The History of the Ancient Hebrews: The Babylonian Captivity

In the year 597 B.C., the Neo-Babylonian Armies of Nebuchadnezzar II overran Jerusalem and placed Palestine in the position of a Babylonian vassal and tributary.

The prophet Jeremiah presented cautious warnings about wrath to come if the Jews were to rise up in revolt. According to Helen Chapin Metz, "Jeremiah had stated that Israelites did not need a state to carry out the mission given to them by God. Ezekiel voiced a similar belief: what mattered was not states and empires, for they would perish through God's power, but man."

However, the Hebrews committed themselves to a national uprising in 589 B.C. in an attempt to preserve the sovereignty of the state of Judah. They were brutally suppressed by the Babylonian armies, who unleashed their vigor upon Jerusalem and sacked the temple, thus destroying the epicenter on the Hebrew culture, herding its people into Babylon to coerce them into performing tasks of menial servitude.

For fifty years, the Hebrews had but their sacred writings to rely upon prolonging their culture. The existence of these records had become ever more crucial as a result, and finishing touches were made during this time to the Torah.

Due to the absence of a Temple, the Jews initiated the practice of the Sabbath, a holy day during which they would gather in an indoor or outdoor location in order to read from the holy books and pray to their deity.

It was then that all sacrifice had been abolished from the Jewish religion and replaced rather by extensive "communication" with God through prayers and meditation. The Sabbath tradition later evolved into weekly congregations at a concrete place of worship, a synagogue, the Greek word denoting first the religious assembly itself but later the building in which the assembly was conducted.

In 539 B.C. Persian forces of Emperor Cyrus I (the Great) intimidated the Babylonians into surrendering their holdings to him, after which Cyrus emancipated the Hebrew slaves and granted them permission to traverse his realm as they wished, encouraging their return to Jerusalem.