The Destruction of Jerusalem: A Second Flood

As author Karen Armstrong writes in her book Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths, the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple by the Babylonians during the 6^th century BCE was “like an act of de-creation,” and converted the city into a “formless chaos” not unlike that which had “preceded creation” (Armstrong 79). To those within the city, it felt “in some profound sense [like] the end of the world,” and like the “Flood that had overwhelmed the world at the time of Noah” (Armstrong 79). In fact, many parallels between this time and the story of the flood exist, as Armstrong states that at the time of Jerusalem’s destruction “even the birds had fled…and no people could be seen on earth at all” – an occurrence that reflects the words of the deity before the flood stating “every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground” (Armstrong 79 and Genesis 7:4). And, just as the creatures and humans who “went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood” were cast adrift in a sea of water, so too those exiled from Jerusalem after its destruction felt “cast adrift and lost in a universe that [had] suddenly become alien” (Genesis 7:7 and Armstrong 82).

This period of change was not only one of destruction. As with the flood story in Genesis, it marked the creation of new ways of life, and of a different understanding of the exiles’ relationship with their deity. At this point the exiled Judeans faced a theological dilemma, as they believed that true connection with the deity was limited to the Temple in Jerusalem. It was in response to this crisis that the Judeans began to pray by lifting their hands toward the direction of Jerusalem – a form of prayer that was a “novel idea,” and which would introduce a “more interior spirituality” that is similar to the modern belief that people “can make contact with their God wherever they are in the world” (Armstrong 83). Additionally, the prophet Ezekiel was visited by the “glory of Yahweh” and promised that the deity and exiles would one day return to Mount Zion in “a new creation in which the land would be transformed from a desolate wasteland” (Armstrong 84). Thus, just as the biblical floodwaters receded and Noah’s ark “came to rest on the mountains of Ararat,” so too the exiles would return to a mountain and land restored from its current wasteland state (Genesis 8:4).

Like Noah and his family – who had been recognized as the favored people of the deity, worthy of carrying on humanity – the Judean exiles were also chosen as the worthy group of people among whom the deity elected to dwell (Armstrong 86). And like the people on the ark who were thought to be the only remnants of humanity, the exiled Judeans felt “closer to the center of reality” than pagan neighbors who were “not even on the map” (Armstrong 86). While this center of reality referred to holiness, rather than to actual presence of others in the world around them, the distinction between the exiles and their neighbors was significant enough to result in their feeling inspired to begin “building a new world and bringing order to their disrupted and dislocated lives” (Armstrong 88). It was perhaps because of this sense of being divinely chosen that when the exiled Judeans finally returned to Jerusalem and reconstruction of the Temple began, membership of Israel was “confined to the descendants of those who had been exiled to Babylon and to those who were prepared to submit to the Torah,” just as society after the flood was confined to Noah’s descendants (Armstrong 102).

Such connections between the Judeans’ exile and the flood story told in Genesis are not apparently intentional, as both were told as separate histories, rather than as an anthology compiled with the intention of similarity being brought to light. Yet the recurrence of themes and ideas throughout history and narrative is interesting to observe. It is perhaps in recognition of such similarities that Armstrong states that there are “interconnected concepts that will recur” throughout her telling of the history that appears in the Bible (Armstrong xvi).

Image of a rainbow over Jerusalem taken by an unknown photographer (link to source).

Citations

Armstrong, Karen. Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. Alfred A Knopf, 1996.

New Revised Standard Version Bible. Bible Study Tools, 1989. https://www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/358317714073900001/