Babylonian Exile Analysis

In my attempt to analyse the extent and consequences of the Babylonian exile, I will first have to briefly analyse the political situation in the ancient near east prior to the arrival of the Babylonians in Israel and Judah. The experiment with luxury and power of the great eastern kingdoms had ended in disaster for Israel. King Solomon created the wealthiest and most powerful central government the Hebrews would ever see, but he did so at an extremely high cost. He gave land away to pay for his lavishness and he forced many of his people to labour camps. Solomon is believed to have passed away somewhere between 926 and 922 BCE. When this happened, the ten northern tribes refused to submit to his son, and rebelled. From this point on, there …show more content…
Assyrian citizens would then move into the occupied territory and the land would remain under control and at peace with the Assyrian empire. According to legend, when the Assyrians conquered Israel, they forced the ten different tribes to dissipate throughout their empire. One could consider this the very beginning of the Jewish Diaspora except that these people disappear from history all together; they are famously known as "the ten lost tribes of Israel." They are known as “lost” as the Assyrians avoided settling people from conquered lands together in one place, rather send them all, in different groups, to different towns and villages across their empire. The people deported by the Assyrians dropped or lost their Jewish religion, names and identities. The Babylonians later conquered Judah and they also found that forced deportation helped their exerting their dominance over a region. However, the Babylonians did this on a mass scale in comparison. In contrast to the Assyrians, the Babylonians moved the people, all together, to one location. This allowed the Jewish people to set up communities and somewhat retain their religion and