the growing popularity and sophistication of the Christian movement eventually overcame Mithraism, which passed on the date of the Christmas holiday from the celebration of Mithras’s birthday.
Armenia was often caught in the struggle between the Parthian and Roman empires. In 2 BC Phraatakes with help from his mother Musa, who was a slave given Phraates IV by Augustus, murdered his father Phraates IV. In the year 1 CE Phraatakes, also known as Phraates V, made a treaty with Rome and agreed to withdraw from Armenia. Reaction to the regicide caused Phraatakes to be killed, and the Arsacid Orodes III was elected king. Orodes was killed also, and Phraatakes’ son Vonones returned from Rome. His foreign ways were resented, and Artabanus II, the Arsacid King of Media Atropatene, revolted and drove out Vonones. In 16 CE Vonones claimed the throne of Armenia; but threatened by a war with Parthia, he fled to Roman protection in Syria. Emperor Tiberius sent his nephew Germanicus, who chose Artashes to rule Armenia.
When Artashes died in 34 CE, Artabanus II was able to put his oldest son Arsaces on the throne of Armenia. Tiberius sent his nominees for the Armenian kingship, but Iberian king Pharasmanes had Arsaces assassinated in 35 and took the Armenian crown himself, defeating an invading Parthian army. When Rome’s governor of Syria, Vitellius, marched toward the Euphrates, Artabanus retreated from Armenia and fled to Hyrcania, awaiting the judgment of the Parthian nobles. Although Tiridates II was crowned in Ctesiphon by the Surena, he was unpopular and fled when Artabanus returned. Artabanus met with Vetellius and made peace with Rome by promising to leave Armenia alone. Nobles resented this so much that they exiled Artabanus again. Jews were also massacred during his reign. After his death his sons Vardanes and Gotarzes II struggled for the throne in 39 CE until the former was assassinated in 45. Some nobles asked Rome to send Meherdates, son of Vonones, but he was defeated by Gotarzes. Anti-Hellenic sentiment in Parthia caused Seleucia to revolt and become independent for several years.
When Gotarzes II died in 51 CE, Vonones II was soon replaced by his son or brother Vologeses I, who ruled until 78, except for the interval 55-58 when his son Vardanes II took over. Pharasmanes of Iberia, brother of Armenian king Mithridates, persuaded his son Rhadamistus to assassinate his uncle Mithridates to take that throne. So Vologeses in 51 invaded Armenia to make his brother Tiridates king. In 55 Rome’s Nero sent his top general Corbulo; Vologeses submitted and gave hostages to Rome because he was preoccupied with the rebellion by his son Vardanes. After his son’s revolt was crushed, Vologeses took on Corbulo but was weakened by a revolt in Hyrcania. Tiridates lost Artaxata in 58 and Tigranocerta two years later. Rome put the Cappadocian prince Tigranes on the throne of Armenia; but Vologeses was able to defeat Nero’s favorite Lucius Paetus, who fled. Corbulo marched to Armenia and in 63 made a treaty giving the Armenian throne to Tiridates, who was crowned in Rome by Nero in 66. This treaty lasted half a century. During the reign of Vologeses I the Avesta scripture for the Zoroastrian religion was compiled. The Roman historian Pliny described the Parthian empire as having eleven kingdoms in the north and seven in the south.
The nomadic Alans in alliance with the Hyrcanians overran the Parthian empire in 75 CE. Vologeses II ruled for only one year and was succeeded by Pacorus II (r. 78-93), though his rule in Persia was taken over by Artabanus III for a year in 80. The last coin Pacorus issued was minted in 96, and Vologeses II issued a coin nine years later. Before he died about 100, Pacorus made his son Axidares king of Armenia. Vologeses III (r. 105-47) faced rebellions and a major challenge from Osroes I (r. 109-28). In 115 Roman Emperor Trajan marched east to Armenia and captured Nisibis. After spending the winter in Antioch, the next year his Roman legions invaded Adiabene, crossed the Tigris but could not capture Hatra. Trajan died on his way home in 117. Osroes drove the remaining Romans out of the capital of Ctesiphon. Hadrian became Emperor and withdrew Roman troops from the regions east of the Euphrates River, allowing the Roman and Parthian empires to co-exist in peace. Vologeses III paid off invading Alans in 133. Vologeses IV (r. 147-91) invaded west of the Euphrates in 161. The counter-attack the next year was led by Co-emperor Lucius Verus, and the Parthians were driven back across the Euphrates. Statius Priscus captured Artaxata in Armenia, and the Romans took Babylon, Seleucia, and Ctesiphon before invading Media. However, in Atropatene (Azerbaijan) a devastating plague caused the Romans to withdraw.
Parthian King Vologeses V (r. 191-207) intervened in a Roman succession struggle in support of Pescennius Niger’s revolt in 195 by invading Mesopotamia; but Roman Emperor Septimius Severus was successful and subjugated Adiabene, capturing Ctesiphon and Seleucia in 198. The Romans again could not take Hatra but annexed Adiabene. After Vologeses V died, his sons Vologeses VI (r. 207-22) and Artabanus IV (r. 213-24) fought a civil war, dividing and ending the Parthian empire. Vologeses VI ruled Iraq from Ctesiphon, and Artabanus IV was sovereign over Iran. Roman Emperor Carcalla attacked Artabanus in the west in 216, but his successor Macrinus was defeated the next year near Nisibis and paid the Parthians 200 million sesterces.
During the Parthian and Sasanian empires Persian society primarily practiced the Zoroastrian religion and had four classes. Highest were the priests and judges; second was the military; third were the literate bureaucrats; and fourth were the workers that included farmers, artisans, and merchants. Above these was the royal family, and below the four classes were non-citizen aliens and slaves; the law did not recognize a slave as having a family. Sacred slaves were those from any class who dedicated themselves to work in the Zoroastrian temples. Socially extended families were important as agnatic groups. Persians were patriarchal, and the wealthy often had harems.
Sasanian Persia 224-531
Mani and Manichaeism
Mani was born in Babylonia on April 14, 216 after Caracalla overthrew Vologeses VI and made his brother Artabanus IV (r. 213-24) the last Parthian king. When Mani was twelve, he was told in a vision to withdraw from a baptizing sect associated with Elkhasai. This revelation coincided with Ardashir’s overcoming the Parthians and reviving the Persian empire with the Sasanian dynasty. Near his 24th birthday Mani was told by his higher self or angelic teacher to proclaim himself a prophet. Two years later Shapur I became the King of Persia. Mani’s mission took him to Ctesiphon and then into western India for two years. There he wrote a book diplomatically praising Shapur. Hindus found his teaching of celibacy too strict; but in 243 he had more success in Khurasan, where he converted Governor Feroz, who told his brother, King Shapur, that Mani had no political ambitions but wanted to unify the people of the empire with this universal religion.After Mani spent a year in a cave making paintings, Shapur invited the prophet to his court in 245. Mani requested and received royal letters to all the Persian governors telling them not to hinder his mission. For the next ten years Mani was able to spread his teachings throughout the Persian empire, establishing many churches and sending out disciples. Adda and Pateg carried the teachings of Mani to Egypt. When people made fun of an ugly saint, Mani pointed out that the soul is beautiful and is to be rescued from the material body.
In 255 Zoroastrian priests led by Karter persuaded Shapur to break with Mani and promote their religion in the empire, causing Mani to go into exile. In the next eighteen years the prophet returned to Khurasan and traveled in central Asia as far as western China, returning by way of Tibet and Kashmir. In 272 Shapur died and was succeeded by his son Hormizd I, Governor of Khurasan, who supported the Manichaeans; but he died after reigning one year. His younger brother Bahram loved pleasure and was cruel. He was persuaded by the magi to end toleration of heresies and foreign cults in order to promote the orthodox Sassanid religion. Mani tried to meet with the new King at his winter palace in Ctesiphon but failed to do so. Mani was said to have been related to the Parthian Arsacid dynasty, and his association with King Baat, possibly a Parthian Armenian, as he lectured to his disciples at Phargalia, may have led to Mani’s arrest at Gondeshapur (Belapat).
Mani was brought before an angry King Bahram I and said he had done no harm but had helped the royal family by freeing their servants of demons and by healing them. The King accused Mani of supporting the defeated Parthian cause. Mani replied that God sent him to bring the perfect commandments of Christ that he received from God through an angel so that many souls might be saved and escape punishment. Bahram asked why God did not reveal this to him, the King. Mani replied that God commands and decides whom to teach. The angry King silenced the prophet and had him chained in order to please the magi. Mani said that he had been protected by Shapur and Hormizd, but Bahram sentenced him to death and scourging. Mani was chained heavily in prison for 26 days. There he consoled his disciples and appointed Sisin as his successor. Mani died in prison on February 26 in 274, described as the Messenger of the Light withdrawing his soul from the body. Public distress at the news stimulated the King to order Mani’s body fed to birds and his head placed on a gate. So began persecution of the Manichaeans in the Persian empire that would continue sporadically for centuries.
Four years of persecution occurred before Sisin could organize the church. Many died as martyrs, and many fled to Khurasan or Turkestan. Some went west, and Pateg is said to have preached against the Old Testament in Rome by 280. Bahram II lost Ctesiphon and Seleucia to the Roman Emperor Aurelius Carus in 282 while Amu traveled in central Asia, and Adda put together scriptures in Africa. About five years later African proconsul Julian warned Diocletian that this strange religion’s ideas on sex, war, agriculture, and civic duties endangered Roman society. By 290 Manichaeism was flourishing in the Fayyum district of Egypt, and the Syriac Psalms would soon be translated into Coptic. Terrible persecution broke out in the Persian empire in 291. Bahram II killed Sisin himself, and many Manichaeans were slaughtered. Innai became the leader and is reported to have healed the King by prayer, giving peace to the new religion for a while.
In 296 Diocletian extended the Christian persecution to the Manichaeans, resulting in numerous martyrs in Egypt and North Africa. Although Persian King Narseh (r. 293-302) lost Mesopotamia and western provinces to Rome after he was defeated by Galerius, he left the Manichaeans in peace. In 303 Hormizd II executed Innai, and the next four Manichaean leaders were also killed. In the fourth century Manichaeism spread throughout the Roman empire. Two Christians, Archelaus in his Disputation with Manes and Alexander of Lycopolis in his “Of the Manichaeans,” treated Manichaeism as a Christian heresy instead of a new religion because Mani acknowledged Jesus as the Christ. In 372 Valentinian I prohibited all meetings, and Augustine adopted the faith for a decade until Christians urged Theodosius I to take away their civil rights in 381; the next year he decreed Manichaean elders put to death, and in 383 Theodosius banished all Manichaeans. Exile was again decreed by Valentinian II, and in Rome their property was confiscated in 389.
Since Mani believed that other religions had deteriorated because their original founders did not write down their teachings, he wrote several books himself in the Aramaic language of Syriac and made sure that they were accurately copied. His first book, Shapurakan, honored King Shapur I and assured him that he had no political ambitions. The Living Gospel was written and illustrated in the Turkestan cave and contains an account of the mission of Jesus. Mani began this book and his letters by referring to himself as the messenger of Jesus. The Treasure of Life describes how the soul comes from the pure Light and the body from the bad darkness. Although Manichaeism is similar and has been compared to Gnosticism, this book refutes the Marcionite doctrine of a third intermediary principle, and it gives cures for errors. The Book of Mysteries teaches that souls are purged and educated through reincarnation, and it aims to cut away false beliefs. The Pragmateia suggests what ought to be done. His other main works are The Book of Giants, Letters, and The Book of Psalms and Prayers.
Although these books were faithfully copied and translated into many languages as the religion spread, the many persecutions eventually destroyed the books. As Manichaeism faded into Catharist movements in the 13th century, the religion disappeared. In the 20th century Coptic documents were found at al-Fayyum in Egypt, and texts were also found in Turfan and Dunhuang in China. The Chinese catechism noted a book illustrating the two great principles, which may have been based on Mani’s paintings made for those who cannot read. The largest work found at al-Fayyum, the Kephalaia, contains the principal teachings of Mani described by disciples. These discoveries, though difficult to piece together because the texts were deteriorating, provide a more balanced view to the already known Christian works refuting Mani.
Mani taught there are two sources that are unborn and eternal—God (Light) and matter (darkness). God as good has nothing in common with evil because “a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.” Mani explained the universe as having three moments involving these two substances. In the past Spirit and matter were at first separate. Then Spirit entered into matter as souls incarnated into bodies, which is the present condition. Mani as a messenger of Light is helping souls become liberated from their bodies. The third moment is the future when the world will end as Spirit becomes purified again from matter. Somehow the king of darkness decided to enter the region of Light. God had no evil with which to punish, so Spirit entered into matter as souls went into bodies with the five faculties of intuition, thought, will, consideration, and reason. As souls mixed with matter they began to feel material and thus became trapped in bodies. When the Mother of Life, the First Man, and the Living Spirit prayed to the Great Father, that one sent a Messenger with the following twelve virtues: royalty, wisdom, victory, contentment, purity, truth, faith, patience, sincerity, kindness, justice, and Light.
According to Mani, Jesus lifted up the first man Adam to taste the Tree of Life. Mani also taught the trinity of the Father (God of truth), the beloved Son (Christ), and the Holy Spirit (Mother of Life). The five dark rulers may express themselves as the tyranny of rulers, arrogance of officials, idolatrous errors, superstitious rites, and sorcery. Previous messengers of God include Zarathustra, Buddha, and Jesus. True messengers may be known by the following five characteristics: gentleness, austerity, beauty, wisdom, and transformation. Their mission is to teach and convert living beings in order to save them from their suffering. Mani planted good seeds of truth and strengthened his church, sending out envoys to many lands. He fought greed and lust in order to teach people wisdom and knowledge. The Psalms refer to the divine medicine that heals wounds, crushes evil while crowning godliness, purifies the Light from the darkness, and gives rest to the souls. The Great Father is Love who gives oneself for everything. Souls are divine; even though they have fallen into the world, they will return to God.
Although the Manichaean community had a hierarchy of five levels including Mani’s successor and twelve masters (teachers), 72 illuminates (overseers), elders (priests), the rest of the elect, and hearers, the main distinction was between the elect and the hearers. The elect have their hearts, hands, and mouths sealed by celibacy, non-injury, and abstinence from alcohol and meat. The elect eat only a little in the morning and one meal in the evening. In their strict poverty their only possession was one garment that was replaced once a year. The elect teach by grace, wisdom, and faith. The duties of the hearers are to fast, pray, and give charity. They are to fast and be celibate on Sundays, and hearers pray four times a day. Giving charity includes providing food for the elect who do no injurious work such as farming, giving a relative to be one of the elect, and building a temple or dwelling place. The hearers could work in the fields and have one wife, but they were forbidden to fight in wars. The hearers confess to the elect, and the elect confess to one another.
The soul is from on high but is imprisoned in the body waiting to be liberated. Mani taught renouncing the world’s possessions to find the peace of poverty. He advised wisely and skillfully strengthening oneself around the body’s gates lest the sin of the body prevail and extinguish the Light. His religious methods include singing and chanting spiritual words, reading and studying, discriminating with wisdom and accepting pure commands, always being clean in actions of body, mouth, and mind, practicing kind deeds, being gentle and amiable, bearing humiliation, following good rules and habits, resting the mind in the place of liberation, and leaping for joy in standing firm in the right way. Mani warned against, lying, anger, and hurtful words that may come from speaking for the sake of killing a man, beasts, or trees. Kindness and sincerity are for saints a base for brightness and a wonderful gate which lets one see everywhere while walking a straight path.
Like the Mahayana Buddhists, Mani promised such would be born in a Pure Land, where they would be free of penalties and could rejoice in calmness. The Light-mind of the Christ awakens those who sleep and gathers those who are scattered abroad. God sends the soul to the judge of the dead that appears as in a mirror. The Great Judge has no partiality but knows how to forgive those who have repented. No one can hide when that one searches out their actions and repays them according to their deserts. The saints go to the heaven of Light and are at peace. Unstained by ignorance, passion, and desire, they are not pressed into rebirth.
Sasanian Persia 224-531
Parthian Empire
Artabanus IV was also known as Ardawan. When he attacked Fars in 224, the rebel Ardashir was victorious at Hormuzdagan and founded the Sasanian dynasty based on his descent from Sasan. According to the historian Tabari, Ardashir went on to conquer Sakastan (Seistan), Hyrcania, Merv (Margiana), Balkh (Bactria), and Khwarezm (Chorasmia), and Ferishta recorded that he even invaded the Kushan empire in India. Armenia continued to be fought over by the Romans and the Persians. In 232 Ardashir won a battle against the Romans over Armenia and made a treaty with Emperor Alexander Severus. Then a Persian noble assassinated the Armenian King Khosrov and was drowned while fleeing. Ardashir restored the privileges of the Magi and organized them into an assembly with seven top priests. His zeal for the Zoroastrian religion caused Christians to be persecuted. Ardashir maintained a standing army and kept it independent of the provincial governors. Ardashir once said, “There can be no power without an army, no army without money, no money without agriculture, and no agriculture without justice.”9When Ardashir died in 240, Armenia and Hatra revolted against his successor Shapur I (r. 240-70). The second Sasanian king managed to take the latter fortress by promising to marry the rebelling king’s daughter; but after Hatra capitulated, he had the princess executed. While the Romans were in turmoil, Shapur captured Nisibis and ventured west as far as Antioch. The Romans fought back and pushed the Persians across the Tigris. When Philip replaced the murdered Roman Emperor Gordian III in 244, he made a treaty with Shapur and departed. Shapur conquered Antioch again in 258 and even captured the Roman Emperor Valerian two years later. Shapur invaded Cappadocia; but Odenathus of Palmyra had a powerful army and pushed the Persians back across the Euphrates, besieging Ctesiphon. After Odenathus was assassinated, his widow Zenobia gained Egypt but did not get Persian aid for Palmyra, which was defeated by Roman Emperor Aurelian in 275. Shapur died in 270 and was succeeded by Hormizd I, who supported the prophet Mani. However, he was succeeded by his son Bahram I the next year. Bahram was so tyrannical that a conspiracy ended his life in 274. During the reign (274-93) of Bahram II, Roman Emperor Carus invaded Persia in 283; but the legions believed that his death by lightning was a sign from heaven and retreated. During this era the mobad Karter led the drive that persecuted any religion other than the Zoroastrian.
In 287 Emperor Diocletian placed Tiridates III, the son of Khosrov II, on the Armenian throne. After Bahram II died in 293, Narseh (r. 293-302) became the Sasanian king and invaded Armenia three years later, forcing Tiridates to flee to Rome. Diocletian sent Galerius to Armenia the next year; the wounded Narses fled as the Persians were routed, and a treaty made the Tigris River the boundary between the two empires. Having lost more territory than any other Parthian or Sasanian ruler, Narseh abdicated in 302 BC. Hormizd II (r. 302-9) set up a court of justice to help the poor keep from being oppressed by the rich. When he died, the nobles did not want his oldest son to rule because of his favoring Hellenic culture. So they elected Shapur II (r. 309-79) while his mother was still pregnant because the mobad (priest) had declared that the baby would be male. In 323 Hormizd escaped from prison and was well received by Roman Emperor Constantine. Meanwhile Tiridates III (r. 287-330) of Armenia had stopped persecuting Christians and had become a zealous convert to Christianity in 294.
After the powerful Constantine died in 337, dividing his empire between his three sons, Shapur II took the opportunity to urge the pagans in Armenia to revolt and raid across the Roman border. The next year Shapur besieged Nisibis but could not take the Roman stronghold. The Persians raided Roman territory. Shapur captured and blinded Arshak, son of Tiranus, but in 341 he made a treaty with Armenia and put Arshak II on their throne. Shapur’s Persians invaded Mesopotamia in 348 and fought the Roman army of Constantius for two years. For the third time Shapur failed to capture Nisibis, losing 20,000 men. Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman empire, and Shapur responded by doubling taxes for Christians to pay for his wars. For refusing to collect the taxes six bishops and a hundred priests were executed at Susa on Good Friday 339. Massacres and the destruction of churches continued in the Sasanian empire for the next forty years of Shapur’s reign. Shapur had to fight off Huns (Chionites) in the east from 353 to 358. During this interlude Constantius found a Roman wife for King Arshak II, and Armenia returned to the Roman orbit. Shapur fought another war for two years with the Roman empire, capturing the fortress at Amida. This war ended when Constantius died in 361.
In 363 the pagan Roman Emperor Julian invaded Persia with a hundred thousand men and a fleet of 1,100 ships built for the Euphrates River; but the Sasanians had far surpassed the Parthians in fortifying their cities. Julian avoided them, and his alliance with the Saracen chiefs fell apart; he was killed by a javelin fighting near Samarra and was portrayed heroically as a lion by Persian painters. Jovian became Roman emperor and ceded the five provinces east of the Tigris and the fortress of Nisibis to Shapur’s empire. Europeans, who had been in Nisibis for two centuries, were removed. When Valens became Roman Emperor for the East, Shapur II invaded Armenia. Pap (r. 369-374), son of Arshak II, fled and asked for Roman support. So Shapur returned to Armenia and captured the treasury of Arsaces and made Pap agree to his terms. After the Romans interfered in Iberia in 370, the next year the Persians attacked the Romans at Vagabanta. In 376 a truce led to a treaty that left Christian Armenia and Iberia independent.
The long reign of Shapur II was followed by Ardashir II (r. 379-83), who was called the Beneficent for remitting taxes; but he was deposed by his nephew Shapur III (r. 383-88). Factional conflict in Armenia resulted in the Persians and Romans making a treaty in 384 that divided Armenia. During the reign of Bahram IV (r. 388-99), Khosrov IV, the satrap of Persian Armenia, revolted but could not get help from Emperor Theodosius I and was imprisoned. After Bahram IV was killed by a mutiny, Yazdgard I (r. 399-420) became ruler of the Sasanian empire. He tolerated the Christians and Jews, decreeing in 409 that Christians could worship openly and rebuild their churches; but the Zoroastrians pressured him into persecuting them during the last five years of his reign.
Nobles tried to prevent any of his sons from succeeding; but his son Bahram V Gur (r. 420-38) won the struggle. He continued the persecution of Christians; when many fled to Roman territory, he demanded them back and then declared war. After a battle between champions of the Persians and Romans, they made a treaty in 422 that granted toleration of Christians in Persia and of Zoroastrians by the Romans. In 425 the Hephthalites (White Huns) led by Yetailito crossed the Oxus River and invaded Persia. Bahram Gur led a successful counter-attack that chased the Huns back across the Oxus. According to the poet Firdausi, Bahram Gur ventured into India, and as a result 12,000 Gypsies migrated into Persia with their music and dancing. Bahram Gur was acclaimed for promoting agriculture, literacy, and science, leaving Persia at the height of its power. His son Yazdgard II (r. 438-57) made a treaty with Theodosius II agreeing that neither would build new fortifications on their frontier. This allowed Yazdgard to campaign in the east from 443 to 451. Zoroastrian mobads tried to win back Armenia to their religion, defeating the Christian party. In Iraq the patriarch Joseph became a martyr at Karka (Kirkuk) in 455 as other Christians fled. The Christian Bar-Soma was expelled from Edessa for heresy but returned in 457.
When Yazdgard II died in 457, his younger son Hormizd III seized the throne while his older brother Peroz was governing Seistan. The Hephthalites helped Peroz (r. 459-84) capture his brother, and Peroz also put down a revolt by Albanians west of the Caspian Sea. After he sent a slave pretending to be a princess, the insulted Khush-Newaz killed and mutilated Persian officers in revenge. Tabari wrote that Peroz was lured into the desert and had to prostrate himself before the Hephthalites. Peroz helped Bar-Soma to use force in establishing the doctrine of the “two natures of Christ” in order to separate these Christians from the Monophysites west of them. Yazdgard and Peroz changed previous policy that had tolerated Jews. Yazdgard abolished the Sabbath in 455, and in 468 Peroz had half the Jews in Isfahan slaughtered after Jews were accused of flaying two magi. The Kushans’ defeat of Peroz stimulated the Armenians to revolt in 481; but the Iberian king treacherously changed sides, enabling the Persians to kill the Armenian king. Peroz was finally defeated and killed by Hephthalites at Balkh; much of the army was destroyed, and his successor Balash (r. 484-88) paid them tribute for two years. Vahan gained toleration for Christians in Armenia by helping Balash in a civil war against a son of Peroz named Zaren.
Kavad I, son of Peroz, became the Sasanian king in 488. In 489 Roman Emperor Zeno dissolved the Nestorian college at Edessa, but Bar-Soma re-established it at Nisibis. In 491 the Armenian Church rejected the “one person in two natures” doctrine promulgated by the Council at Chalcedon in 451 and as Monophysites have been independent of the Constantinople Patriarch ever since. A communist named Mazdak of Persepolis converted thousands to his doctrine of sharing property and even women. The historian Tabari described how he used a tube in a cavern beneath a fire altar as a fraudulent religious device and even converted Kavad. The Zoroastrian mobads defended their religion by deposing and imprisoning Kavad in 496. He escaped to the Hephthalites and was received by Khush-Newaz; they helped him regain the throne two years later as his replacement Zamasp did not fight to retain the crown. The Nestorian doctrine that the divine and human persons are separate in the incarnate Christ became prevalent in Persia.
After eighty years of peace, in 503 Kavad I went to war with the Roman empire because they had not been paying Persia the agreed expenses for the Derbent garrison. The Persians invaded Roman Armenia and lost 50,000 men besieging and taking the fortress of Amida as the Romans there were annihilated. That year Kavad also sent his army to stop a Hephthalite invasion of Khurasan, which enabled Romans to cross the Tigris. In 505 Persia and Rome made a peace treaty for seven years that enabled Kavad to win a final campaign against the Hephthalites by 513. A resurgence of the Mazdakites plotted with Kavad’s oldest son Kavus to establish their religion in Persia; but Kavad’s younger son Khusrau persuaded his father to let him put down the rebellion. Khusrau organized a religious debate and then massacred the Mazdakis at Ctesiphon about 528.
When Kavad I canceled toleration of Christians in Iberia in favor of Zoroastrians, they revolted. The Iberian king Gurgenes fled to Lazica and appealed to Rome for help. When the Persians went into Lazica, Romans led by the famous General Belisarius invaded Persian Armenia in 526. The Romans were defeated, and Emperor Justinian sent another 25,000 men, including Massagetae cavalry, which tipped the balance in an even battle. Al-Harith ibn ‘Amr al-Kindi drove the Lakhmids out of Hira in 525 for a few years; but the Lakhmid chief Mundhir III regained Hira and in 529 raided Syria as far as Antioch, where he sacrificed 400 Christian nuns to the goddess al-Uzza, representing the planet Venus. Two years later the Persians allied with Mundhir to invade Syria. Belisarius with help from Isaurians, Lycaonians, and Arabs defended Antioch, killed Kavad, and forced the retreat of the Persian army.
Sasanian Persia 531-651
Possibly influenced by the ideas of the 2nd century Gnostic philosopher Carpocrates of Alexandria, whose followers venerated Zarathustra, Pythagoras, and Plato for four centuries, and Bundos, a Manichaean who had lived in Rome during the reign of Diocletian, the Zoroastrian mobadZardusht Khurragan in the mid-5th century began interpreting the inner meaning of the Avesta. Those making such interpretations were called Zandiks. Ibn al-Nadim wrote of an earlier Zoroastrian named Mazdak, who taught enjoying pleasures in friendly equality, sharing women and family, doing good deeds, not harming anyone, and offering hospitality.Mazdak, son of Bamdad, led the Mazdakite movement during the reign of Kavad I. According to Tha‘alibi he taught that God provided subsistence so that it could be shared equally; but people wronged and dominated each other with the strong exploiting the weak to gain property; thus it is necessary to take from the rich to give to the poor, and those with an excess of property or women should share. The poet Firdausi wrote that the Mazdakites avoided the five demons of envy, anger, vengeance, need, and greed. Mazdak recommended ways of breaking up the large estates, prohibiting hoarding, removing class distinctions, and establishing public charities for those in need. He aimed to reduce Zoroastrian rituals by limiting their temples to three major ones. Although accused of advocating wives in common, it is more likely that Mazdak probably wanted to eliminate harems and polygamy so that more people could have one wife. Abolishing class distinctions also meant being able to marry outside of one’s class. Mazdakite women exercised more rights, and the Druze sect (currently in Lebanon) allows women to be in the elite.
King Kavad I wanted to promote justice, and he was strongly influenced by the religious ideas of Mazdak and began implementing social reforms that limited the privileges of the nobles. Mazdak asked the king if one with extra food should share it with the hungry, and this led to Mazdakite mobs plundering granaries, storehouses, and the palaces of the wealthy and their harems. The nobles reacted by deposing Kavad, who fled to the Hephthalites. When he returned to power, Kavad was more cautious. His oldest son Kavus sympathized with the Mazdakites; but Khusrau was his favorite son and was allowed to persecute and massacre the Mazdakites even before he became king, burying their upper bodies in the ground and executing Mazdak. As King, Khusrau also tried to implement his own reforms to assuage the people.
Grand Vizier Mebodes presented the will of Kavad that made Khusrau I (r. 531-79) king of kings. Khusrau, also known as Khosrow or as Noshirwan or Anushirwan in the east, has been acclaimed as the greatest of Persian monarchs; but because of an attempt to place his brother Zames on the throne, he began his reign by putting to death all his brothers and their sons except one son of Zames named Kavad, who escaped. He also executed Mazdak and one hundred thousand of his followers. Khusrau organized the Sasanian empire into four regional satrapies: Khurasan and Kirman in the east, Fars and Khuzistan in the south, Iraq and Mesopotamia in the west, and Armenia and Azerbaijan in the north.
After Justinian closed the philosophy school at Athens in 529, Khusrau welcomed the last Neo-Platonists to his court. He ordered Plato and Aristotle translated into Persian and read their works. A book of kings was compiled and was later used by Firdausi in his famous poem. In 533 Khusrau made a treaty with Rome, which agreed to pay Persia 11,000 pounds of gold for the upkeep of garrisons in the Caucasus. This enabled Justinian and Belisarius to conquer Italy and North Africa in the next six years. Buzurjmihr tutored prince Hormizd and became vizier. Buzurjmihr held that the worst misery is to see the close of life approaching without having practiced virtue. Zoroastrian Mar Aba converted to Christianity and stood up to Khusrau, who respected him and allowed bishoprics to be founded at Herat and Samarkand by 540.
Afraid of Rome’s growing power, Khusrau invaded Syria in 540, raiding Antioch and other places. Persia gained another treaty in which Rome paid 5,000 pounds of gold as a war indemnity along with annual subsidies of 500 pounds for the garrisons. Khusrau ordered a city built near Ctesiphon based on the Greek model of Antioch. When Lazica appealed to Khusrau in 540, he besieged and captured Petra from the Romans. Because Lazica had become Christian, he wanted to remove the population and tried to assassinate the Lazic King Gubazes. When this plotted failed, another war with Rome broke out in 549 that lasted eight years with the Romans driving the Persians out of Lazica. The five-year truce of 557 led to the 562 treaty in which Rome still agreed to pay Persia 30,000 gold coins annually. Turks entered Persian history when they made an alliance with Khusrau in 554 and helped him conquer the Hephthalites. Khusrau also attacked the Khazars, killing thousands and ravaging their territory. After Khusrau poisoned the Turk ambassadors, proposing an alliance with Sinjibu (Silzibul) in 567, the next year the Turks offered Rome an alternative trade route to China.
Emperor Justin wanted to impose Christian orthodoxy on Armenia while Khusrau sent the Surena to build a fire temple and promote Zoroastrianism. The Armenians got a promise of religious toleration from Justin, and the Romans defeated 15,000 Persians and killed the Surena in 571. Justin stopped paying for the garrisons and urged Axum’s Abyssinian King Arethas to invade the Persians; but in 572 the Persians traveled 2,000 miles to drive the Abyssinians out of Yemen. The next year Justin sent his cousin Marcianus to invade Arzanene and besiege Nisibis; but Khusrau relieved Nisibis and besieged Dara while the Adarmaanes captured Antioch and 292,000 men. When Tiberius became Emperor of Rome, he agreed to pay 45,000 gold coins (nomismata) for peace with Persia and 30,000 annually for three years of truce. Armenia was not included in the treaty, and Khusrau invaded it and burned Melitene. Roman legions drove the Persians back across the Euphrates and pillaged, but they were defeated in Armenia by the Persians in 576. Both Roman and Persian armies plundered in 578. Khusrau fled to Ctesiphon, where he died in 579.
Khusrau was called “the Just” and reformed the land tax to a basic minimum to give farmers incentives to produce more. He also promoted agriculture by improving irrigation with dams, reclaiming wasteland, and granting seeds, tools, and animals. Roads and bridges were repaired. He reinstituted a standing army with regular pay and even submitted himself to inspection and discipline. His army was much stronger than Parthian armies because of heavily armored cavalry equipped with lances, swords, and maces as well as bows and arrows. In his justice system he was merciful, especially to the young. Women were generally not secluded in Persia at this time, though Khusrau himself had perhaps the largest harem ever with 12,000 women. Chess was imported from India, and literature was preserved in the Pahlavi language, though this was still limited to about a hundred different books. When the Roman ambassador noted that the royal square was irregular, he learned that the Persian Shah had decided not to force a woman to sell her land.
Hormizd IV (r. 579-90) continued the war with Rome after negotiations with the General Maurice failed. Maurice defeated the Persians in 581 at Constantia and succeeded Tiberius as Roman Emperor the next year. In 588 a mutiny in the Roman army enabled the Persians to drive them out of Arzanene; but they defeated the Persians and took Martyropolis. The next year the Persians regained Martyropolis, though the Romans won at Nisibis. The General Bahram Chobin led the Persians to victory over the Turks, killing their khan and capturing his son. The gold and gems taken were carried away on 256 camels. Bahram Chobin tried to take the throne but was defeated in 591 and fled to the Turks, who killed him. Hormuzd’s son Khusrau II Parviz (r. 590-628) had fled to Constantinople and was restored at Ctesiphon with the help of Roman Emperor Maurice. Khusrau ceded territory to the Byzantine empire in the treaty of 591. After Maurice was assassinated in 602, Khusrau Parviz avenged this by going to war against his successor Phocas. The Persians took Dara in 605 after a siege of nine months and Amida, Harran, and Edessa by 607. They also plundered Armenia, Cappadocia, Phyrgia, Galatia, and Bithynia.
Khusrau Parviz wanted the daughter of Arab prince Noman, who appealed to the Shaybani. The Shah’s Arab allies deserted, and at the battle of Dhuqar the Persians were defeated by Arabs in 610, the year Muhammad had his first revelation. The Persian army invaded Syria, taking Antioch in 611, Damascus in 613, and Jerusalem the next year. The Persian General Shahin captured Chalcedon near Constantinople by 617. Two years later the Persians invaded Egypt and captured Alexandria. The Persian empire had never been so large since the ancient Achaemenians. However, Roman Emperor Heraclius began rolling back these advances in 622 by defeating Shahrbaraz at Issus and again in Armenia in 624. That year Heraclius invaded Atropatene (Azerbaijan) and destroyed the Zoroastrian fire temple. Khusrau made an alliance with Avars and besieged Constantinople in 626, but they were foiled by the Roman navy. When Heraclius attacked the palace of Khusrau Parviz at Dastagird the next year and defeated the Persians near Nineveh, the Shah fled. After he insulted the corpse of Shahin and tried to execute Shahrbaraz and other generals, the nobles turned against Khusrau, imprisoning him and torturing him to death in 628.
Khusrau Parviz tolerated Christianity because of his love for his Monophysite Christian wife Shirin. When he began losing battles, he seized treasures from Christian churches and tried to impose the Nestorian doctrine. Khusrau was succeeded by his son Kavad II, who made peace with Heraclius, returning the “true cross” taken from Jerusalem. Kavad died after a few months, and a chaotic sequence of eleven rulers tried to govern Persia until Khusrau’s grandson Yazdgard III (r. 632-51) became the last Sasanian Emperor. In 633 the Arab invasion of Iraq led by Muslim Khalid ibn al-Walid began. The Persian General Rustam was defeated in the critical battle at Qadisiya in 637. Sa’d led the Muslim invasion of Mesopotamia and captured the capital at Ctesiphon. The zealous Islamic army soon swept into Khuzistan in 640 and finally defeated the Persian army led by Perozan by killing over 100,000 at Nehawand in 642, forcing Yazdgard to flee from Ray to Isfahan to Kirman and to Balkh. A decade after the Arabs had taken over his empire, Yazdgard was finally murdered for his jewelry near Marv in 651. The Arabs encouraged those conquered to convert to Islam by exempting Muslims from the taxes they imposed on the Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews, and non-believers.
Muhammad and Islamic Conquest
Notes
1. Myths from Mesopotamia tr. Stephanie Dalley, p. 285.2. Ibid., p. 287.
3. Ibid., p. 303-304.
4. The Ancient Near East c. 3000-330 BC by Amélie Kuhrt, p. 612-613.
5. The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism by R. C. Zaehner, p. 74.
6. Yasna 49:11, in The Divine Songs of Zarathushtra tr. Irach J. S. Taraporewala, p. 727.
7. Herodotus 1:87 tr. Aubrey de Sélincourt, p. 49.
8. Ibid., p. 96.
9. Quoted in A History of Persia, Volume 1 by Percy Sykes, p. 397.
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