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The Babylonian Captivity.—When Sargon, the object of general dread, died, Hezekiah, king of Judah (727–699 B.C.), flattered himself that it was safe to disregard the warnings of Isaiah, and, in the hope of throwing off the Assyrian yoke, made a treaty of alliance with the king of Egypt, and fortified Jerusalem. He abolished, however, the heathen worship in "the high places." Sennacherib, Sargon's successor, was compelled to raise the siege (p. 46). Manasseh (698–643 B.C.), in defiance of the prophets, fostered the idolatrous and sensual worship, against which they never ceased to lift their voices. Josiah (640–609 B.C.) was a reformer. As a tributary of Babylon, he sought to prevent Necho, king of Egypt, from crossing his territory, but was vanquished and slain at Megiddo, on the plain of Esdraelon. Nebuchadnezzar's victory over Necho, at Carchemish, enabled the Babylonian king to tread in the footsteps of the Assyrian conquerors. The revolt of Zedekiah, which the prophet Jeremiah was unable to prevent, and his alliance with Egypt, led to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews. In this period of national ruin, the prophetic spirit found a voice through Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It was during the era of Assyrian and Babylonian invasion that the predictions of a MESSIAH, a great Deliverer and righteous Ruler who was to come, assumed a more definite expression. The spiritual character of Isaiah's teaching has given him the name of "the evangelical prophet."

Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon, opened the way (538 B.C.) for the return of the exiles. A small part first came back under Zerubbabel, head of the tribe of Judah, who was made Persian governor. They began to rebuild the temple, which was finished in 516 B.C. Later (458 B.C.) Ezra "the scribe" and Nehemiah led home a larger body. The newly returned Jews were fired with a zeal for the observance of the Mosaic ritual—a zeal which had been sharpened in the persecutions and sorrows of exile. The era of the "hagiocracy," of the supreme influence of the priesthood and the rigid adherence to the law, with an inflexible hostility to heathen customs, ensued. The spirit of which prophecy had been the stimulant, and partially the fruit, declined. The political independence of the land was gone for ever. The day of freedom under the Maccabees, after the insurrection (168 B.C.) led by that family against the Syrian successors of Alexander, was short. But Israel "had been thrown into the stream of nations." Its religious influence was to expand as its political strength dwindled. Its subjugation and all its terrible misfortunes were to serve as a means of spreading the leavening influence of its monotheistic faith.

In the year 63 B.C., Pompeius made the Jews tributary to the Romans. In the year 40 B.C., Herod began to reign as a dependent king under Rome.

Hebrew Literature.—The literature of the Hebrews is essentially religious in its whole motive and spirit. This is true even of their historical writings. The marks of the one defining characteristic of their national life—faith in Jehovah and in his sovereign and righteous control—are everywhere seen. Hebrew poetry is mainly lyrical. Relics of old songs are scattered through the historical books. In the Psalms, an anthology of sacred lyrics, the spirit of Hebrew poesy attains to its highest flight. Examples of didactic poetry are the Book of Job, and books like the Proverbs, composed mainly of pithy sayings or gnomes. Nowhere, save in the Psalms, does the spirit of the Hebrew religion and the genius of the people find an expression so grand and moving as in the Prophets, of whom Isaiah is the chief.

ART.—In art the Hebrews did not excel. The plastic arts were generally developed in connection with religion. But the religion of the Hebrews excluded all visible representations of deity. Nor were they proficients in science. "Israel was the vessel in which the water of life was inclosed, in which it was kept cool and pure, that it might thereafter refresh the world."

The HISTORICAL BOOKS of the Old Testament comprise, first, the Pentateuch, which describes the origin of the Hebrew people, the exodus from Egypt, and the Sinaitic legislation. Questions pertaining to the date and authorship of these five books, and of the materials at the basis of them, are still debated among historical critics. It may be regarded as certain, however, that materials belonging to nearly every period of Hebrew literature, from the earliest times, are here combined. The early part of Genesis is designed to explain the genealogy of the Hebrews, and to show how, step by step, they were sundered from other peoples. The narratives in the first ten chapters—as the story of the creation, the flood, etc.—so strikingly resemble legends of other Semitic nations, especially the _Babylonians_and Phoenicians, as to make it plain that all these groups of accounts are historically connected with one another. But the Genesis narratives are distinguished by their freedom from the polytheistic ingredients which disfigure the corresponding narratives elsewhere. They are on the elevated plane of that pure theism which is the kernel of the Hebrew faith. This whole subject is elucidated by Lenormant, in The Beginnings of History (1882). The Book of Joshua relates the history of the conquest of Canaan; Judges, the tale of the heroic age of Israel prior to the monarchy; the Books of Samuel and of Kings, of the monarchy in its glory and its decline; the Books of Chronicles treat of parts of the same era, more from the point of view of the priesthood; Ruth is an idyl of the narrative type; Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther have to do with the return of the Jews from exile, and the events next following.

The POETIC WRITINGS include the Psalter, by many authors; the Proverbs of Solomon and others; Ecclesiastes, which gives the sombre reflections of one who had tasted to the full the pleasures and honors of life; the Canticles, or Song of Solomon, which depicts a young woman's love in its constancy, and victory over temptation.

The PROPHETS are divided into four classes: i. Those of the early period from the twelfth to the ninth century, including Samuel, Elijah, Eliska, etc, who have left no prophetical writings. 2. The prophets of the Assyrian age (800–700 B.C.), where belong Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, and Nahum. 3. The prophets of the Babylonian age, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Ezekiel. Here some scholars would place a part of Isaiah. 4. The post-exilian prophets, Haggai, Zachariah, Malackt, Jonah., Daniel, Joel, Obadiah, and considerable portions of Isaiah and Jeremiah.

The APOCRYPHAL BOOKS belong between the closing of the Old-Testament canon and the New Testament. They are instructive as to that intermediate period. The first Book of Maccabees is specially important for its historical matter; the Books of Wisdom and the Son of Sirach for their moral reflections and precepts.

WORKS RELATING TO HEBREW HISTORY.—EWALD, History of the Israelitish People (Eng. trans., 5 vols.); Milman, History of the Jews (3 vols.); Stade, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (2 vols., 1889); Renan, History of the People of Israel (Eng. trans., 1896); Wellhausen. Israelitische und judische Geschichte (3d ed., 1897); Kent, History of the Hebrew People (1898); Guthe, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (1899); the Art. Israel by Wellhausen, in the Encycl. Brit., and the one by Guthe in the Encycl. Bibl. The historical works of Jewish scholars, Herzfeld, Jost, Zunz, Graetz, DERENBOURG, etc., are valuable.