Jehovah was not like the
bargaining, jealous gods of the other nations, but was God, with a
capital G, the one righteous Creator and Ruler of the world.

Moreover, the prophets who had taught them to think of Jehovah in this
way had again and again declared that just this calamity of exile
would come upon them if they as a nation continued to disobey
Jehovah's just laws; and what they had foretold had come to pass. The
prophets must have been right. Their teaching must be true.

=Hebrews in other foreign lands.=--There were probably almost as many
Hebrews in Egypt at this time as in Babylonia. Indeed, even before the
destruction of Jerusalem the constant wars on Canaan had compelled
great numbers of them to seek for peace and comfort for themselves and
their wives and children in Egypt, in Damascus, and even in far-away
Carthage and Greece. The Jews to-day are scattered all over the world.
This began to be true of them from the time of the destruction of
Jerusalem.

These Jews who permanently made their homes in foreign countries were
called _Jews of the Dispersion_. And they all faced the same
temptations as the exiles in Babylonia. Their problem was how to be
loyal to their nation and their religion. Great numbers of them, like
Daniel and his friends in the stories related in the book of Daniel,
did refuse to sacrifice to heathen gods and held fast to the nobler
faith which they had brought with them from Jerusalem. This was not
easy. Not only were they tempted to go with the crowd and worship the
gods of the land; they were also uncertain just how to worship
Jehovah. They could not offer sacrifices to him. Jerusalem was a
thousand miles away, and the temple there was burned. Should they
build a new temple for him, in Babylon? It was not certain whether
that would be lawful. The Jews in Egypt did build a temple to Jehovah.
But no others seem to have been able to do this.

KEEPING THE SABBATH

There were some religious customs, however, which could more easily be
transplanted. One was the Sabbath Day. In the earlier centuries the
Hebrews had observed the day of the new moon with special sacrifices,
and also, to some extent, the other days when the moon passed from
full to first quarter, then to the second, then to the third--in other
words, every seventh day. There was in the days before Moses no
thought of resting from labor on these days, except as might have been
necessary in order to offer up the special s