* The body of exiles of 597 consisted of ten thousand persons, of whom seven thousand belonged to the wealthy, and one thousand to the artisan class, while the remainder consisted of people attached to the court (2 Kings xxiv. 14- 16).  In the body of 587 are reckoned three thousand and twenty-three inhabitants of Judah, and eight hundred and thirty-two dwellers in Jerusalem.  But the body of exiles of 581 numbers only seven hundred and forty-five persons (Jer. lii. 30).  These numbers are sufficiently moderate to be possibly exact, but they are far from being certain.

There had at first been the two kings, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, their families, the aristocracy of Judah, the priests and pontiff of the temple, the prophets, the most skilled of the artisan class and the soldiery.  Though distributed over Babylon and the neighbouring cities, we know from authentic sources of only one of their settlements, that of Tell-Abib on the Chebar* though many of the Jewish colonies which flourished thereabouts in Roman times could undoubtedly trace their origin to the days of the captivity; one legend found in the Talmud affirmed that the synagogue of Shafyathib, near Nehardaa, had been built by King Jehoiachin with stones brought from the ruins of the temple at Jerusalem.  These communities enjoyed a fairly complete autonomy, and were free to administer their own affairs as they pleased, provided that they paid their tribute or performed their appointed labours without complaint.  The shekhs, or elders of the family or tribe, who had played so important a part in their native land, still held their respective positions; the Chaldaeans had permitted them to retain all the possessions which they had been able to bring with them into exile, and recognised them as the rulers of their people, who were responsible to their conquerors for the obedience of those under them, leaving them entire 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