Dates for reference:—

B.C. 597.	Jehoiachin and 10,000 captives deported to Babylon, and Zedekiah made king in his stead. FIRST CAPTIVITY.
587–6.	Jerusalem besieged, Zedekiah taken to Babylon, Jerusalem and the Temple destroyed, and the whole population, save the very poorest, deported to Babylon. SECOND CAPTIVITY.
538.	Cyrus issues edict for Return.
	Return under Sheshbazzar (?) (Ezra i.).
537.	Return under Zerubbabel (Ezra ii.).
458.	Arrival of Ezra.
445.	First Mission of Nehemiah.
433.	Second Mission of Nehemiah.

There is a good deal of uncertainty about the above dates, and the condition of the documents in Ezra-Nehemiah offers difficulties which have not, so far, found acceptable solutions. Some have sought to identify Sheshbazzar with Zerubbabel, and to bring down the date of the Return to 522–21.

It will be seen from the above Table that Jeremiah's prophecy of Seventy Years was not literally fulfilled.

* * * * *

The student would receive a clear idea of the growth of Israel's institutions and the way in which they have been incorporated in the successive documents, by tracing the development of the Sabbath in the following passages.

Some claim that the Records of Babylonia show that the observance of the seventh day as sacred goes back to the origins of primitive Semitic religion.

(1) In "J-E" (which may be prior to Amos in oral form, and perhaps slightly later as documents): Exod. xxiii. 12; xxxiv. 21; xx. 8.

(2) In historical books: 2 Kings iv. 22, 23; Amos viii. 5; Hosea ii. 11; Isa. i. 13.

(3) In "D": Deut. v. 14.

(4) In Jer. xvii. 19–27. (Jeremiah is the first writer to show traces of the influence of Deuteronomy.)

(5) In "H," The Code of Holiness (Lev. xvii.-xxvi.): Lev. xix. 3, 30; xxvi. 2.

(6) In Ezek. xx. 12, 13.

(7) In "P": Gen. ii. 1–3; Exod. xx. 10, 11; xxxi. 12–17; xxxv. 1–3; Lev. xxiii. 3; Num. xv. 32–36; Exod. xvi. 5, 22–30.

(8) In post-exilic observance: Neh. xiii. 15–22; Isa. lvi. 2, 4, 6; lviii. 13, f.; lxvi. 23.

Lecture VII
THE EFFECT OF THE EXILE

In the year 597 B.C., a catastrophe long foretold befell the Kingdom of Judah. Nebuchadrezzar invaded the land, took Jerusalem, and robbing the land of every person of importance or usefulness, transported them together with King Jehoiachin to Babylon, hoping doubtless to prevent any further trouble with JudÆa. In what a conflict of emotion must the exiles have left that city which they had fondly imagined inviolable! for even in Babylon they continued to believe that so long as Jerusalem stood, Jehovah would have a citadel, and the holy city would remain a symbolic witness to their unconquered religion. With the captives there went a young man who was destined to leave a deep impression upon the future of his nation—the priest Ezekiel. Arrived in Babylon, he felt himself called to a prophetic ministry to the exiles, and his first message was directed to the crushing of their remaining hopes; for with dramatic symbolism he predicted that Jerusalem would be utterly destroyed. The suicidal policy of Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadrezzar had left to carry on the government as his vassal, soon fulfilled this prophecy; for sedition and intrigue soon compelled Nebuchadrezzar to adopt still stricter measures. He again marched into JudÆa and besieged Jerusalem. This time the Jews expected no mercy, and resisted with such tenacity that the siege lasted for nearly two years. On the ninth day of the Fourth month, (our July) 586 B.C., a day still kept with solemn fasting by the Jews, a breach was made in the walls and the city capitulated. A month later the entire destruction of the city and Temple was ruthlessly carried out, and the whole population, with the exception of a few husbandmen, was deported to swell the company of exiles now at Babylon.

This was the inevitable culmination of the policy of the Kingdom of Judah under her latest monarchs. The position of their land laid them open to conflicts with the powers of Assyria and Babylon. The wise and peaceful policy of Solomon had been departed from, and indeed rendered impossible by the disruption of the Tribes. A period of national decadence seems to have followed, in which luxury and corruption undermined all political sanity, and both rulers and people became blind to the dangers that threatened. Such religion as existed, only expressed itself in bursts of fanaticism, and filled the people with the fatal idea that Jehovah would never suffer the Temple to be violated or the holy city to be taken. The disaster of the Exile is charged by the Prophets to the unrepented sins of the nation, and while this is a religious interpretation it is not unsupported by a review of the history. The people had set their hearts upon a glorious kingdom of material prosperity, presided over and protected by a mighty national deity; the Prophets wanted a kingdom of righteousness, which would reflect the character of Jehovah and be a witness to the nations of His reality and power. While they saw in the Exile a calamity which meant the destruction of the nation, and an evidence that Jehovah had broken His covenant because of disobedience, they clung to the belief that the end for which Jehovah had chosen Israel might still be attained. That nation might be destroyed, yet from its ruins there would arise a Kingdom of God; a remnant would return, weaned from a false religion, to work out a new ideal of holiness and service.

The period which follows is one of great obscurity and the records which are actually dated from this time are scanty. Literary criticism however throws great light on this period because it believes that it is from the Exile that we are to date many institutions and writings that have been referred to a previous age. This may seem at first sight a desperate device, since so little is known of the actual conditions; and yet unfettered investigation can arrive at no other conclusion, the exilic stamp being often unmistakable and even showing itself in geographical outlook (1 Kings iv. 24). If we take the Bible as it stands, it presents us with the story of an early legislation given by Moses, neglected however by the entire people, including the Reformers and Prophets, until it suddenly appears after the Exile as the acknowledged code for the regulation of religion and common life. It would be quite possible to conceive that the shock of the Exile drove the Jews to examine the details of the neglected covenant of Jehovah and to restore the authority of the Law of Moses. Such however is impossible, not only from that fact that there is no mention of the Law of Moses in the records that can be dated between the Conquest of Canaan and the Exile, but that in this period we can discern customs and ideas gradually growing up that find their full and final embodiment in the Pentateuch as we now possess it. From the lawless condition of the Judges and the early monarchy, we advance to the teaching of the Prophets. It is Isaiah who contributes the ideas which lie at the basis of the Deuteronomic Code, and the time of Josiah is the first to show the influence of that code. Ezekiel is the first to show any trace of the ideas which we find embodied in Leviticus, but these, as we shall see, have to be explained as anticipations of, rather than as an acquaintance with, the finished Levitical Code. When we consider what effect the Exile would have upon the more thoughtful of the Jews, we can imagine that conscience would be shocked into activity, and a new interest would be taken in their strange history, especially in its prophetic interpretation. It is common in history to find that repentance rarely goes so deep as to grasp the inner meaning of its discovered sin, but is apt to content itself with somewhat superficial methods of showing its sincerity and securing future compliance with religion. So at least, the records of Israel's history assure us, happened in this instance, and one of the resolutions of their penitence took concrete form in the writing or editing of their history so that it should be a warning to the future, and in codifying customs and drawing up regulations which should make apostasy for ever impossible. Many references in the ancient records or in the oral tradition which savoured of idolatry or of a too anthropomorphic conception of God were corrected, as those references, the tendency of which was not detected, have remained to bear witness; and the whole history was fitted somewhat clumsily into a mechanical scheme, which was rather what they thought ought to have happened than what really did happen. One example of this may be seen in the condemnation which is naÏvely passed on king after king because he had allowed sacrifice to be made at the high places; the fact being that this was not made illegitimate until the reign of Josiah. In this way external offences were marked and abandoned, while the deeper incongruity between the national religion and the teaching of the Prophets was missed.

If we seek in this period for the rise of ideas which shall bridge over the change from the popular religion on the one hand, and the religion of Jeremiah on the other, to the complete unity of the national religion under Nehemiah and Ezra, we shall find a most important link in the Book of Ezekiel.

The Book of Ezekiel is said to be the least read book in the Bible, yet its author plays a most important part in the history of Israel's religion, and to grasp the position which he occupies is to have a focus point from which the whole development may be conveniently grasped. The Prophet probably got a better hearing from his contemporaries than any of his predecessors. He accompanied the body of captives who left Jerusalem for Babylon in the year 597, and his works date from soon after that year and go down to about 570. The men to whom he was called to speak were therefore his fellow captives, and he had not to look far for a text for his sermons. His hearers were in Babylon for their sins, and they knew it. His style of preaching is difficult, and his method of embodying his message in visions marks a new phenomenon in Israel's religion. He states truth in strange and fanciful figures, a method which was to form an example for the later works of Judaism, and if we detect in Ezekiel a return to the extravagance of the earlier prophecy, we must make allowance for the tragic times in which he lived; especially must we do this where we trace a falling off from his predecessors in moral insight and in the ritualistic influence which his work undoubtedly left behind him.

Ezekiel continues the work of the pre-exilic Prophets in that he proclaims their characteristic doctrines, and naturally he shows distinct traces of the influence of Jeremiah. What is new, is that he gives to those doctrines a more fixed and somewhat pedantic form, and a greater self-consciousness is discernible; the prophecies are accurately arranged, and the language is marked by precision; rhetoric is less frequent, and the prophecies look more fit for reading than for delivery. The idea of God is the same as in the earlier Prophets, but in Ezekiel it is elevated and rarified; especially is great emphasis laid upon the attribute of holiness, which is however a ceremonial rather than a purely ethical conception. The characteristic idea of the Prophets, that Jehovah chose Israel not for their own sakes, becomes the idea that Jehovah did this for His own sake alone, and this is so often repeated that it almost looks like arbitrariness. The cause of Judah's punishment is still traced to the sin of the people, but that sin is now definitely determined to be idolatry; and this is insisted on almost to the exclusion of the social and ethical wrongs assailed by the earlier Prophets. While, however, Ezekiel enforces the bitter lessons of the Exile, he carefully distinguishes the true interpretation of that disaster from that which rose readily to the popular mind. He disposes of the conception that the Captivity was due to the inability of Jehovah to defend His own land (xxxvi. 20); it was a punishment for sin (xxxix. 23), and in His own time He will prove this by restoring them to their land again (xxxix. 25). Neither will he allow them to rest in the flattering thought that they were only suffering for the unvisited sins of a former generation; he insists, probably with greater rigour than experience would sanction, that each man bears his own sin, and never suffers for the sins of others. But to those who admit the justice of his charges, and who therefore regard the future as hopeless, he preaches a tender doctrine of forgiveness and the possibility of cleansing from sin. From the events of his times, he seeks to draw lessons which should redeem the mistakes that had been made in the past: the teaching of the Prophets must be kept before the people in definite rules and religious ceremonies. Old customs, whose original significance had long been forgotten, were invested with new interpretations worthy of the true religion of Jehovah, and were made not only customs, but religious commands. In the book which bears his name, and especially in chapters xl.-xlviii., he outlines a policy in which the whole of national life is comprehended in its religious significance, and thus the calamity of future apostasy prevented. The new State is to centre round the idea of worship: the Temple with its services and appointments is to be the expression of the national life. Now in this scheme there is little doubt that we have the beginning of the Levitical system, for Ezekiel is related to Leviticus as the rough sketch to the finished plan. If Leviticus in its present form existed in Ezekiel's time, then the work of the Prophet was not only entirely unnecessary, but careless and presumptuous. Some of the facts which point to the priority of Ezekiel to the Levitical Code may be noticed. In the Levitical Code we find that a distinction is made between priests and Levites. This is not found in Deuteronomy (xvii. 9, 18; xviii. 1) but is first found in Ezekiel (xliv. 10–15), where it is explained to be due to the degradation of the Levites as a punishment for leading the people into idolatry; in Leviticus we reach the final stage, where the distinction is accepted without explanation. In Ezekiel we have no mention of the high-priest or of the Day of Atonement, both of which figure so largely in the Priest's Code, although we can find foreshadowings of the Day of Atonement (Ezek. xlv. 18–20). Indeed we meet with no mention of the Day of Atonement, apart from the Priestly Code, until Zechariah (vii. 5; viii. 19). The general conclusion may be safely drawn, that during and after the Exile, Ezekiel's ideas were stiffened and developed into the full legislation now preserved for us in Leviticus.

We may rightly claim Ezekiel to be the founder of Judaism, with its transcendent conception of Jehovah and its great attention to ceremonial detail, and we are bound therefore to recognise in Ezekiel a falling off from the ideals of the pre-exilic Prophets; he is a prophet in priest's clothing. Yet it may be questioned whether the idealistic teaching of the Prophets could have been preserved through the periods of the Exile and the Restoration, without this formal process. An outer husk of formality had to develop in order that the living kernel might be protected during the critical years when Persia, Greece, and Rome were to press their alien ideas upon this people. It has been well for the world that Ezekiel clothed the Prophets' teaching in the resisting garments of Judaism.

The Exile could not fail to leave upon the Jewish nation an imperishable mark, and they emerged from that trial a different people. It was a shock that brought a repentance the Prophets had often laboured for in vain, and this repentance was marked by the initiation of many new movements in thought, and by a more stringent and solemn observance of their peculiar institutions. Probably in that alien land many of the Jews adopted the customs of their conquerors, since it is estimated that not more than a small fraction returned to Palestine. This defection would impress upon those who remained faithful the necessity for a strict policy of separation, and from this time certain institutions which had been inherited from ancient Semitic practice received a new meaning. Chief among these may be noticed the observance of the Sabbath, and the rite of circumcision. The observance of a certain day as sacred to the gods is a custom that is found in nearly all early religions, and there are traces of such an observance in the Babylonian religion. We do not find however in the historical books of the Bible that mention of the Sabbath which would be expected, if it was observed with the strictness common after the Exile. There are traces of an observance, not strictly defined, save that it is in association with the new moon feasts, and is combined with social relaxation (2 Kings iv. 22, 23; Hosea ii. 11; Amos viii. 5; Isa. i. 13). Even before the Exile however a more religious conception had arisen (Jer. xvii. 19–27), and is even then referred to as an earlier command. The change after the Exile was towards an ever increasing strictness (Isa. lvi. 2, 4, 6; lviii. 13; lxvi. 23; Neh. xiii. 15–22). The rite of circumcision was by no means peculiar to the Jewish religion (Jer. ix. 25, 26), except perhaps in so far as it was performed in infancy: its origin and growth are very obscure. Its original significance was early lost and its interpretation was probably due to the Prophets themselves, who often referred to a spiritual circumcision, and thus made possible the full ceremonial interpretation which became so important a feature in later Judaism.

We have seen that there is evidence to prove that the religion of Israel had not always been averse to the use of idols as part of the legitimate worship of Jehovah. The Prophets began the protest against this, not so much because of its principles, but because of the immoral practices with which idol worship was connected. But after the Exile, idolatry was for ever separated from the worship of Jehovah, and in the later Prophets idolatry becomes the target for their most scornful invective. It has been suggested that this new abhorrence accounts for the non-return of the Ark, which in this period disappears from history.

Among the most important of the new institutions that can be traced back to the period of the Exile is the founding of the Synagogue. In the land of Exile, away from the one spot where sacrifice was permitted, worship had to be carried on without the aid of sacrificial or ceremonial rites, but there was nothing to prevent the people from gathering together for prayer or to hear read their newly reverenced prophetic books. It is quite possible that this led to a collection of the Prophets' writings being made, and perhaps to some editing to meet their present needs. This movement was of profound importance for the future development of religion, for it was in the Synagogue rather than in the Temple that Christianity was to find the readiest medium for its dissemination and the earliest model for its worship. The Synagogue itself prepared the way for the more spiritual developments within Judaism, for away from the Temple sacrifices and their always dangerous suggestions men learned that the sacrifice of the broken heart was more acceptable to Jehovah; and so the way was prepared for that magnificent collection of prayers and songs which we call the Psalms, which were afterwards to be used as an accompaniment to a form of worship that they frequently condemn. The external and legal conceptions were, however, to be the most visible results gained from the Exile, and they were to mould religion for many a year.

The materials for an exact history of the return from Exile do not exist in our Bibles; the accounts found in Ezra and Nehemiah raise questions which have not yet been satisfactorily answered. The Prophets who had foretold the destruction of the kingdom of Judah had never been able to rest in the thought that this was the final chapter in Jehovah's dealings with His people, and their faith forced them to peer through this impending disaster and dimly discern a purpose yet to be disclosed. This is often pictured in merely general terms, but in Jeremiah and Ezekiel these hopes issued in the definite prophecy of the restoration of the Jews to their own land within a certain period. When political changes brought this on the horizon of possibility, the times wakened the "voice of one crying in the wilderness," in some respects the most wonderful of all that noble band we have been studying. The name of this herald has not been preserved, but he is known to criticism as the Second Isaiah. This does not of course mean that he bore that name, but it is a convenient designation for the writings that occupy the second half of the work included under the name of Isaiah. The separation of chapters xl.-lxvi. from those which precede, as from different hands, is one of the most universally accepted results of criticism. The preceding chapters end with a historic survey of events that happened in the lifetime of the great Isaiah of Jerusalem, and then suddenly the whole outlook and atmosphere change. Critics claim that the test of language and style is itself decisive, but while this must remain a question on which only Hebrew experts are qualified to pronounce, the difference of theological ideas, and the change of situation cannot be missed by any attentive English reader. Indeed that the situation has changed is a fact which has never been challenged. From chapter xl., the audience addressed consists no longer of the proud and scornful peoples of the time of Hezekiah, but of penitent captives far from their native land some 150 years later; the accepted explanation used to be that Isaiah transported himself to this later time by a miracle of prophetic inspiration. But there is really only one adducible reason for attributing this prophecy to Isaiah: it is bound up with the book that bears his name as the title. This reason is of little value when we admit our ignorance of the method by which the Old Testament was finally edited, and when the internal evidence entirely contradicts the traditional theory. For it must be borne in mind that the explanation that this is due to a prophetic transportation is only a hypothesis framed to fit the conditions, and has no claim to acceptance if there can be found one that does equal justice to the facts without appealing to such an unusual method. Moreover, the hypothesis of prediction does not fit the facts, for while some parts of the prophecy have predictive form, others have not. For instance, the picture of Cyrus and his conquests, complete even to the name of the hero, is not only presented as if he were on the stage of actual history, but his appearance is adduced as a convincing evidence of the fulfilment of prophecy. What fulfilment would it be if Cyrus was yet a figure of the unknown future? If it is claimed that this presentation is due to what is known to Hebrew grammarians as a use of the prophetic present tense, in which things future in fact, are stated as present, owing to the vividness of the prophetic consciousness, then we must ask why it is that Cyrus is presented as a figure of contemporary history, while the fall of Babylon is still spoken of as future. This distinction would be meaningless if the whole of this period was seen from some anterior time.

The "settled results" of criticism were greatly ridiculed when further investigation pronounced that only chapters xl.-lv. can have come from this great Prophet, and that the remainder of the book is of a composite character, extending at least to the time of the Second Temple. To have to bring in a third author, or even more, to explain this book is quoted as an example of the foolishness of criticism. Now the critics may be wrong, but their theories are simply endeavours to understand these prophecies by setting them in their exact historical surroundings. Surely this is a task worthy of any reverent student of the Old Testament, and if it brings, as many believe, wonderful light on these messages, and thus sets free their eternal significance, then these men should earn gratitude rather than ridicule, when the difficulty of their task calls for a continual rearrangement and a finer adjustment.

The critical reconstruction of this prophecy therefore places chapters xl.-lv. among the scenes it depicts, and in the very history whose movements called it forth. The exact conditions can be discerned. After the death of Nebuchadrezzar the kingdom of the ChaldÆans began to decline, and when Cyrus succeeded to the throne of Persia its fate was determined. His victorious campaigns, culminating in the fall of Sardis in B.C. 547, could not fail to reach the ears of the exiles in Babylon, and many a whisper of hope must have been exchanged, and many a prophecy handed on. Babylon itself fell before the conqueror in 538 and between these two dates, and perhaps nearer to the latter, the internal witness of the prophecy demands that it should be placed.

When we turn to examine the work of this unknown messenger we cannot help noticing the difference in style, which even the translation cannot obscure. The great Isaiah writes in terse, closely-packed sentences, with all the authoritative manner customary with the Prophets. This writer, on the other hand, is rhetorical, and loves to dwell on his favourite ideas. The sharp word of the prophetic deliverance here gives way to a reasoning exposition and a pleading tenderness that makes this prophecy a Gospel before the Gospels. The distinctive religious ideas can be easily marked. Absolute Monotheism is insisted on with a fulness and repetition which shows that it is in some degree a new truth. There is none beside Jehovah; He is alone, unique; and description is exhausted in the endeavour to picture His glory and power. He is now constantly referred to as the Creator of the world, the framer of the stars on high, the maker of both darkness and light, both good and evil; so that no room is left for the dualism that the Prophet may have learned to despise in the Babylonian religion. His finest scorn is reserved for the conception that an idol can have any claim to divinity. He depicts the process of their manufacture, their utter helplessness; it may be that he had seen them borne in to the capital as the suburbs fell before the invader.

Universalism struggles for expression in this writer, but it is not always so clear and definite as in the writings of the great Isaiah. This arises however, not so much from the racial prejudices that have so clogged the Hebrew mind, as from a reading of Israel's history which the prophet was well entitled to make, namely, that she was to be the premier nation in the instruction of the world in righteousness and the knowledge of God, the priest-nation of humanity. This conception of the nation's history and destiny is embodied in a personification known as the Servant of Jehovah. Israel has been chosen as the Servant so that the light may be brought to the nations. In this mission the Servant meets with persecution, yet turns not back from those who pluck off the hair nor hides his face from shame and spitting. The slightest retrospect of Israel's history shows that the Servant of Jehovah was trained for his task only through suffering. Israel had suffered for her sins of presumption and disobedience; but were the nations who punished her any more righteous? Moreover, many of those who sat down by the waters of Babylon and wept when they remembered Zion must have been pious and righteous, and innocent of the causes of their nation's calamities. As the prophet broods over the meaning of the Exile, as it affected the godly remnant, he begins to see that this suffering, undeserved though it might be in particular cases, would become a supreme lesson in righteousness to the world. This assumption is embodied in the astonishing drama of the suffering Servant; one who suffers from a disfiguring disease, which marks him out to all beholders as the afflicted of Jehovah, and who is therefore despised and rejected of men. But the day comes when the idea slowly dawns upon men that this servant-nation suffered for the sake of the world, bore the consciousness of sin when other nations lived in carelessness and flourished on cruelty. The Prophet believed that this patient suffering would be an awakening force and would be the means of bringing the world to the knowledge of God. It is a marvellous reading of Israel's history; but it is true, for that little nation despised and rejected by Empires, battered by the armed forces which surrounded her, has made the whole world her debtor. But indirectly this interpretation is a revelation of the meaning of all history, and especially of that strange law of vicarious suffering which binds all the world one and makes every new age in debt to the past. This unknown writer has contributed one of the most fruitful ideas to the philosophy of history.

It is not surprising that most early commentators have tried to read in the 53rd chapter a picture, not of a nation, but of some definite person; although the Prophet definitely identifies the Servant of the Lord with Israel (Isa. xli. 8). But when did Israel embody such a conception? It can only stand for an ideal of what Israel ought to have been; and there have been many things which have entered into the composition of the picture. It has been suggested that one of the Prophets sat for this picture, just as sometimes an artist painting a symbolical picture will get one of his friends to sit for the model; and who could be better for this purpose than Jeremiah, the rejected of the nation? The interpretation that finds in this picture a minute prediction of the life and passion of Jesus is not sanctioned by a careful study of the passage; but the instinct that has led to this is right in the main, for as we travel down the ages looking for the fulfilment of this ideal, we only rest with complete satisfaction on the story of the life and death of One who stepping out from this very race, by His uninterrupted communion with God, His hatred of sin and His profound sympathy with mankind, bore away the sin of the world on the red flood of sacrifice, and brought in for ever the true Kingdom of God.

An increasing number of Old Testament scholars believe that another of the Prophets contains an interpretation of the Exile, conceived in the same spirit as that of the Second Isaiah, although veiled under such a strange allegorical form that centuries of Jewish and Christian interpretation have entirely missed its meaning. The book of the Prophet Jonah belongs to a later age, and should probably stand last of all the Minor Prophets, but the critical interpretation of the prophecy falls naturally to be considered here. The character of the Book reveals on close inspection that it was never intended for history; as its inclusion among the prophetical writings perhaps recognises. It is not only the improbability of the whale episode that has led to this conclusion, but the whole character of the events narrated: the sudden growth and withering of the gourd, the instant repentance of the Ninevites, which included a forced rÉgime of fasting even for the cattle! Moreover, the closing words of the book breathe a spirit of universalism and humanity that is almost the high-water mark of Old Testament inspiration, and this encourages the reader to look for some deeper meaning in the rest of the book. The story as interpreted by critical methods is that Jonah is the nation of Israel, chosen to be a missionary nation to the heathen. On refusing the task which Divine selection had marked out for her she is thrown into exile, and has been restored for the purpose of carrying out her original mission. This is here symbolised by the whale swallowing Jonah, who on being cast up proceeded on his neglected commission, though still with little love for his work. The imagery is crude and may strike the reader as exceedingly improbable, until his attention is drawn to the fact that the whale or sea-monster plays a great part in Old Testament imagery and is once actually used as a symbol of the Exile. "Nebuchadrezzar the King of Babylon hath devoured me, ... he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, ... he hath cast me out.... I will do judgment upon Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up" (Jer. li. 34, 44). With this interpretation as a clue, the book becomes luminous. It is an apology for the Gentiles who are shown to be capable of repentance; Israel is blamed for her grudging estimate of the heathen, for her refusal to convey to them the light which she enjoyed, and for her fear lest others should share the favour of Jehovah. Perhaps the symbolic character of the book was adopted, because the author knew that if such truths were boldly stated they would never be received by his age; and so he hoped that the truth might enter in through an interesting story of wonder and adventure. It can hardly be claimed that the author has been successful; for the Jews resisted the universalism of the Son of Man and the propagandist methods of the Apostle Paul, while Christendom has been far more concerned in proving that a whale can swallow a man, than in carrying out the command to evangelise those who know not their right hand from their left.