Exile as Transformation: Haggai, Zechariah, and Second Isaiah
The Jews of Babylonia must have been excited in 539 BCE. Their parents and grandparents, and some of the older folks themselves, had arrived in Babylonia nearly half a century earlier, in 586 BCE, when Nebuchadnezzar II quashed the rebellion of King Zedekiah, sacked Jerusalem, destroyed its Temple, and exiled its elites. Thousands of Jewish priests, aristocrats, scribes, and artisans trekked eastward along the fertile crescent to take up residence beneath the watchful eye of their conqueror. Although they adapted well to the new environment, many exiles understandably dreamed of the day they might return to Jerusalem, a longing expressed famously in Psalm 137.
As it happened, their hopes were soon fulfilled. The exile did not last long. Already by 540 BCE, Persian armies under Cyrus the Great had defeated Babylonia’s neighbors to the east, north, and west. After routing Babylonian troops at the stronghold of Opis in 539 BCE, Cyrus entered Babylon without a fight. Just like that, the Babylonian exile was over. Jews must have been excited.
The Era of Restoration
An able leader and gifted propagandist, Cyrus styled himself a tolerant and magnanimous king. To secure the loyalty of the Babylonians and other conquered nations, he promoted an ambitious policy of restoration: peoples were to be restored to their lands and gods restored to their temples. The policy was inscribed in cuneiform on a clay cylinder, known as the Cyrus Cylinder, which was discovered near Baghdad in 1879 and is presently housed at the British Museum in London. (I had the pleasure of seeing the Cyrus Cylinder myself—along with my son, Cyrus—at the Getty Villa in Malibu when it toured five American cities in 2013.) While the cylinder makes no mention of them, the Jews in Babylonia were no doubt included among the exiled peoples permitted to return to their land and to rebuild their God’s shrine. Many exiles thus returned to Jerusalem, inaugurating what historians often call the era of restoration.
We are fortunate to have several sources that shed light on the events of this era. The biblical books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and 2 Chronicles were composed at least a century later and represent secondary reflections. The biblical books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Isaiah, on the other hand, feature oracles from prophets of the late 6th century BCE, and as such, they prove invaluable for ascertaining what Jews at the time thought about restoration. Notwithstanding some important discrepancies among them, the sources agree on the basic sequence of events in this period: Many Jews returned to Jerusalem, where they laid the foundations for the Second Temple; within a few years, or perhaps even from the start, Jerusalem was controlled by two Persian appointees—a governor (Heb. pachat) Zerubbabel, the grandson of Zedekiah’s predecessor, Jeconiah, and thus a descendant of David, and Joshua, the High Priest; in 520 BCE, Zerubbabel and Joshua expedited the construction of the Temple, which, like many public works projects, had fallen behind schedule. The Temple was completed in 516 BCE, after which our sources go dark until the arrival of Ezra and Nehemiah several generations later.
Competing Views of Restoration
Haggai and Zechariah
The prophets who preached in the days of Zerubbabel and Joshua offer vastly different perspectives on what Jewish restoration ought to mean. One camp featured Haggai and Zachariah, the prophets who led the call in 520 BCE to complete the reconstruction of the Temple. As it turns out, their grand plans included much more than a Temple.
“The prophets who preached in the days of Zerubbabel and Joshua offer vastly different perspectives on what Jewish restoration ought to mean. One camp featured Haggai and Zachariah, the prophets who led the call in 520 BCE to complete the reconstruction of the Temple. As it turns out, their grand plans included much more than a Temple.”
Their aim is revealed in one of the most bizarre and inscrutable passages in the entire Hebrew Bible, Zechariah 6:10-14:
Collect treasure from the exiles . . . and go that day to the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah. Take silver and gold and make crowns, and place it on the head of the high priest, Joshua the son of Jehozadak. Say to him: “Thus says the lord of hosts: Behold a man whose name is Branch; he shall branch out and he shall build the Temple of the lord. He shall build the Temple of the lord; he shall have honor; and he shall sit and rule from his throne. There will be a priest on his throne, and they will have a peaceful understanding. And the crowns will remain in the care of Heldai, Tobijah, Jedaiah, and Hen the son of Zephaniah, as a memorial in the Temple of the lord.
On a first pass, it might not be clear what makes this passage so challenging. Closer inspection reveals a welter of problems. In the first place, the crown is placed on the wrong head.[1] Why would a crown be placed on the head of the high priest, Joshua, rather than on a figure who might be expected to wear a crown, namely a descendant of David? That Joshua does not belong here becomes clearer when the prophet refers to him as “Branch,” the name that an earlier prophet, Jeremiah, gave to the descendant of David he hoped would restore the line that was cut off when Zedekiah was deposed.[2] Joshua, a priest, was no descendant of David. Moreover, Zechariah says that Joshua will have a priest alongside him, but why would one priest rule alongside another?
The passage, as it stands, makes no sense, but historians have long noted that one slight adjustment remedies nearly all the problems. Replace the name Joshua with Zerubbabel and the passage comes together nicely. A crown is then placed on the head of Zerubbabel, the descendant of a Davidic king. Zerubabbel becomes the Branch anticipated by Jeremiah and beside him, understandably, sits a high priest. It looks, therefore, like an editor has tampered with a passage describing the crowning of Zerubbabel by replacing him with Joshua.
But why? What led an editor to blot out Zerubbabel? An oracle from the book of Haggai, a contemporary of Zechariah, suggests the likely reason:
Say to Zerubabbel, the governor of Judah: I am shaking heaven and earth; I will overturn the thrones of kingdoms; I will destroy the mighty of the kingdoms among the nations; I will overturn a chariot and its rider; horses and their riders will fall, each by the sword of his brother. On that day, says the lord of hosts, I will take you, my servant Zerubabbel, the son of Shealtiel, and I will make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you, says the lord of hosts.
The prophet Haggai foresees quite the promotion for Zerubbabel. God will violently topple foreign kingdoms and then make Zerubabbel into God’s king on earth, a status indicated by the metaphor of the signet ring worn by ancient kings. As in the original version of the passage from Zechariah, Haggai seems unsatisfied with the prospect of a Davidic descendant like Zerubabbel in the role of a mere governor, subordinated to a mighty foreign king. He ought rather to bear the crown and ring of God’s anointed king on earth.
Historians have suggested that the passages from Haggai and Zechariah, taken together, indicate that Zerubabbel and his supporters staged an uprising against Persia in 520 BCE. On this reconstruction, many of the exiles who returned from Babylon, among them Zerubabbel, Haggai, and Zechariah, anticipated a restoration of the royal family to its throne in Jerusalem. When the Persian king Darius I became distracted by a series of revolts upon his accession in 522 BCE, these Jews seized the opportunity to proclaim Zerubabbel king over Judah and to withhold tribute from Persia. Darius promptly stamped out the insurrection, however, disposing of Zerubabbel, and never again permitting a Jew of the royal line to rule. The high priest assumed control over Jerusalem; hence, the expurgation of Zerubabbel in favor of Joshua in Zechariah 6:10-14.
“What is clear, at least, is that many Jews of the time hoped that restoration would mean a resumption of life just as it was prior to the exile: a Temple, a high priest, and a descendant of David on the throne. They sought the status quo ante, as the Latin expression goes, the state of affairs that obtained before the crisis.”
Whether such intrigue actually lies behind the corrupted passage in Zechariah remains a matter of speculation. What is clear, at least, is that many Jews of the time hoped that restoration would mean a resumption of life just as it was prior to the exile: a Temple, a high priest, and a descendant of David on the throne. They sought the status quo ante, as the Latin expression goes, the state of affairs that obtained before the crisis.
Second Isaiah
Other Jews felt differently, most notably the prophet known as Second Isaiah. This prophet was active around the same time as Haggai and Zechariah, but his (or her?) oracles were not collected in a book bearing his name. They were rather appended to a collection of oracles attributed to the eighth-century prophet Isaiah, and today we find this “Second Isaiah” in chapters 40-55 of the book of Isaiah.[3]
Second Isaiah expressed no desire to reestablish the status quo ante. There is no mention of Zerubabbel or any other Davidic king. Indeed, the prophet goes so far as to say that God’s anointed king on earth is none other than Cyrus, the king of Persia. Cyrus is God’s “anointed” (45:1), God’s “shepherd” (44:28) who fulfills God’s purpose by restoring Jews to Jerusalem and encouraging them to rebuild the Temple. Elsewhere the prophet suggests that the eternal covenant God forged with David and his descendants has been transferred to the collective people of Israel. Whereas David, in the past, demonstrated the glory of God by conquering nations with force, after the exile Jews demonstrate the glory of God by conquering nations with the truth about the one, true God (55: 3-5). Israel has become a “light to the nations” (42:6; 49:6), as Second Isaiah puts it, coining the expression that would shape Jewish self-understanding until the present day.
While chapters 40-55 do not say so explicitly, Second Isaiah could scarcely have abided the coronation of Zerubabbel. To give Israel a king would be to make it what it was before the exile, a nation like any other, with a flesh-and-blood king who fights on its behalf. On Second Isaiah’s reckoning, Israel has become a nation unlike any other, a nation whose purpose is to proclaim the oneness of God so that eventually every knee on earth will bow before God and every tongue swear loyalty (45:23). Such a nation needs no king to protect it because God ensures its salvation.
Looking Back and Looking Forward
For Second Isaiah, then, restoration meant looking to the future no less than to the past. To be sure, the prophet celebrated the opportunity afforded by the triumph of Cyrus to return to Zion, rebuild the Temple, and reestablish the covenant with God. Unlike Haggai and Zechariah, however, Second Isaiah recognized that the former days had been far from idyllic. The exile occurred for a reason, after all. Israel had sinned. It neglected its covenantal obligations to God and succumbed to idolatry, and it was vanquished as a result. To avoid repeating this tragedy, Israel would have to transform itself into something different and better—in Second Isaiah’s understanding, into a nation uniquely committed to spreading monotheism and to bringing the world beneath the banner of God’s unchallenged rule.
Many Jews in America are excited as they enter 2021 ce. An end to months of social isolation seems near, as does the end of what most American Jews have seen as a four-year exile from political normalcy. God willing, the sense of a world restored will burgeon soon. As it does, the counsel of Second Isaiah is worth heeding. Bringing back the status quo ante, returning to the state of affairs in 2019 or 2016 or some other point in the past that is identified as the beginning of our troubles, is not enough. The prophet admonishes Jews to consider, both individually and as communities, why such woes beset us and how we might allow the experience of exile to transform us into something different and better.
“The prophet admonishes Jews to consider, both individually and as communities, why such woes beset us and how we might allow the experience of exile to transform us into something different and better.”
What might communities so transformed look like? What from our past is it time to forsake? To what new missions and purposes might we be resolved? It remains to be seen, of course, so let us remain attentive to the voices of inspiration as they emerge in our own post-exilic world.
[1] Another problem is the mention of two crowns, when only one is used. Some ancient Greek manuscripts suggest that the original Hebrew had the singular “crown.”
[2] Jeremiah 23:5.
[3] Most scholars believe that chapters 56-66 of the canonical Isaiah represent still a third hand. It is accordingly called Third (or Trito-) Isaiah.
