From the building of the wall of Jerusalem by Nehemiah, to the birth of our Lord, is a period of about 450 years. To most persons this interval between the Testaments is an utter blank. That it was a time of many changes among the Jews, we conclude from studying the New Testament. We find the promised land of Canaan now divided into three Roman provinces—Galilee and Samaria, representing the old kingdom of Israel on the north; and Judea, the kingdom of Judah to the south.
In New Testament times the first three great world empires of Daniel’s vision had passed away, and the fourth, the Roman dominion, was in the height of its power. All the known civilized world was gathered into one great empire which was ruled and administered from the city of Rome. Centurions, that is, officers of the Roman legions; and publicans, that is, tax collectors, represent this Roman Empire.
Among the Jews themselves we find the new and important classes of Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes, and Herodians. Synagogues have been built in every city, and already there had begun to grow up about the law that cumbrous and hypocritical body of traditions, which today is known as the Talmud.
The main authorities for the history of the Jews during this period which is so interesting and instructive to the Bible student are the first book of the Maccabees, (in the Apocrypha,) and Josephus’ history of the Jews. Just a word in passing about the Jewish historian, Josephus, He was born A. D. 37 and died after 97. Thus in his autobiography we have a picture of the Jews written at the same time as the New Testament. He was of priestly descent, and evidently a student of the beliefs of all the Jewish sects. He himself passed through the terrible siege of Jerusalem by Titus and in the sad times which followed, he devoted himself to writing the history of his nation.
During the captivity, the Jews began their wanderings all over the known world. In Esther’s time, Haman could describe the Jews as “a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy (Ahasuerus’) dominion.” “This is Ahasuerus which reigned from India even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces.”
In New Testament times they had wandered farther still. The 2nd chapter of Acts tells of Jews who had come to keep the feast in Jerusalem from almost every part of the Roman Empire—Persia, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Egypt and North Africa and Rome.
After the return of the Remnant to Judea in the days of Zerubabel and Ezra, the history of the Jews divided into two distinct paths—fist that of the Remnant in Judea, and second that of the Jews scattered over the world, and known as the Dispersion.
Judea remained under the Persian dominion for almost a hundred years. In 332 B. C., Alexander the great, king of Macedon, marched through Judea. The priests recognized in him that king of Grecia who as the rough goat of Daniel’s vision, was destined to destroy the Persian dominion. They therefore went out from Jerusalem to make submission to him, and he made a league with them and passed on. There followed a period of about a hundred years of Greek supremacy in the East. At Alexander’s death his vast empire was divided among his four generals. Babylonia, Syria, and Judea fell to the lot of Seleucus Nicator. Under his descendants the Jews lived unmolested till about 178 when Antiochus Epiphanes seized Jerusalem, sacked and defiled the temple and caused a pig to be offered on the altar of burnt offering. His aim was to absolutely root out the worship of the Lord. He destroyed the sacred books wherever he found them, and threatened with scourging and crucifixion those who remained faithful. The Lord sent a savior to His people in a family of priests, called the Maccabees or Asamonaeans. The old father Matathias and his sons continued the heroic struggle for their liberty and religion till they actually gained their independence. The descendants of the Maccabees governed the Jews for about a hundred years, till Judea fell under the shadow of the Roman power and Herod the great received the kingdom about 37 B. C.
During the last period of comparative quiet and independence there was a great development of Jewish thought, and the various religious sects arose. The Sadducees represent Greek influence. They looked for freedom of human thought, and were the skeptics and higher critics of their age. The Pharisees were the reaction against all this. At the beginning they stood for orthodoxy, but this soon degenerated into dogmatism and ritualism.
But in the meantime other influences had been acting on the Jews of the Dispersion scattered among the Gentiles all over the world, It was inevitable that living among strangers, they should lose much of their Jewish prejudice and narrowness. Far from the land of their fathers they were cut off from performing the ceremonies of the Jewish law. For them there were no sacrifices, no temple worship. But in place of these outward and visible things, prayer and the Word of God became increasingly important. There were, no doubt, many who, like Daniel, were praying at the time of the evening oblation. Synagogues were built everywhere, places for prayer and the reading of the Scriptures. “Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach Him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day,” said James. (Acts 15:21).
The scattered Jews loved Jerusalem, and thousands went up every year to the feasts, but in their far away Gentile homes, their divinely given law and their scriptures stood to them more and more in place of an inheritance.
Greek had become the language of the civilized world, and no less the mother tongue of the Jews of the dispersion. The Scriptures, therefore, were translated by them into Greek. This Greek version is called the Septuagint, or work of the seventy.
Josephus gives an interesting account of the translation of the Septuagint.
Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, desired to have every book in the world represented in his library at Alexandria. Hearing of the sacred writings of the Jews, he wrote to the high priest and desired that he would send a copy of the law to be translated into Greek for the Royal library. Eleazer sent the law by the hand of seventy elders. Ptolemy received them with great honor and admired their wonderful manuscript written in letters of gold on skins scraped as thin as paper and exquisitely joined. After seventy-two days of labor the seventy two elders completed the Greek translation of the Old Testament, (which was on that account called the Septuagint,) and returned to Jerusalem with their treasured manuscript.
Some doubt has been thrown on the details of this story by modern historians, but there is no doubt at all that about 300 B. C. there was a Greek translation made of the Old Testament, which was carried out in Egypt, and was known and read all through the East. The Septuagint version still exists, and may be read by anyone who understands New Testament Greek. It is a very uneven translation. The five books of Moses are translated almost literally, word for word from the Hebrew. The prophets on the other hand are in some passages more like a paraphrase than a translation of the original. But whether from the Law or the Prophets, practically all the quotations from the Old Testament found in the New are from the Septuagint version. It was evidently the version that the apostles knew. This fact explains some slight differences between the same passages in the Old and New Testaments. Example, Hebrews 10:5, and Psalm 40:6. It is also very encouraging to feel that God has, as it were, set His seal of approval on the translating of the, Bible; and though it is a great privilege to read the Scriptures in the original tongues, we may have confidence that our English version is no less the inspired Word of God.
It is impossible to estimate the influence of the Jews with their Greek Old Testament on the Gentiles throughout the world. The old religions of Greece and Rome were breaking down; there was much skepticism, and many weary souls turned to the synagogues where they found a testimony to one true God. Some became Jewish proselytes, others without actually embracing the Jewish religion accepted many of its teachings, and when the gospel was presented to them how simply and thankfully they received it!
In those last days at Jerusalem before the Passover we read of Greeks who came to Philip desiring to “see Jesus.” But not till that precious corn of wheat had fallen into the ground and died, was the door fully opened to the Gentiles. Then what numerous examples we have of devout Gentiles who were already praying and seeking the light. Cornelius, the Ethiopian eunuch, Lydia, Justus, the Gentiles of Antioch in Pisidia, and many others come to our minds.
“When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son.” It is a most wonderful thing to see how the history, not only of the Jews, but of the whole world, leads up to this supreme event. Persians, Greeks, Romans, heathen kings and Greek philosophers were unconsciously subject to Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.