722 or 721 B.C., the independent
status of the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed, and the captive people
were transported to Assyria by Shalmanezer and others. Subsequently they
disappeared so completely as to be called the Lost Tribes. The Kingdom
of Judah was recognized as a nation for about one hundred and thirty
years longer; then, about 588 B.C., it was brought into subjection by
Nebuchadnezzar, through whom the Babylonian captivity was inaugurated.
For three score years and ten Judah was kept in exile and virtual
bondage, in consequence of their transgression as had been predicted
through Jeremiah.[153] Then the Lord softened the hearts of their
captors, and their restoration was begun under the decree of Cyrus the
Persian, who had subdued the Babylonian kingdom. The Hebrew people were
permitted to return to Judea, and to enter upon the work of rebuilding
the temple at Jerusalem.[154]

A great company of the exiled Hebrews availed themselves of this
opportunity to return to the lands of their fathers, though many elected
to remain in the country of their captivity, preferring Babylon to
Israel. The "whole congregation" of the Jews who returned from the
Babylonian exile were but "forty and two thousand three hundred and
three score, beside their servants and their maids, of whom there were
seven thousand three hundred thirty and seven." The relatively small
size of the migrating nation is further shown by the register of their
beasts of burden.[155] While those who did return strove valiantly to
reestablish themselves as the house of David, and to regain some measure
of their former prestige and glory, the Jews were never again a truly
independent people. In turn they were preyed upon by Greece, Egypt, and
Syria; but about 164-163 B.C., the people threw off, in part at least,
the alien yoke, as a result of the patriotic revolt led by the
Maccabees, the most prominent of whom was Judas Maccabeus. The temple
service, which had been practically abolished through the proscription
of victorious foes, was reestablished.[156] In the year 163 B.C., the
sacred structure was rededicated, and the joyful occasion was thereafter
celebrated in annual festival as the Feast of Dedication.[157] During
the reign of the Maccabees, however, the temple fell into an almost
ruinous condition, more as a result of the inability of the reduced and
impoverished people to maintain it than through any further decline of
religious zeal. In the ho