Assyria” (Ezra 4 : 3 ). They write a letter of complaint to the Persian emperor that
is included in Ezra. It mentions several nationalities by name and classifies all
“the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnapper [Ashurbanipal]
brought over, and set in the cities of Samaria, and the rest that are on this side
[of] the river.” Elsewhere, these groups refer to themselves as people from
“that side of the river brought to this side of the river” (Ezra 4 : 10 ). The backdrop
is clear: the Assyrian deportations. The reader is reminded that, after
the Assyrians sacked Samaria, they settled other peoples there. At the same
time, the presence of the Samaritan deportees not only reminds us of the
lost Israelites but also further presses the question of their whereabouts.
If the deportees brought from the other side of the river are still here in
Samaria, what happened to the deportees exiled from this side of the river
to there?
Because the entire narrative is presented as “the works of God,” the
questions with which Ezra leaves us bear theological implications. The rise
of the Persians to world dominance must have inspired shock and awe. Their
empire was huge, much larger than any before. Its dramatic ascendancy came
only seventy years—two or three generations—after the destruction of Jerusa-
lem by the Babylonians. Memories of siege, destruction, and deportation were
very much alive in the minds of the exiles from Judah and were recalled by
their own captivity and punishment. Persian imperial policies, which in the
Judahite case resulted in a reversal of Babylonian policies and the restoration of
Jerusalem, must have been seen as an act of God. If God did all of this, just as
the prophets promised, why didn’t the ten tribes return? Can a divine promise
be only partially fulfilled? The conundrum also had a geographic dimension. If
Cyrus had indeed conquered the “entire earth,” as he declares in Ezra, was in
fact its ruler, then the ten tribes must by definition have been under his control.
Therefore, his edict proclaiming the restoration of the exiles must have applied
to them, too, and news of it reached their location.
The idea that the Persian king ruled over the entire world was well
recorded in biblical and postbiblical sources. In the book of Esther, which is
situated in the Persian capital, we read at several points that Ahasuerus, king of
Persia (commonly identified as Artaxerxes II, c. 436 – 358 bce), ruled an empire
made of “ 127 kingdoms from India unto Ethiopia [cush]” ( 1 : 1 , 8 : 9 ).^36 The
phrase “from India unto Ethiopia” warrants some attention. It receives an
illuminating treatment in the Talmud in a commentary dating back to Shmu’el
of Neharde‘a (c. 165 – 257 CE), a great rabbinic figure and astronomer from
Babylonia, and his close associate Rav (Abba Aricha, c. 175 – 247 CE). The two
agreed that the phrase meant that the Persian Empire stretched from one “end
[edge] of the world” (sof ha-‘olam) to “the other.” Though they disputed the
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