Journey - Lesson 14 - Prophets in Exile (1)

By Marcel Gervais

This is lesson 14 of the Journey Bible Study Program series. Chapter 1 describes the conditions of the People in Exile in Babylon.In chapter 2 we have a description of Ezekiel's message to the People in Exile.Chapter three provides a description of the changes which were beginning to take place among the People in Exile. Chapter 4 is a continuation of the commentary on "Dei Verbum". There is also an appendix on some discoveries affecting Old Testament studies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marcel Gervais
• Release date: Jan 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781927766170

Marcel Gervais

About the Author Archbishop Gervais was born in Elie Manitoba on September 21 1931. He is the ninth of fourteen children. His family came from Manitoba to the Sparta area near St. Thomas Ontario when he was just a teenager. He went to Sparta Continuation School and took his final year at Saint Joseph`s High School in St. Thomas. After high school he went to study for the priesthood at St. Peter’s Seminary in London , Ontario. He was ordained in 1958. He was sent to study in Rome. This was followed by studies at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem. He returned to London to teach scripture to the seminarians at St. Peter’s Seminary. In 1974 he was asked by Bishop Emmett Carter to take over as director of the Divine Word International Centre of Religious Education. This Centre had been founded by Bishop Carter to provide a resource for adult education in the spirit of Vatican II. This Centre involved sessions of one or two weeks with many of the best scholars of the time. Students came not only from Canada and the United States but from all over the globe, Australia, Africa, Asia and Europe. By the time Father Gervais became the director Divine Word Centre was already a course dominated by the study of scripture to which he added social justice. This aspect of the course of studies was presented by people from every part of the “third world”; among which were Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez and Cardinal Dery of Ghana. In 1976 the Conference of Ontario Bishops along with the Canadian conference of Religious Women approached Father Gervais to provide a written course of studies in Sacred Scripture for the Church at large, but especially for priests and religious women. This is when Fr. Gervais began to write Journey, a set of forty lessons on the Bible. He was armed with a treasure of information from all the teachers and witnesses to the faith that had lectured at Devine Word. He was assisted by a large number of enthusiastic collaborators: all the people who had made presentations at Divine Word and provided materials and a team of great assistants, also at Divine Word Centre. The work was finished just as Father Gervais was ordained an auxiliary bishop of London (1980). He subsequently was made Bishop of Sault Saint Marie Diocese, and after four years, Archbishop of Ottawa (1989). He retired in 2007, and at the time of this writing, he is enjoying retirement.

Book preview

Journey- Lesson Fourteen Prophets in Exile (1)

by Marcel Gervais, Emeritus Archbishop of the diocese of Ottawa, Canada

Nihil Obstat: Michael T. Ryan, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.

Imprimatur: + John M. Sherlock, Bishop of London

London, March 31, 1980

This content of this book was first published in 1977 as part of the JOURNEY Series By Guided Study Programs in the Catholic Faith and is now being republished in Smashwords by Emmaus Publications, 99 Fifth Avenue, Suite 103, Ottawa,ON, K1S 5P5, Canada on Smashwords

Cover: ... So they took Jeremiah and threw him into the well... (Jer 38:6).

COPYRIGHT © Guided Study Programs ln the Catholic Faith, a division of The Divine Word International Centre of Religious Education 1977. Reproduction ln whole or ln part is Prohibited.

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Exile in Babylon

Chapter 2 Ezekiel

Chapter 3 Changes in the Life of the People in Exile

Chapter 4 - Commentary on Dei Verbum, number 12 (continued)

Answer key to practice questions

Self-test

Answer key to self-test

Recommendations for group meeting on Lesson Fourteen

About The Author

Lamentations 1:1-12

Instead of a prayer from the Book of Psalms, we recommend one from the Book of Lamentations, which is usually found between Jeremiah and Ezekiel in the Bible. The sacred author of this prayer is lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of its people. The pain, the sorrow and discouragement of the People of God is reflected in every line. The destruction of the holy city of Jerusalem and its Temple is a sorrow that can hardly be borne. Christian tradition has seen in the passion and death of Jerusalem, an image of the passion and death of Jesus. The Lamentations are still used in some of the liturgy of Holy Week: 'All you who pass by, look and see: is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow" (vs 1 2).

Note: Four of the five prayers in the Book of Lamentations are composed in what is called the alphabetical style. In Hebrew, the first letter of each line in the first verse is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. aleph (A). In the second verse, the first letter of each line is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, beth. The first letter of each line in the third verse is the third letter, ghimel, and so on for the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. This way of writing is also found in some of the psalms, eg. Ps 119.

Lesson Objective To describe the conditions of the People n exile, the message which they received from the prophet Ezekiel and the changes which began to take place in their way of life during the Exile.

Chapter 1 Exile in Babylon

Section Objective To describe the conditions of the People in exile.

The number of people exiled in the two deportations (598 and 587 BC) is difficult to estimate. From the figures given in the Bible, the combined total could be as low as ten thousand and as high as fifty thousand, depending on whether the numbers given include or do not include women and children (2 Kings 24:14-16; Jeremiah 52:28ff). It is not possible to be exact. Whatever the number, the fact is that the leaders (the royalty, the wealthy, the intellectuals) and the skilled craftsmen were all taken away, leaving only the poor in the cities and the peasants in the country.

The exiles were settled in areas around Babylon, the capital city of the empire. This is significant: the exiles from Judah were not scattered in different parts of the empire, as the exiles of Samaria had been. The fact that the exiles from Judah and Jerusalem were settled in roughly the same area made it possible for them to live some sort of community life while in exile. They were able to meet, communicate with each other and support one another.

The conditions under which they lived do not seem to nave been severe. They were made to farm lands, rebuild and use the intricate irrigation canals that were used to divert the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates, and were even allowed to go into business. There is evidence in ancient documents outside the Bible that some became rather wealthy. They do not seem to have been reduced to cruel slavery and imprisonment, except for those who might have fomented revolt against the Babylonians. (There is some evidence that they did on one occasion, but this is not clear. See 2 Kings 25:27-30, where the pardon of the king is not explained.)

They were not forced to worship the Babylonians' gods, as far as can be deduced from the writings available. They were allowed to worship in their own