Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [94]
In 2 Chronicles, the author takes up the story of the monarchy after Solomon’s death, recounting the period of the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel. This version emphasizes the priestly view that the calamities striking the nation were the outcome of the nation’s sins. The past is viewed as a warning for his own time and for the future. Unlike Kings, which ends on the depressing news of Jerusalem’s destruction, the “Chronicler” fast-forwards his account to a more hopeful moment, the return to Jerusalem.
BIBLICAL VOICES
In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Perisa so that he sent a herald throughout all his kingdom and also declared in a written edict: “Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you all his people, may the Lord his God be with him! Let him go up.” (2 Chron. 36:22-23)
Since these books are placed last in the Hebrew canon, the Hebrew scriptures end on a liberating note, with echoes of the Exodus.
Lamentations
How lonely sits the city
that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become,
she that was great among the
nations! (Lam. 1:1)
Lamentations is a brief book of sorrowful poems, some in the form of alphabetic acrostics, recalling the grim fate of Jerusalem following its destruction by the Babylonians in 587/6 BCE. In Christian Old Testaments, it appears after Jeremiah, but it is placed in the Writings, the third part of the Hebrew canon. Jews entitle the book Ekhah (“O How!”), the first word of the Hebrew text, or Kinoth (“Dirges” or “Laments”). The English title is derived from the Septuagint Greek Threnoi, for “Dirges,” and the Vulgate’s Threni Id Est Lamentationes Jeromiae Prophetae, Latin for “Dirges, That Is, Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah.” While these songs were traditionally ascribed to the prophet Jeremiah, he is not the likely author. The anonymous author, or authors, certainly may have experienced the destruction of the city, and the poems are bitterly sad elegies for the “dead” city. Still, they express the hope that God will restore a humbled and repentant Israel.
BIBLICAL VOICES
Our ancestors sinned; they are
no more,
and we bear their iniquities.
Slaves rule over us;
there is no one to deliver us from their hand.
We get our bread at the peril of our lives,
because of the sword in the wilderness,
Our skin is as black as an oven
from the scorching heat
of famine.
Women are raped in Zion,
virgins in the towns of Judah.
Princes are strung up by
their hands;
no respect is shown to the elders.
Young men are compelled to grind,
and boys stagger under loads
of wood.
The old men have left the city
gate,
the young men their music.
The joy of our hearts has ceased;
our dancing has been turned
to mourning.
The crown has fallen from
our head;
woe to us for we have sinned!
Because of this our hearts are sick,
because of these things our eyes
have grown dim.
But you, O Lord, reign forever;
your throne endures to all
generations.
Why have you forgotten us
completely?
Why have you forsaken us these
many days?
Restore us to yourself, O Lord,
that we may be restored;
renew our days as of old—
unless you have utterly rejected
us,
and are angry with us beyond
measure. (Lam. 5:7-22)
Was the Exile all that bad?
The period of the Exile in Babylon, lasting approximately from 586 to 538 BCE, was momentous in terms of shaping Judaism and the Bible. Without the Temple in Jerusalem as the focal point of Yahweh worship, the exiles were forced to create a new form of communal ritual, with the earliest beginnings of the synagogue (a Greek word for “place