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16JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURESIn the interpretation that follows from Lipschits’s study, the writerof Ezra 1:1-4 is responding to Jerusalem’s co-option of the provincialcenter, or the reconfiguration of the center in relation to Benjamin. Forthis reason it is important to EN to show that the residents of Benjaminagreed to participate in re-building Jerusalem’s temple (1:5).The question of the unity and cooperation between Judah andBenjamin is, thus, an early Persian period issue. Understood in this way,the issues that Ezra 1-2 addresses can be situated in the early years ofthe Persian period when the need to reunite these two groups aroundJerusalem (instead of Benjamin) would have been an actual challenge.Such a debate would not be as pertinent in the Hellenistic period, forexample, when other conflicts occupied center stage.Lipschits writes at one point: “It should be noted that there is nosatisfactory explanation for the absence of Mizpah in the list of thereturnees” (Lipschits, 167, n. 111). But Lipschits’s analysis has given usthe best explanation of all for such an absence: there is no “return” toMizpah because there was no exile from Mizpah. Moreover, theconcern with Benjamin accounts for the expansion in the list ofreturnees, in particular the lists of the men from different towns inBenjamin (Ezra 2:22-28), a point that I argue elsewhere. 5 These menneed not be considered as returnees but as Benjaminites who supportedthe building of Judah. In other words, they are included to emphasizethat Benjaminites also “went up,” and supported Jerusalem’s restoration,that is, the building of the house of YHVH in “Jerusalem which is inJudah.”Let me make clear that I am not arguing that Cyrus’s edict is anactual sixth century document, or even fifth century document, or thatit is historically reliable. Rather, I am suggesting that its formulation,along with the proleptic summary in Ezra 1:5-6, grows out of anattempt to depict or to forge reunification between Judah andBenjamin.We need to bear in mind what Ezra 1:5-6 says and what it does notdoes not say, as well as what the edict does and does not. Neitherspeaks of a return. They speak of supporting the building effort. Weread: “And they rose up, the household heads of Judah and Benjaminand the priests and the Levites, all whose spirit God has roused, to buildthe house of YHVH which is in Jerusalem” (1:5). All who remain (InBabylon? In Benjamin?) are expected to support them, and, accordingto Ezra 1:6, they do so.These issues about the relations between Judah and Benjamin maybe still in ferment when Chronicles is written, since the particularcombination of Judah and Benjamin is vocabulary that is distinctive toEN and Chronicles (and I defer to Joseph Blenkinsopp and GaryKnoppers on this subject). But to the best of my knowledge, thetension between Judah and Benjamin does not appear to be an issue inthe literature of the later Hellenistic periods. This suggests that theissues that Ezra 1 and 2 address are those of the fifth century B.C.E.,and we can see this possibility more clearly thanks to Lipschits’s book.5 See T. C. Eskenazi, Ezra-Nehemiah, Anchor Bible, forthcoming.
“IN CONVERSATION WITH ODED LIPSCHITS” 17Let me conclude: On the one hand, Lipschits’s masterful book TheFall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule, which does not aimspecifically at explicating EN, fractures in some ways the picture thatEN so carefully pieces together. On the other hand, Lipschits’sexcellent book nonetheless also illumines why EN crafts the story ofthe Persian period as it does.For this and for much else, Oded, thank you! Todah rabbah.
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