Surrounded by mighty empires, ancient Israel flourished nonetheless....

 

Surrounded by mighty empires, ancient Israel flourished nonetheless....

 

Trapped between larger and more powerful neighbors, ancient Israelites repeatedly found themselves exiles in strange lands.

The stories of these legendary captivities fill the Hebrew Bible with drama and emotion.

Moses forcefully demanded that Pharaoh “Let my people go.”

Exiled Judahites lamented, ““By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, sat and wept, as we thought of Zion.”

Remarkably, Israelites often seemed to have impressed their captors. Joseph became a grand vizier and close advisor to a pharaoh, while Judahite King Jehoiachin was given special treatment in Babylon, even over other imprisoned kings.

Assyrian texts assure us that while many Israelites suffered in hard agricultural labor, others thrived and became prominent citizens at all levels of society.

With modern military history fresh in our minds, it’s fascinating to contemplate how such tiny nations as Israel and Judah could not only have survived millennia of invasion from east and west, but actually thrived in their exile.

If you’ve ever marveled at the impact these relatively insignificant kingdoms have had on modern religion and civilization—birthing two of the world’s great religions—perhaps it’s worth studying the uncanny ability of ancient Israelites to adapt and even flourish, no matter how often they were attacked, deported and enslaved!