(8) Influence of Ezra. Whatever want of zeal the anxious Ezra might discern in his com rades, it is no slight matter that he could induce them to divorce their heathen wives—a measure of harshness which St. Paul would scarcely have sanctioned (t Cor. vii :12 ) ; and the century which followed was, on the whole. one of great religious activity and important permanent results on the moral character of the nation. Even the prophetic spirit by no means disappeared for a century and a half ; although at length both the true and the false prophets were supplanted among them by the learned and diligent scribe, the anxious commentator and the over-literal or over-figura tive critic. In place of a people prone to go astray after sensible objects of adoration, and readily admitting heathen customs, attached to monarchi cal power, but inattentive to a hierarchy ; care ltss of a written law and movable by alternate impulses of apostasy and repentance; we hence forth find in them a deep and permanent rever ence for Moses and the prophets, an aversion to foreigners and foreign customs, a profound hatred of idolatry, a great devotion to priestly and Le vitical rank. and to all %•im had an exterior of piety ; in short, a slavish obedience both to the law and to its authorized expositors. Nov, first, as far as can be ascertained (observe the particu larity of detail in Nell. viii :4. etc.1, were the svna gogues and houses of prayer instituted. and the law periodically read aloud. Nov began the close observance of the Passover. the Sabbath and the Sabbatical year. Such was the change wrought in the guardians of the Sacred Books that, whereas the pious king Josiah had sat eighteen years nn the throne without knowing of the existence of 'the Book of the law' (2 Kings xxii :3, ; in the liter period, on the contrary, the text was ‘vatched over with a scrupulous and fantastic punc tiliousness From this era the civil power was absorbed in that of the priesthood. and the Jewish people affords the singular spectacle of a nation in which the priestly rule came later in time than that of hereditary kings. Something analogous may perhaps be seen in the priestly authority of Comana in Cappadocia under the Roman sway (Cicero, Ep. ad Div. xv :4, etc.).
(9) Results of Captivity. In their habits of life also the Jewish nation was permanently af fected by the first captivity. The love of agricul ture, which the institutions of Moses had so vig orously inspired, had necessarily declined in a foreign land, and they returned with a taste for commerce, banking and retail trade which was probably kept up by constant intercourse with their brethren who remained in dispersion. The
same intercourse in turn propagated toward the rest the moral spirit which reigned at Jerusalem. The Egyptian Jews, it would seem, had gained little good from the contact of idolatry (Jer. xliv:8) ; but those who had fallen in with the Persian religion, probably about the time of its great reform by Zoroaster, had been preserved from such temptations and returned purer than they went.
In Egypt and Arabia, in Babylonia, Assyria, Media, masses of the nation were planted, who, living by traffic and by banking, were necessi tated to spread in all directions as their numbers increased. By this natural progress they moved westward, as well as eastward, and, in the time of St. Paul, were abundant in Asia Minor, Greece and the chief cities of Italy.
(10) Under the Romans. The extermination suffered by the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine under the Romans far better deserves the name of captivity, for, after the massacre of countless thousands, the captives were reduced to a real bondage. According to Josephus (De Bell, hid. vi. 9, 3), Ltoo,000 men fell in the siege of Jeru salem by Titus, and 97,00o were captured in the whole war. Of the latter number, the greatest part was distributed among the provinces, to be butchered in the amphitheaters or cast there to wild beasts; others were doomed to work as pub lic slaves in Egypt ; only those under the age of seventeen were sold into private bondage. An equally dreadful destruction fell upon the re mains of the nation, which had once more assem bled in Judaea, under the reign of Hadrian (A. D. 133), which Dion Cassius concisely relates, and by these two savage wars the Jewish population must have been effectually extirpated from the Holy Land itself. a result which did not follow from the Babylonian captivity.
Figurative. Captivity also signifies a multi tude of captives, who had made others captive. "Children of the captivity" denotes those who i were in captivity, or their posterity (Ezra v :1). "The Lord turned the captivity of Job" (Job xlii: to) means that he released him from his suffer ings and restored him to prosperity.
Jesus leads captivity captive, when he makes his enemies serve as his slaves in promoting his work, and when he apprehends and subdues his people by the word of his grace. and places them in their new covenant state (Eph. iv:8; Comp. Ps. lxviii :18).