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20JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURESVanderhooft compares the very limited amount of inscriptional materialavailable from the Neo-Babylonian kings with the testimony providedby the late Judahite prophets. 9 Vanderhooft's position is much morenuanced and focused on a particular set of issues than those advocatedby the aforementioned scholars, but his work overlaps with theirs in sofar as he questions the extent to which one can posit a continuouslyactive and coherent Babylonian administrative presence in the land ofJudah during the exilic period.The general background of these scholarly debates provides asuitable context for understanding the force of Lipschits' work. Hepresents a highly-nuanced picture of the various regions in Judah thatwere affected by the events of the late eighth, late seventh, and earlysixth centuries BCE. Although destruction levels have been detected atmany Judahite sites dating to the sixth century, there is also evidence forcontinuation of settlement at others, especially north of Jerusalem. AsLipschits points out, large areas of Benjamin and some areas of thenorthern Judahite hill country, including the area south of Jerusalem,seem to have been unaffected by the early sixth century destructions.Indeed, a Benjaminite town—Mizpah—becomes the administrativecapital of Judah during Gedaliah's rule in the wake of the destruction ofJerusalem and the downfall of the Davidic dynasty (2 Kgs 25:22-24; Jer40:5-12; Neh 3:7).According to the author, Jerusalem and its environs remainedcompletely empty during the Neo-Babylonian period. There is thus acertain irony in the title of Lipschits’s book. According to hisreconstruction, the fall of Jerusalem was swift and disastrous in allrespects, but the rise of Jerusalem was very much a long and drawn-outprocess. If the demise of the city occurred within just a few decadestime, the recovery took centuries to complete. Even at its peak duringthe Persian period, Jerusalem did not exceed 3,000 people. The bulk ofhis book is thus not about Jerusalem per se, but about the rest of theareas traditionally associated with Judah and Benjamin. In hisestimation, the kingdom of Judah suffered a decline of approximately60% in settled area and a precipitous decrease in population from about110,000 down to approximately 40,000 in the transition from the Neo-Babylonian to the Persian era. Many of those who survived theBabylonian campaigns no longer lived in large urban centers, but ratherin small villages and rural areas. Judah suffered from a markedreduction in geographic area (especially in its frontier areas, such as theNegev, the Jordan Valley, and the Shephelah), a sharp drop-off inresidential population, devastation to many large towns, and a largetransfer of the remaining inhabitants from urban to rural areas. Thisprocess of ruralization was never effectively reversed duringAchaemenid times. Most Judaeans continued to reside on farms and insmall villages and hamlets.Nevertheless, the land was hardly empty. In fact, the abovestatistics are deceptive in some respects, because there was terribledamage in some areas, but hardly any damage in others. In this respect,9 The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Babylon in the Latter Prophets (HSM 59;Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999).