We left our story of the worship life of Israel with the people of the southern kingdom Judah going into exile around 582 BCE. As was mentioned, the Temple which had been the heart of their worshipping life had been utterly destroyed. We can hear the echoes of the despair this destruction caused when we read Psalm 137:1, 5-6.
By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.
The questions for the exiles were numerous; why would God have allowed this to happen? If we performed the ritual sacrifices appropriately why would God allow the Babylonians to conquer us? How then can we worship without the sacrifices? How can we be forgiven without the appropriate services and ceremonies which had been part of our religious life for almost 500 years?
Answers to the why questions were given by the prophets; the people had failed to live according the Law of Moses (meaning to love God and neighbor). They had gone after other gods and had abused the poor and the stranger. This realization offered the people in exile a way in which to answer the how questions and worship without the Temple and its sacrificial system; worship was to be as much about right living as it was about sacrifices. The Israelites in Babylon began to move their focus away from sacrifices and toward the practices of piety contained within the Law of Moses (Torah). While the exile only lasted about 30 or so years (the first return came in 549 BCE), many Jews settled in Babylon and developed a set of practices which would insure that they were living their faith in a way that pleased God. Though the book of Daniel was written more than 300 years later, the stories it contains give us a glimpse of this changing religious landscape in which prayer and pietistic living became the hallmarks of worship.
The Israelites began returning home around 549 and came back in at least three major waves. The second and third waves focused on rebuilding the Temple (thus "the second Temple") and the city of Jerusalem. By their focus on rebuilding the Temple it is apparent that the people of Israel still yearned for its sacrificial system. Even with a shift towards prayer and piety thirty years had not allowed enough time to change their fundamental understanding of how worship was to work. The second temple was completed in 516 BCE. Even though it was a shadow of its former self, it allowed for the sacrificial system to resume. Along with the reinstitution of the sacrificial system however, the people in Judea understood that they had to institute a much stricter adherence to the Torah. If indeed the destruction of the nation had come about because of a lack of daily faithfulness then it was incumbent upon God's people to insure that their day to day lives reflected their faith. Thus, many of the practices developed in exile became part of their worship lives in a restored nation.
The two most significant long-term changes which occurred during this restoration period were the rise of the rabbis, or teachers, and the development of synagogues. If it was truly important for people to live their faith as daily worship then they would need someone to teach that faith and a place to practice it. The rabbis took on the teaching task and synagogues became places in which to learn about and practice piety. While the rise of the rabbis and synagogues was a rather late development in this period (much closer to the time of Jesus than the time of the return from exile) its roots can be found in the returning exiles desire to live worshipfully in daily life. This development of the rabbi/synagogue forms the basis for the worship life of the early church…which we will begin to explore next week.
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