of Judah.  Not only had they annexed the border territories—­where, for example, the Edomites or Idumaeans held the whole of the Negeb as far as to Hebron; they had effected lodgments everywhere, and—­ as the Ammonites, Ashdodites, and especially the Samaritans—­had amalgamated with the older Jewish population, a residue of which had remained in the country in spite of all that had happened.  These half-breed “pagani” (Amme haarec ’oxloi) gave a friendly reception to the returning exiles (Bne haggola); particularly did the Samaritans show themselves anxious to make common cause with them.  But they were met with no reciprocal cordiality.  The lesson of religious isolation which the children of the captivity had learned in Babylon, they did not forget on their return to their home.  Here also they lived as in a strange land.  Not the native of Judaea, but the man who could trace his descent from the exiles in Babylon, was reckoned as belonging to their community.

The first decennia after the return of the exiles, during which they were occupied in adjusting themselves to their new homes, were passed under a variety of adverse circumstances and by no means either in joyousness or security.  Were these then the Messianic times which, it had been foretold, were to dawn at the close of their captivity?  They did not at all events answer the expectations which had been formed.  A settlement had been again obtained, it was true, in the fatherland; but the Persian yoke pressed now more heavily than ever the Babylonian had done.  The sins of God’s people seemed still unforgiven, their period of bond-service not yet at an end.  A slight improvement, as is shown by the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, followed when in the year 520 the obstacles disappeared which until then had stood in the way of the rebuilding of the temple; the work then begun was completed in 516.  Inasmuch as the Jews were now nothing more than a religious community, based upon the traditions of a national existence that had ceased, the rebuilding of the temple, naturally, was for them an event of supreme importance.

The law of the new theocracy was the Book of Deuteronomy; this was the foundation on which the structure was to be built.  But the force of circumstances, and the spirit of the age, had even before and during the exile exerted a modifying influence upon that legislative code; and it continued to do so still.  At first a “son of David” had continued to stand at the head of the Bne haggola, but this last relic of the old monarchy soon had to give way to a Persian governor who was under the control of the satrap of trans-Euphratic Syria, and whose principal business was the collection of revenue.  Thenceforward the sole national chief was Joshua the high priest, on whom, accordingly, the political representation also of the community naturally devolved.  In the circumstances as they then were no other arrangement was possible.  The way had been paved for it long