seem unique, it was a common practice in antiquity for conquerors to take
slaves during military conquest. What may be more unique is that Nebuchad-
nezzar attempted to bring an end to the Davidic line by executing Zedekiah’s
(the last king of Judah) sons in front of him and then blinding him (Friedman
1987:98).
The emergence of the belief in the Messiah corresponds to the loss of auton-
omy of the Jewish state (Taubes 1966:193). Messianism, with its central belief
in redemption (Erlösung), arose in a historical context. The Messiah was the
embodiment of the figure of David who would return the Jews out of exile
and restore the autonomy of the Jewish kingdom (Weber 1978:1185).
The idea of the Messiah finds its original expression as the son of man:
“And behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to
him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations
and languages should serve him” (Dan. 7:13). The belief in the Messiah was
used to galvanize opposition to foreign occupation after the return out of
exile (Kautsky 1925:294–295).
Return out of Exile
Daniel engaged in dream interpretation; he interpreted a dream of Nebu-
chadnezzar, concerning his kingdom of Babylon. Its fate was to be conquered
(Daniel 2; Antiq 10.10.3–4). After the defeat of the Babylonians by the Persians,
Cyrus, King of Persia, allowed the Jews to return out of exile and rebuild the
temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 1). Judah became “a vassal state of the Persian
Empire” (Bendix 1977:237). The Monarchy was not restored but in its place
a theocracy of the Jerusalem priesthood was established (Schluchter 1981:50;
Fahey 1982:81–82). Despite the foreign occupation, the Jerusalem priests had
a monopoly on power (Kautsky 1925:230, 236). The Levites collected tithes
for the temple (Nehemiah 11:37–38). In an attempt to restore ethnic purity,
all foreign wives and children were “put away” (Ezra 10:3). The return from
the Babylonian exile brought an end not only to an autonomous Jewish monar-
chy but also to the prophecy that accompanied it (Schluchter 1989:197; Frend
1985:472; Eisenstadt 1981:158). The kings and prophets vanished; only the
priests remained.
As befalls all empires, they go from being the conquerors to the vanquished.
This is what happened to the Persians as well as the Greeks. Alexander the
212 • Warren S. Goldstein