Many people are looking forward to the end of the coronavirus pandemic and getting back to normal. Others are saying that we will never get back to normal: the world has changed for ever.
A similar debate was going on among the people of Judah and Jerusalem in the 6th-Century-BC exile in Babylon. Jeremiah had said that God was promising to bring them back and that he had good plans for them – plans to give them hope and a future (Jer 29:10). But would life ever be the same?
Purpose of the Exile
For both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the last thing they wanted was for everything to go back to how it was before the exile. The whole purpose of the exile was to change things. God was calling for repentance and change, just as he is today, in the midst of the pandemic.
The reason why God had allowed the Babylonians to conquer Judah was because of their idolatry and their lack of trust in him. Jeremiah declared that it was God who had sent his people into exile and Ezekiel spelt out the major reason why: “You say, ‘We want to be like the nations, like the people of the world, who serve wood and stone. But what you have in mind will never happen’” (Ezek 20:32).
For both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the last thing they wanted was for everything to go back to how it was before the exile.
Religions of Babylon
The Babylonians were very religious, but they were not monotheists – they worshipped many gods. They had three main groups of gods. They were:
1) A 'Cosmos Triad', consisting of -
- Anu, the god of heaven
- En-lil, the god of earth
- Ea, the god of water
2) An 'Astral Triad', consisting of -
- Sin, the moon god
- Shamosh, the sun god
- Ishtar, the ‘Queen of Heaven’, since linked with Venus, the fertility goddess
3) A group of five gods of cities consisting of –
- Marduk, the god of Babylon, also god of destiny and fortune
- Nabu (son of Marduk), the god of Borsippa, also god of art and science
- Ninib (son of En-lil), the god of Nippur, also god of healing
- Nergal, the god of Cuthah in Assyria (see 2 Kings 17:24, 30), also god of the underworld
- Asshur, the god of Ashshur in Assyria, also god of war whose attributes were later assimilated into Marduk
Idolatry in Israel
All this must have been highly confusing for the exiles from Judah, who had seen nothing like it before. The idolatry they had practised was much simpler. After 400 years of slavery in Egypt and 40 years in the desert getting to the Promised Land, they had no experience of settled agricultural work. Everything was new to them. We are told, “Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel…So all Israel went down to the Philistines to have their ploughshares, mattocks, axes and sickles sharpened” (1 Sam 13:19-20).
No doubt the Philistines not only taught them agricultural skills, but when harvests were not good, they told them that the local god of the land had to be appeased. Hence, the Israelites worshipped at the high places throughout Judah. They did not forsake the worship of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, but they mixed their worship with the Canaanite Baals, to the despair of prophets such as Jeremiah.
In Babylon, the Hebrew exiles were introduced to a plethora of new possible deities to worship.
Demonic Activity
In Babylon, the Hebrew exiles were not only introduced to a plethora of new possible deities to worship; they were also introduced to an entirely new concept they had never encountered before: demonic activity.
There are only two references to demons in the Old Testament, both of which are thought to come from the exile in Babylon. They are in the ‘Song of Moses’ (Deut 32) and Psalm 106. The reference to demons in Deuteronomy 32:17 actually says that they are a new phenomenon for Israel that had only “recently appeared”. This is thought to have been a note from one of the scribes who was copying the scrolls in Babylon during the exile.
Demons in the New Testament
There are plenty of references to demons in the Gospels and Jesus certainly had to deal with them, but there are no such references in the Old Testament; so demons do not feature in the ministry of the prophets. In Babylon there were a number of religious guilds who specialised in demonic activity and there were schools of instruction for the priests which played an important part in the religion of Babylon.
There is no indication that any of this infiltrated the beliefs and practices of the exiles, but the belief in the existence of demons (as separate entities, distinct from the demonic activity underlying the activity of other religions) appears to have originated in Babylon. There is, however, no evidence of the rabbis participating in the exorcism of demons. In Matthew’s account of a demon-possessed man being healed by Jesus he reports “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel” (Matt 9:33).
The Success of the Exile
In terms of eradicating idolatry from Israel, the exile in Babylon was undoubtedly a success. There are no references to idolatry in any of the post-exilic writings of the prophets. Of course, there were other sins condemned by prophets such as Malachi, but there’s no mention of idolatry.
Repentance and turning certainly took place in Babylon among the exiles, producing a company of people redeemed by the Lord, whom Isaiah foresaw going back to the land of Israel to fulfil the purposes of God, who said, “I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isa 49:6).
Will the Pandemic Succeed?
Will the corona pandemic also achieve the purposes of God? Will there be repentance and turning from the gross sin of shedding innocent blood through abortion, and the sins of worshipping other gods – gods of greed, sex and violence, and even the NHS?