JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

exile, babylonian
the reference is to Israelite exiles, since these names are common
Northwest Semitic ones and may also designate either
Phoenicians or Arameans.
The documents dealing with or discovered at Gozan,
which is mentioned in the Bible in relation to the exile of
Israel (see above), are particularly instructive in this respect.
One letter (ABL 633) actually mentions one H ̆ alabišu (or less
likely, Haldu) from Samaria living in Gozan, although he
may not have been an Israelite. The same document, however,
names two officials called Palṭiyau and Niriyau (= biblical
Pelatiah and Neriah respectively) who almost certainly
were. Another Assyrian letter (ABL 1009), dated to the seventh
century B.C.E., mentions Samaritans among the troops of the
Assyrian king who were serving in Mesopotamia. In a commercial
contract from Gozan (JADD 234 = SAA 6:34) dated to
the end of the eighth century, the signatory witnesses are two
high-ranking officials in the Assyrian administration whose
names are Nādbiyau (biblical Nedabiah), who bore the title
“chariot driver,” and Paqaha (identical with the Israelite royal
name Pekah), whose title was “village manager.” In a document
discovered at Gozan (No. 111) two typical Hebrew names
are mentioned – Usi’a (*Hosea) and Dayana (Dinah), as well
as Yaseme’il. In B. Mazar’s opinion, this document concerns
Hosea’s redemption of an Israelite woman (Dinah) from an
Aramean. In a legal document from Nineveh (SAA 14:50) one
Il-yau (= והילא) sells a girl.
Traces of Israelite captives (and possibly even Judeans)
seem to appear from the end of the eighth century at Calah
(present-day Nimrud) on the Tigris, then capital of Assyria.
An Aramaic ostracon discovered there lists Northwest Semitic
personal names, some of which are common in Israel, such as
Elisha, Haggai, Hananel, and Menahem. This document possibly
concerns a group of Israelites who lived in Calah alongside
Phoenician and Aramean elements, and who worked as
craftsmen in one of the enterprises of the Assyrian kingdom.
Among the Nimrud ivories which bear inscriptions in Phoenician-Aramaic
script, one is clearly a Hebrew inscription
(ND. 10150). Some bronze bowls also found there were engraved
with West Semitic names, such as Yibḥar-ʾel, El-heli,
and Aḥiyô (Ahio), the last name being unmistakably Hebrew.
It cannot be ascertained how these objects, dating from the
second half of the eighth century, reached Calah, but they may
have been taken as spoil from Samaria when the city fell.
Various Assyrian documents contain additional names of
an ordinary Hebrew type, such as Menahem, Amram, Naboth,
and Abram, but it is difficult to determine beyond doubt that
they belong to descendants of the Israelite exiles. In an Assyrian
administrative document from the second half of the
eighth century B.C.E., the name Ah ĭyaqāma appears in relation
to the Assyrian city of Halah (H ̆ alah ̆ h ă), which is mentioned
in the Bible as one of the places to which the Israelite
exiles were deported (II Kings 17:6; 18:11). The text could be
interpreted as referring to an Israelite deportee named Ahikam.
In the view of Tur-Sinai (Torczyner), the inscription on
an amulet discovered at Arslan Tash (ancient Hadatta), east of
the Euphrates, is written in Hebrew (though this is doubtful;
see Sperling in Bibliography), and he attributes it to an Israelite
deportee from Samaria. The existence of an Israelite exile is
also alluded to in legendary tradition, such as that embodied
in the book of Tobit. The hero claims descent from the tribe of
Naphtali, supposedly deported in the days of Shalmaneser.
From the documents that presumably refer to the Israelites,
or for that matter to any other exiles, it is evident that
as a rule they did not possess the status of slaves or of an oppressed
population. The exiles were first settled in Mesopotamia
as land tenants of the king (cf. the words of Rab-Shakeh
in II Kings 18:32), while the craftsmen among them were
employed in state enterprises. Eventually, some of the exiles
achieved economic and social status and even occupied highranking
positions in the Assyrian administration. They were
given the right to agricultural holdings and to observe the
customs of their forefathers, and enjoyed a certain measure
of internal autonomy. The striking of roots in Mesopotamian
society by a large part of the descendants of the Israelite exiles
resulted in their eventual absorption into the foreign milieu.
Nevertheless, part of the Israelite community undoubtedly
preserved its distinct national character and maintained connections
with the homeland (cf. II Kings 17:28), later merging
with the Judean exile. The return to Zion apparently included
remnants of the ten tribes, as alluded to in the Bible
(see the prophecies concerning national unification in Ezek.
16:53ff.; 37:16ff.; and cf. Zech. 8:13; 10:6ff.) and as indicated
in the genealogical lists of Ezra and Nehemiah (cf., e.g., Ezra
2:2; Neh. 7:7).
Bibliography: S. Schiffer, Keilinschriftliche Spuren… (OLZ
10, Beiheft 1, 1907); W. Rosenau, in: HUCA, 1 (1925), 79ff.; A. Ungnad,
in: J. Friedrich et al., Die Inschriften vom Tell Halaf (1940); H.J.
May, in: BA, 6 (1943), 55ff.; H. Torczyner, in: JNES, 6 (1947), 18ff.; B.
Maisler (Mazar), in: BIES, 15 (1949–50), 83ff.; EM, 2 (1954), 500–3 (incl.
bibl.); J.B. Segal, in: Iraq, 19 (1957), 139ff.; W.F. Albright, in: BASOR,
149 (1958), 33–36; A.R. Millard, in: Iraq, 24 (1962), 41ff.; R.D. Barnett,
in: Eretz Israel, 8 (1967), 1*–7*; S.M. Paul, in: JBL, 88 (1969), 73–74.
Add. Bibliography: B. Oded, Mass Deportations and Deportees
in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (1979); idem, in: K. van Lerberghe and A.
Schoors (eds.), Immigration and Emigration within the Ancient Near
East (FS Lipiński, 1995), 205–12; S.D. Sperling, in: HUCA, 53 (1982),
1–10; H. Tadmor and M. Cogan, II Kings (1988), 176–80, 198–201,
336–37; M. Diakonoff, in: Scripta Hierosolymitana, 33 (FS Tadmor;
1991), 13–20; I. Ephʿal, ibid., 36–45; B. Becking, The Fall of Samaria
(1992); H. Tadmor, Tiglath-Pileser III (1994), 82–3; G. Knoppers,
I Chronicles 1–9 (AB; 2003), 382.
[Abraham Malamat]
EXILE, BABYLONIAN, exiles of Judah to Babylonia, sixth–
fifth centuries B.C.E. Although Babylonia was not the only destination
of former Judahites, it was the Babylonian deportees
and their descendants whose perspectives inform the Hebrew
Bible. Modern scholarship has adopted their perspective in
dividing Israelite/Jewish history into “pre-exilic,” “exilic,” and
“post-exilic” periods. The destruction of the Assyrian empire
brought only temporary respite to the kingdom of Judah.
The newly established Chaldean (Neo-Babylonian) dynasty
608 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6