Going Home: Promises and Perils

Why Go Home?
After gaining freedom from the Babylonians, many Israelites were reluctant to go back home: Jerusalem had to be rebuilt, it's a 1,000 mile journey through a desert, which most of the refugees would have to walk, and other peoples had settled in the area of Canaan.

The First Group
Imagine your parents bought a worn-down house and they fixed it up, bought new furniture, the whole shebang. You live in your house for a better part of your life. All of a sudden, a man shows up and says that the house was his grandfather's house and would like it back. This is an accurate analogy as to how the Samaritans felt.

The first group that returned to Judah was a small one. When they returned, the harvest was small, most of the economic aid that King Cyrus promised never arrived, and they were constantly under attack from neighboring peoples.


The Samaritans
After the Babylonians captured the Jews, the northern kingdom that was spared by Assyria married and had children with Canaanites. These people are known as the Samaritans. They and the Israelites had a rivalry that proved to be legendary: both followed the Torah, but the Samaritans believed Moses received God's law on Mount Gerizim. In addition, the Samaritans learned that if the Israelites rebuilt their temple, Canaan would become a rival in politics and the economy.

Foreign Religions
The last peril the Israelites faced was foreign influences. Some of the refugees returned with non-Jewish wives. These marriages ended up in a mixing of religion and worship, which is prohibited by Jewish Law. Keeping worship of Yahweh pure is and was a chief goal of the Jewish Leaders. When the Jews realized the error of their ways, they broke off their marriages