It’s hard to read the accounts of Israel’s exile into Babylonian and Assyrian territories. Besides the fact that it was so unnecessary, it’s unfathomable to think about the death and destruction that took place prior to the exile itself.
No wonder the people of God were so depressed in the beginning chapters of Ezekiel.
The imagery contained during the pre-exilic books are rife with blood, famine, and war. But what about the people that were left?
Leviticus 26:36 anticipates this reality. Not everyone in Jerusalem will be killed obviously, but that doesn’t make the lives of those who are taken away any easier.
The theme of their lives during this time will be fear.
According to Leviticus 26:36-37, they’ll run when no one is chasing them and won’t have the strength to fight back against their captors. The next verses talk about how they will be consumed by the nations around them. Not entirely, though, since Leviticus 26:40-42 talks about their redemption.
Some would argue that this punishment is because God is personally afflicting these people. I would say it’s the opposite: It’s because God is out of the picture entirely.
Apart from God’s presence, the Israelites are just another group of people, not unlike any other found on this earth. Moses himself says as much in Deuteronomy 7:7, saying that God didn’t choose them because they were the strongest, but because He made a promise to Abraham.
When that relationship is severed, then, they’re back to being just a people. And in exile, that’s exactly what they become. Eventually, they’ll assimilate into another group of people. Without the security of God behind them, they’re virtually powerless in the face of a larger, more aggressive country.
The future of Israel bore this out. When they went into exile, only a small number of people came back to Israel after the decree of Cyrus. Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 place the total number of returnees at less than 50,000 people—a far cry from the few million that most likely went into exile. Apparently, most people decided to stay in Babylon.
That’s the real cost of exile, isn’t it? At first, exile in Babylon was most likely rough. They had to figure out a new way of life. According to prophecy, they would be there for seventy years.
But once they figured that out, the vast majority decided that a life in Babylon was better than returning back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city. That’s not necessarily evil, but it does show where they had their priorities.
This is also why you see pockets of Jews around the Greek and Roman Empire. They were scattered initially, but deciding to stay where they were, they created communities in their respective locations.
Exile showed the people what a life away from God’s direct presence looked like, and for some people, that type of life was more than satisfactory.
