e alliance, however,
proved dangerous to the purity of the faith, for the proselytes, while
they adopted Jahveh and gave Him that supreme place in their devotions
which was due to "the God of the land," had by no means entirely
forsworn their national superstitions, and Adrammelek, Nergal, Tartak,
Anammelek, and other deities still found worshippers among them. Judah,
which in the days of its independence had so often turned aside after
the gods of Canaan and Moab, was in danger of being led away by the
idolatrous practices of its new neighbours; intermarriage with the
daughters of Moab and Ammon, of Philistia and Samaria, was producing
a gradual degeneracy: the national language was giving way before the
Aramaean; unless some one could be found to stem the tide of decadence
and help the people to remount the slope which they were descending,
the fate of Judah was certain. A prophet--the last of those whose
predictions have survived to our time--stood forth amid the general
laxity and called the people to account for their transgressions, in
the name of the Eternal, but his single voice, which seemed but a
feeble echo of the great prophets of former ages, did not meet with
a favourable hearing. Salvation came at length from the Jews outside
Judah, the naturalised citizens of Babylon, a well-informed and wealthy
body, occupying high places in the administration of the empire, and
sometimes in the favour of the sovereign also, yet possessed by an
ardent zeal for the religion of their fathers and a steadfast faith
in the vitality of their race. One of these, a certain Nehemiah, was
employed as cupbearer to Artaxerxes II. He was visited at Susa by some
men of Judah whose business had brought them to that city and inquired
of them how matters fared in Jerusalem. Hanani, one of his visitors,
replied that "the remnant that are left of the captivity there in the
province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem
also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire."
Nehemiah took advantage of a moment when the king seemed in a jovial
mood to describe the wretched state of his native land in moving terms:
he obtained leave to quit Susa and authority to administer the city in
which his fathers had dwelt.*

* Nehemiah i., ii.

This took place in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, about 385 B.C.
Nehemiah at once made his way to Jerusalem with such escort as
befitted his dignity, and the news of hi