Период восьмой. Времена вавилонского плена

XLVII. External and religious state of the Jews. Prophetic activity of Ezekiel. Prophet Daniel The country into which the Jews were taken into captivity was a vast, low-lying plain between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Here, instead of their native picturesque mountains, the captives saw before them vast fields, crossed by artificial canals, among which rose the gigantic towers of immense cities. Babylon, the capital of the kingdom, at that time was the greatest and richest city on earth and shone with the luxury and grandeur of numerous churches and palaces, in front of which the captives stopped in silent amazement. The main palace of the Babylonian kings with its famous hanging gardens was twice the size of Jerusalem, and the main church dedicated to Bel (the Chaldean sun god) was a gigantic seven-story tower, the top of which seemed to reach to heaven, reminding the Jews of the ancient Tower of Babylon, which God destroyed in His anger. Special quarters were allocated for the captive peoples in Babylon, where they settled. A special quarter was also reserved for the Jews, although most of them were settled in other cities, also on plots of land allocated to them. The condition of the Jews in Babylonian captivity was somewhat similar to the condition of their ancestors in Egypt. The simple mass of the people, undoubtedly, was used for field and other hard work: they were forced to dig and repair numerous canals, build fortifications and perform menial work in the construction of those numerous buildings with which Nebuchadnezzar decorated his proud capital. But all these works, however, were not particularly burdensome and did not have the character of hard labor or slave labor, as was the case in Egypt. The Babylonian government treated the captives with some kindness and provided them with complete freedom in their inner life, so that they were governed by their own elders, built themselves houses, planted vineyards, and in general, except for some exceptional cases, enjoyed freedom of religious conscience. Many of them, in addition to farming, began to engage in trade, and became so settled that they even forgot about their native land. But for the majority of the people, the memory of Jerusalem remained sacred. Finishing their daily work somewhere on the canals and sitting by these “rivers of Babylon,” the captives cried at the mere memory of Zion and involuntarily sent out a plea for vengeance to the “cursed daughter of Babylon, the desolator.” Under the weight of the trial that befell them and far from the promised land and its destroyed shrine, the Jews awakened more than ever repentance for their past sins and, as a result, strengthened their attachment to true religion, which, in the absence of a church, manifested itself in home prayer and private meetings for prayer and sacred chants. The prophets continued to take care of the maintenance of religious and moral life in the Jewish people, who, as faithful guardians of Jehovah’s covenant, did not abandon the chosen people even in the time of their disaster. Thanks to the non-interference of the Babylonian government in the internal life of the captives, the prophets had every opportunity to continue their activities of spiritual leadership of the people. The great prophet Ezekiel devoted himself to such activities at this time. He was taken captive during the reign of King Joachim, before the destruction of Jerusalem, and settled near the Chebar River, which flows into the Euphrates near the famous trading city of Carchemish (or Carkhamis), where he had his home. Being a priest by his position, he was prepared in advance for prophetic activity, for which he received the highest calling in the fifth year of his captivity. With a sinking heart, he watched from the land of his captivity the last events that preceded the fall and destruction of Jerusalem. Foreseeing his inevitable fate, he threateningly exposed the false prophets who were confusing the people with pipe dreams that Jerusalem would not perish, and prepared the people for the fate awaiting them, consoling them, at the same time, with the hope of deliverance from captivity that would eventually follow and reinforcing faith in the promised Savior, the true and glorious son of David. His prophecies are distinguished by a wealth of mysterious symbols and visions. He was called to prophecy itself by a vision of a Divine man seated on a mysterious throne, established on a crystal-like vault, supported by the heads of four winged animals, moving like lightning on four spiritualized wheels, the rims of which were “full of eyes.” He received the gift of prophecy through eating a book scroll on which was written: “weeping, and groaning, and grief.” Symbols were, for example, lying for 390 days on the left side and 40 days on the right to signify the duration of the iniquities of the Jewish people; baking barley cakes in human feces as a sign of hunger and extreme need of the besieged; the destruction of hair on the head and beard with a sword, fire and wind - to depict the disastrous fate of the Jews during the destruction of Jerusalem. The majestic vision of the resurrection of the withered bones was a visual image of the restoration and deliverance of the people. His prophecy ends with a vision of a new church, a new Jerusalem and a new division of the promised land. All these symbols and visions were necessary to awaken the hardened feelings of the people, who remained either completely insensitive to the simple verbal preacher and prophet, or listened to him as “a funny singer with a pleasant voice and a well-playing musician” - in order to listen and forget. The activities of the prophet Ezekiel were limited to the immediate circle of the Jewish people and only indirectly concerned the pagan peoples, against whom he uttered formidable prophecies in absentia. But besides him, another prophet acted during the Babylonian captivity, who was the representative and preacher of the true God in the face of the conquering kings themselves. This is the prophet Daniel. As a youth, he was taken captive during the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. In order to bind the Jewish people to himself, Nebuchadnezzar then ordered the chief of his eunuchs, Asphenaz, to select several of the noblest, most beautiful and most capable Jewish youths, “to teach them the books and the language of the Chaldeans” 265 with the goal of preparing them later as capable and devoted servants of the throne in Babylon. Among them was Daniel with his companions Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael, who were all given new names in Babylon - Belshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. But with the change of name, their deep piety and unshakable devotion to the true religion did not change in them, which were rewarded with a number of miraculous events - especially in the fate of the prophet Daniel. They, as noble youths, were given the opportunity to enjoy food and wine from the royal table; but they, fearing that they would somehow become defiled by accepting something dedicated to idols, preferred to eat simple vegetables and drink water, and, despite this, when presented to the king, they turned out to be plumper and healthier than all the other young men. At the same time, they also made brilliant progress in Chaldean wisdom itself. Babylon, as the capital of the greatest state at that time, was also the center of education of its time. But what was actually called “Chaldean wisdom” consisted mainly in the study of astrology or science, which made it possible to explain the mysterious phenomena of the present and predict the future by the movements of the heavenly bodies. At the main churches there were entire classes of sages or magi who constantly made their observations from special observatories or the tops of pyramidal churches and reported to the king about what, according to their conclusions, was going to happen in nature, politics and private life. The “wisdom” of these scholars was the glory and pride of Babylon. And this was the kind of wisdom that Daniel and his companions had to study. Their successes were miraculous, so that the king, after the test he carried out, found them, and especially Daniel, “ten times higher than all the mysticians and magicians who were in his entire kingdom” 266 . So God, in providence for His chosen people, during every difficult trial, raised up for them a leader who stood at the height of the wisdom of his enemies; such was Joseph, a wise interpreter of dreams and a great statesman, when he moved to Egypt; at the exodus, Moses, who knew “all the wisdom of Egypt,” and now Daniel, the greatest sage of the Babylonian kingdom. Through him, it was God who determined to teach the proud Babylonian conqueror three lessons, which were supposed to show him that the power and strength of even the most powerful king on earth (which at that time was Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon) were powerless before the power and might of that very God, whom he considered defeated in the person of the Jewish people. Having conquered all the surrounding nations and standing at the pinnacle of his power, Nebuchadnezzar, like all the great eastern conquerors, indulged in the dream of founding a world monarchy under the rule of Babylon. This is the same dream that was noticed by the first founders of Babylon and led to the construction of a tower to heaven, which was destroyed by God. But in response to this dream, he was taught the first lesson. Nebuchadnezzar saw an extraordinary dream, which struck him with its mystery, especially since the king forgot its very content in detail 267. All the sages and magicians of the Chaldean land were powerless to tell and explain this dream. Then it was explained by Daniel, namely the famous dream about the four-part image, which meant the four great monarchies of the world, which were supposed to successively replace one another and between them the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar himself, and on the ruins of these monarchies “the God of heaven will erect a kingdom that will not be destroyed forever,” the spiritual kingdom of the Son of David. Amazed by the accuracy of the transmission of a forgotten but terrible dream and the wisdom of the young Jew, Nebuchadnezzar recognized the power of the God of Daniel and, as a reward for the wise interpretation of the dream, generously rewarded Daniel and made him the ruler of the entire Babylonian region and the head of all the wise men of the country, entrusting, at the same time, the positions subordinate to him to his three companions. The elevation of these three young men to high office provided the occasion for a second lesson for Nebuchadnezzar 268 . The latter, not knowing the limits of his autocracy and self-aggrandizement, in one of the fits of his despotic whim ordered the erection of a huge golden idol near Babylon 269, and on a holiday arranged to glorify his exploits, he ordered the entire population to worship it. The unconditionality with which this order was given reveals the influence on Nebuchadnezzar of outsiders, the court magicians, who, apparently envious of the success of the hated foreigners, who surpassed them with their wisdom and thereby subjected them to shame in the eyes of the king and the people, sought in every possible way an opportunity to bring upon them the disfavor of the king. And this holiday gave them true hopes for success. They knew well that the Jews, whom they hated, would rather die than worship the idol. This was indeed the case. The young men refused to bow to the idol, and the wise men were not slow to report this to the king. The enraged king immediately decided to subject the culprits to exemplary punishment: he ordered the furnace, which served as the usual method of punishing blasphemers and wicked people in Babylon, to be heated seven times more than usual, and all three of Daniel’s companions were cast into this furnace; but their miraculous salvation through an angel made Nebuchadnezzar again bow before the power of their God, so that he issued a decree of the death penalty for anyone who would blaspheme Him. The third lesson taught to Nebuchadnezzar was to finally humble his pride and lead to full recognition of the power of Jehovah 270. When not only all the enemies were conquered, but also all the majestic buildings with which the king, taking advantage of the free labor of the captive peoples, decorated his capital, were finished, Nebuchadnezzar, once admiring the grandeur and beauty of Babylon from the roof of his palace, exclaimed with ecstasy with proud delight: “Isn’t this the majestic Babylon, which I built as the house of the kingdom by the power of my might and for the glory of my greatness? But to this insane expression of proud delight, a menacing echo thundered the answer from heaven: “They say to you, King Nebuchadnezzar: the kingdom has departed from you! and they will separate you from men, and your dwelling will be with the beasts of the field, and they will feed you grass like an ox, and seven times will pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules over the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever He wants.” And immediately the terrible sentence was fulfilled. Nebuchadnezzar fell into a special kind of insanity (lycanthropy), when a person avoids the company of people and imagines himself as an animal. This terrible seven-year trial finally humbled Nebuchadnezzar and upon recovery, he issued a decree “to all nations, tribes and languages ​​living throughout the whole earth,” in which, telling the story of his trial, “he glorifies, exalts and magnifies the King of heaven, whose deeds are all true and all ways are righteous, and who is able to humble those who walk proudly.” It was in this conviction that Nebuchadnezzar died in the 43rd year of his reign, transferring his kingdom to his son Evilmerodach (562 BC). Evilmerodach, taught by his father's trials, treated the Jewish people mercifully and freed the Judah king Jeconiah from prison, where he had languished for 37 years, and surrounded him with royal honors. But two years later he himself was overthrown from the throne by his sister’s husband Neriglissar, after which troubles began that prepared the fall of Babylon, which entailed a complete change in the fate of the Jewish people. XLVIII. Fall of Babylon. The situation of the Jews under Cyrus. Manifesto for the release of prisoners. Calculation The ancient eastern monarchies, being based on conquest and oppression, did not have the makings of strength and vitality. These were for the most part forcibly united from heterogeneous and mutually hostile parts of the state, which held out only as long as the hand of the conquering king was strong, and disintegrated at the first weakening of the ruler or the first push from the outside. As a result, the life of peoples was in constant ferment, and both inside and outside the monarchy, revolutions constantly took place, thanks to which some rulers and peoples fell, while others rose to take their place. The same thing happened after the death of Nebuchadnezzar. As soon as death took his iron hand away from the helm of the monarchy he exalted, under his weak successors, fermentation began within the state of diverse peoples who tried to take advantage of the opportunity for their liberation and thereby weakened the power of the monarchy. This, in turn, attracted external conquerors who, hoping to find allies among the dissatisfied peoples of the monarchy, boldly began to destroy the once formidable kingdoms. Such a conqueror was Cyrus, the founder of the powerful Persian monarchy. He was the son of Cambyses, king of Elam, who was in a subordinate relationship to Media with its king Astyages. Feeling the calling of a conqueror within himself, Cyrus, first of all, overthrew the rule of the Median king and then with his brave army moved to the east, which he conquered all the way to the Himalayan mountains, which constituted the last limit of the world known to him. Having no more space for conquest in the east, he moved to the west, which also had to bow before him. Cyrus's advent to conquest marks a very important period in the history of mankind. In his person a new tribe appeared in the field of world history. Hitherto, the dominance and main role belonged to the Hamitic and Semitic peoples (Egypt and Assyro-Babylonia); now this role passed into the hands of the Aryan tribe (Japheth), the very one to whom the future belonged and which was already beginning to grow and strengthen in the west. The very accession of Cyrus to the throne of his father (in 558 BC) coincided with the reign of Pisistratus in Athens, Croesus in Lydia and Tarquinius the Proud in Rome - those persons who are representatives of a completely new Western world, which had to replace the old, eastern world. The Persian monarchy was a transitional stage to this new world. The eagle (which was the banner of the new conqueror), called, according to the word of the prophet Isaiah, “from the east, from a distant country” to fulfill the decrees of God (Is. 46:11), triumphantly swept to the west, to the very shores of the Aegean Sea, and all the peoples of western and Asia Minor bowed before it. At least twenty years passed in these conquests, but Babylon still retained its independence, although many of the peoples subordinate to it had already broken away from it and became the prey of Cyrus. Meanwhile, to complete the aggressive activity, it was necessary to take Babylon, which could only serve as the focus of the new monarchy. It was the greatest city of its time and the center of world life. Behind its formidable walls, crowned with battle towers, lay a whole galaxy of cities, interspersed with gardens, canals and fields. The main trade routes of Asia passed through it, and human industry and industry turned the desert around it into a richly watered oasis, the most fertile plain on the globe. The highest learning of that time flourished in his schools, and in his palaces and chambers were collected countless treasures taken from all conquered kings and peoples. Finally, Babylon was also the religious center of the east, the stronghold of great and terrible gods, before whom peoples trembled. Therefore, the Persian monarchy could not be considered world-wide without conquering and humiliating Babylon, and Cyrus actually moved to the proud “capital of the world,” and was precisely the stone that (according to Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream) was supposed to smash the building of the Babylonian monarchy. This happened under Belshazzar, the great-grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. Internal unrest and the inability of the rulers weakened the forces of Babylon so much that its troops could not provide Cyrus with more or less courageous resistance on the open field. He defeated them and approached the very walls of the capital. But here he encountered impregnable fortifications. Babylon was a huge square area through which the Euphrates flowed. Each side of this square was about 25 versts in length. Double walls 40 fathoms high and twelve wide with 250 fortified towers and many other fortifications and devices for defense made it absolutely impregnable, so that, despite the siege of the capital, the king and all its inhabitants could blithely indulge in all the pleasures of life. But the supreme verdict had already been pronounced over Babylon and no strongholds could defend against it. Being quite confident in the safety of the capital, Belshazzar once gave a magnificent feast, to which up to a thousand nobles and court ladies were invited 271. – Babylonian feasts were characterized by extreme immoderation and debauchery. Not only men reveled in wine, but also women, who in the intoxication lost all shame. The luxurious chambers resounded with music, and precious vessels taken from various conquered kings served as table bowls. To further enhance the solemnity of the feast, the amused king ordered to bring those gold and silver vessels that were captured in the Jerusalem temple, and so, in desecration of the God of this church, “the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them; they drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, copper, iron, wood and stone,” blasphemously contrasting their power with the God of the Jews. Suddenly, on the wall, in the full light of the chandelier, a human hand appeared and slowly began to write some words on the lime of the wall plaster. Seeing her, “the king changed his face; (his thoughts became confused), the ties of his loins weakened, and his knees began to beat against each other in horror.” In terrible fear, he shouted to immediately call the wise men to explain the inscription. But the sages, despite the high reward offered by the king, stopped in silent amazement in front of the mysterious inscription for them, to the even greater embarrassment of the king, who turned pale and trembled. Then the “queen” entered the feast hall, probably the mother or grandmother of Belshazzar, and she, remembering the wonderful wisdom that Daniel, who now did not enjoy the royal favor, showed under Nebuchadnezzar, advised him to turn to him for an explanation of the terrible inscription. Daniel was actually called, and he read the inscription, which read: “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,” which meant: “Mene - God has numbered your kingdom, and put an end to it, tekel - you are weighed in the scales and found very light; upharsin 272 - your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” Despite the unfavorable interpretation of the mysterious inscription, Daniel received the reward promised by the king for his wise interpretation: he was dressed in purple, a gold chain was placed around his neck, and he was proclaimed the third ruler in the kingdom. And that same night the prediction of the mysterious hand was fulfilled. Cyrus, not hoping to take the cities by storm, used a trick: he diverted the water of the Euphrates into a special canal, along the channel freed from water, he freely entered the city, whose inhabitants were carelessly sleeping or having fun, and took possession of Babylon. Belshazzar died during the night's turmoil, and the Babylonian monarchy fell 273. Cyrus entrusted the administration of Babylon to Darius the Mede, 274 and the latter, wishing to reward the extraordinary wisdom of Daniel, who so miraculously predicted the transition of Babylon to the rule of Cyrus, appointed him one of the three main princes of the kingdom, in which position he enjoyed the high respect of the ruler. But this, naturally, aroused the envy of the other bypassed nobles, and they decided to destroy Daniel by treachery. The Babylonian kings, and, consequently, their successors, have long been considered a kind of gods, to whom divine worship was given from time to time. In view of this, it was not difficult for Darius’s close dignitaries to persuade him, in order to increase his power in the eyes of the Babylonians, to issue a command that for a whole month worship with all prayer requests should be made only to him. But this is exactly what Daniel could not do. Despite a strict decree that threatened to be thrown into the lion’s den for failure to comply with it, the elderly and high-ranking prophet, opening a window in his house towards Jerusalem, “knelt down three times a day and prayed to his God and praised Him,” as he had done before. This was all that the envious people needed, who immediately made a denunciation, and Darius, despite all his affection for his highly respected dignitary, could not violate his decree and had to carry it out over Daniel. The prophet was actually thrown into a ditch in which lions were kept, which were usually kept at the court of the Babylonian kings for the often organized and very beloved hunt for them. The fate of anyone thrown into such a ditch was, of course, certain and terrible death. But, to the greatest amazement of the evil envious people and the inexpressible joy of Darius, the next day Daniel turned out to be unharmed and was taken out of the ditch, and in his place the evil envious people and slanderers themselves were thrown, who were immediately torn to pieces by lions. This event struck Darius so much that he himself bowed to the faith of Daniel and issued a new decree, which commanded him to show good faith in his God as living and eternal, which, of course, served not only for the glory of the people of God, but also for the salvation of many pagans. Meanwhile, Daniel received several more visions that mysteriously foreshadowed the future destinies of the Jewish people and... humanity, and at the same time was honored with a great revelation, in which the time remaining until the redemption of the world by its Divine Savior was calculated in weeks. During prayer, the archangel Gabriel appeared to Daniel (mentioned here for the first time in history, although he had been seen by Daniel before - Daniel 9:21), and said to him: “seventy weeks are determined for your people and your holy city, so that the transgression may be revealed, sins may be sealed and iniquities may be blotted out, and eternal righteousness may be brought in, and the vision and the prophet may be sealed, and the Holy of Holies may be anointed.” During these weeks (70 x 7,490 years) the liberation of the people from captivity, the restoration of Jerusalem and the church, and the redemption of the world through the “death of Christ the Master” were to take place. This prediction was fulfilled exactly, since exactly four hundred and ninety years passed from the second and final decree on the restoration of Jerusalem (in 457) to the death of Christ (in 33 AD). But now the end of captivity for the Jews was approaching. Cyrus, having completed his conquest, took Babylon under his personal control and began to completely transform his vast state. As a wise and magnanimous king, he, having learned about all the extraordinary signs and that an ancient prophecy had long destined him to be the liberator of this people from Babylonian captivity, decided to show this people special mercy and in the first year of his reign he issued a decree on the liberation of the Jews from captivity and on the construction of a temple in Jerusalem. This decree read as follows: “Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth have been given to me by the Lord, the God of Heaven; and He commanded me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judea. Whoever is of you is of all His people, may the Lord his God be with him, and let him go there." 276 This was in 536, which ended the seventieth year of Babylonian captivity. The great prophet Daniel, who was carried away into captivity in his blooming youth and who did so much for the glory of God and the good of his people during this captivity, lived to see this happy event, which, undoubtedly, happened partly according to his wise advice given to Cyrus, and died peacefully in the same year, admonishing himself with the words: “go to your end and calm down, and rise to receive your lot at the end of days.” By issuing a decree on the liberation of the Jewish people, Cyrus exactly fulfilled the prediction of the prophet Isaiah, who two hundred years before his birth called him by name as the liberator of the Jewish people and the restorer of the church destroyed by the Babylonians. Babylon itself, over time, suffered the fate predicted for it by the prophets. Abandoned by the kings, it gradually fell and became deserted, and finally, in the full sense, became “a heap of ruins, a habitation of jackals, a terror and a mockery, without inhabitants,” as the prophet Jeremiah predicted (51:37). The devastation that befell him was incomparably more terrible than that to which he subjected Jerusalem: its very location was forgotten for entire millennia, and only in the present century did excavations begin that show both the greatness of its former glory and the terrible judgment of God upon it. The seventieth year of captivity is counted from the time of the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, in the fourth year of the reign of Joachim, when he took away the first batch of captives. This was in the very year of Nebuchadnezzar's accession to Babylon, nineteen years before the destruction of Jerusalem and the church. Thus, the captivity continued throughout his reign - 43 years, under his son Evilmerodach - 2 years, under Neriglissar - 3 and a half years, Laborosoarchod - 9 months, Nabonidus - 17 years, under Belshazzar - 2 years, and during the reign of Darius the Mede - 2 years. The sum of these figures will be 70 years, from 605 to 536 BC. Nebuchadnezzar's Dream, Dan. Chapter 2 The miraculous salvation of the three youths, Dan. 3. Punishment of Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. 4. Column with a golden statue on top. Belshazzar's feast and the capture of Babylon, Dan. 5. In Russian synod. translated in this place - trans. In the Slavic text the entire inscription is: Mani, fekel, fares. Belshasar is, in all likelihood, Belsarusur of the wedge-shaped inscriptions. He was not a king in the proper sense, but only the deputy of his father Nabonidus, who was in captivity under Cyrus, as a result of which Daniel was made the “third” ruler in the kingdom, since Belshazzar himself was the second. Darius the Mede (Dan. 9:1) - according to assumption, either the father-in-law of Cyaxares, or Gobryas of classical writers, Ugba-ru - cuneiform, - the military leader of Cyrus. Revelation of the Weeks, Dan. Chapter 9 Decree of Cyrus on the release of the Jews from captivity, 1 Esdras. 1:2–4. You might be interested in: