The book of Isaiah reflects many of the population movements that took place in the period of its formation. Much biblical scholarship focuses on “the (Babylonian) Exile,” but as C. L. Crouch points out in “Isaiah and Migration,” mass population movements were carried out in the sphere of Israel and Judah by the Assyrians long before the Babylonians overthrew Jerusalem. She also calls attention to the migrations experienced by other nations, and to forces of displacement other than deportation, such as warfare, famine, and natural disasters. She analyzes the literary reception of these numerous involuntary migrations, and the ways in which the prophet and his audiences made sense of them.

The poetic material in Jeremiah 2–20 is usually thought to comprise the oldest substructure of Jeremiah and is widely perceived as antedating the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. Although the book’s origins and subsequent development remain among the most contested issues in biblical scholarship, this material likely preserves ideas about Israel from before the exile.1

Ezekiel speaks to Israel after it has been forcibly uprooted, deported to Babylonia, and settled in the ancient equivalent of a refugee camp.1 The heart of the book addresses the relatively immediate aftermath of the deportations, with dated oracles concentrated around 586 BCE. Although there are a variety of proposals concerning its transmission history, Ezekiel remains widely recognised as the most theologically and stylistically coherent of any of the prophetic books. As with Jeremiah, the most commonly recognised contours of its literary development mirror the ideas it preserves about Israel and Judah, with conceptual outliers occurring in passages that are recognised as unusual and as probable later additions on other grounds. Following this general consensus, the focus of this chapter is on material in Ezekiel 1–39*.2

The struggle between those taken to Babylonia and those left behind is a well-known and widely discussed feature of the exilic and early post-exilic periods. These communities’ battles for political legitimacy, theological authority, and the apportionment of blame form the drumbeat of the literature from this period. Surprisingly, scholars have failed to notice that this struggle is frequently articulated in terms of competing Israelite and Judahite identities. Drawing on a deep reservoir of tradition, those deported in 597 BCE laid an absolute claim on Israel’s name and status with Yhwh. Those left behind coalesced around Judah, relying on the land to draw the kingdom’s diverse remaining inhabitants together.

Not all deportees from Jerusalem were resettled in rural Babylonia. Some, including King Jehoiachin and his sons, were taken to the empire’s urban centre, the city of Babylon. As soon as this is noted, the dearth of biblical literature written overtly from the perspective of these deportees is striking. From the perspective of involuntary migration research, however, it is unsurprising: migrants who resettle in urban contexts tend to adopt much more pragmatic, accommodationist approaches to their ethnic identities. Key identity markers are retained, but urban involuntary migrants pursue integration with host cultures and communities to a degree deemed abhorrent, even dangerous, by those resettled in isolated camps. Integrated marriages, commercial transactions, and the adoption of hosts’ legal conventions are especially prominent axes of integration in these circumstances.

The interpretation of Israel as the Jerusalemite elites deported to Babylonia and Judah as those left behind in Judah after 597 BCE solves a number of long-standing cruces interpretum. This chapter demonstrates this through a sampling of texts from Jeremiah and Ezekiel, with special attention to passages in which both Israel and Judah appear. These texts identify a number of prominent concerns arising from Israel’s deportation, including disputes over land and competing claims to divine favour. Moreover, the relationship between the two groups is articulated differently in different texts, and this offers a number of useful insights into changes in this relationship over time, as well as contrasting perceptions of the relationship in the two communities.

The kingdom of Judah’s encounter with the Babylonian empire wrought profound changes on its population, from members of the royal household to the very poorest of its villagers. Mass movements, in particular, were a pervasive feature of the kingdom’s final years. Many of its elites were forcibly deported to Babylonia; others sought refuge from Babylonian depredations in Jerusalem and other fortified cities, or fled into the Transjordan or to Egypt. The effects of these repeated displacements on society, community, and identity were deep and long lasting.

Those left behind in the land after 597 BCE were repudiated by the Israelite community in Babylonia. This chapter explores the consequences of the deportees’ absence, together with the imposition of Babylonian imperial power, on expressions of homeland identity. The remaining population was a mixed multitude, divided by social and economic class distinctions, by diverse geographical origins within the territory of a now-collapsed state, by a variety of ethnic and other affiliations, and by different experiences in the midst and in the aftermath of the Babylonian invasions. Nevertheless, these experiences fostered a strong sense of collective identity among these people, articulated with reference to their shared origins in the land called Judah. Though striking in its apparent suddenness, for the upheaval of this period to have produced a heightened awareness of Judahite identity is neither surprising nor peculiar. To the contrary, it is in keeping with responses to involuntary migration and to colonial-imperial domination which have been reported and observed in other times and places. Without pressing Judah to conform with more recent phenomena, this comparative material proves useful in illuminating observable features of these ancient texts.