liberty to exercise their authority so long as they maintained
order and tranquillity among their subordinates.**

* Ezek. iii. 15. The Chebar or Kebar has been erroneously
identified with the Khabur; cuneiform documents show that it
was one of the canals near Nipur.

** Cf. the assemblies of these chiefs at the house of
Ezekiel and their action (viii. 1; xiv. 1; xx. 1).

How the latter existed, and what industries they pursued in order to
earn their daily bread, no writer of the time has left on record. The
rich plain of the Euphrates differed so widely from the soil to which
they had been accustomed in the land of Judah, with its bare or sparsely
wooded hills, slopes cultivated in terraces, narrow and ill-watered
wadys, and tortuous and parched valleys, that they must have felt
themselves much out of their element in their Chaldaean surroundings.
They had all of them, however, whether artisans, labourers, soldiers,
gold-workers, or merchants, to earn their living, and they succeeded in
doing so, following meanwhile the advice of Jeremiah, by taking every
precaution that the seed of Israel should not be diminished.* The
imagination of pious writers of a later date delighted to represent the
exiled Jews as giving way to apathy and vain regrets: "By the rivers of
Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. Upon
the willows in the midst thereof we hanged up our harps. For there
they that led us captive required of us songs, and they that wasted
us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How
shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"**

* Jer. xxix. 1-7.

** Ps. cxxxvii. 1-4.

This was true of the priests and scribes only. A blank had been made in
their existence from the moment when the conqueror had dragged them
from the routine of daily rites which their duties in the temple service
entailed upon them. The hours which had been formerly devoted to their
offices were now expended in bewailing the misfortunes of their nation,
in accusing themselves and others, and in demanding what crime had
merited this punishment, and why Jahveh, who had so often shown clemency
to their forefathers, had not extended His forgiveness to them. It
was, however, by the long-suffering of God that His prophets, and
particularly Ezekiel, were allowed to make known to them the true cause
of their downfall. The more Ezekiel in his retreat meditated upon