Sheba

14
SHEBA, ZIONISM, AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
establish a new society. This is a matter of great importance given the
archaeological evidence discussed in a later chapter. Ezekiel may well have
believed he had received a celestial revelation but a a cybical view was that
it was more probably blueprint designed in Mesopotamia to establish a
theocracy in Persian-ruled Palestine. There are Old Testament passages that
appear to be references to new settlements (“daughter of Jerusalem/Zion”)
rather than poetic allusions to the original cities. These passages point to a
new beginning rather than to a return to a devastated land:
She despises you [Sennacherib king of Assyria], she scorns you …. the
Virgin daughter of Zion;
Isaiah 37:22b
she wags her head behind you …. The daughter of Jerusalem ...
Isaiah 31-32,
And the surviving remnant of the House of Judah shall again take root
downward, and bear fruit upward;
2 Kings 19:21b
for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a
band of survivors.
2 Kings 30-31
And you, O tower of the flock, hill of the daughter of Zion, to you shall
it come, the former dominion shall come, the kingdom of the daughter
of Jerusalem.
Micah 4:8
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O daughter of
Jerusalem. Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass.
Zechariah 9:9
The man chosen to lead over forty thousand exiles to Jerusalem in 520
B.C.E. was Zerubbabel (Seed of Babylon), the grandson of Jehoiachin, the
deported son of Judah’s last king. Zerubbabel, according to the First Book
of Esdras 3:1 to 5:3, had been an imperial bodyguard and had won favor
from the Persian monarch Cyrus for suggesting that the finest things in life
were women and truth. This attitude most likely did not endear him to the
priests, historically misogynist, who numbered one tenth of the new settlers.
Zerubbabel was appointed governor of Judah and began laying the
foundations of the Second Temple, spurning offers of assistance from the
Samaritans and the families of those Judaeans who had not been exiled.