(13.) "The
Babylonian Captivity of the Church," LW 36,116: "Furthermore, the priesthood is properly nothing but the ministry of the Word--the Word, I say; not the law, but the gospel." See also "Concerning the Ministry," LW 40,36: "Inasmuch as the office of preaching the gospel is the greatest of all and certainly is apostolic, it becomes the foundation for all other functions, which are built upon it, such as the offices of teachers, prophets, governing [the church], speaking with tongues, the gifts of healing and helping, as Paul directs in I Cor 12[:28].
The Rasta version of verse 2 locates the
Babylonian captivity in the adverbial modifier "inner" (Jamaican patois for "in a") strange land.
He argued in his treatise The
Babylonian Captivity of the Church that especially onerous was the oppression of the laity by the clergy, who substituted juridical authority for ministry to the people of God.
Also, Josiah's reign was less than fifty years before the fall of Jerusalem and the beginning of the
Babylonian Captivity (583 BC).
Continue with the Pharaonic slavery and God's vow in the Desert (Numbers 14) to strike the Children of Israel "with pestilence and disown them." And so it goes: the
Babylonian captivity, Haman, Masada, the destruction of two temples, the dispersal.
Those who want to go back in history will be reminded of the fact that it was the great Persian emperor, Cyrus, who let the Jews return from
Babylonian captivity to Jerusalem, as duly recorded in the Bible (the books of Ezra and Nehemiah).
This included the Jews of the
Babylonian captivity, who were also permitted to rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem.
The first line of Genesis, "In the beginning..." was probably a chant drawn from the Israelite experience of
Babylonian captivity. The Book of Job even imagines that creation was composed with a soundtrack: "The morning stars sang together" as the pillars of the earth were set in place (Job 38:7).
The Second Temple was then rebuilt in 515 BCE after Jerusalem was freed from
Babylonian captivity. That Temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire in CE 70.
The Tanakh books of Haggai and Zechariah 1-8 reflect the period just after the end of the
Babylonian Captivity and the return to Israel.
In the first reading, the poet of this servant song, Second Isaiah, wrote to a community in
Babylonian captivity. The suffering servant could have been the writer him- or herself, a representative of Isaiah, or a servant sent for the redemption of Israel.