Hi Ian....Yes, Ashkelon provides some of the clearest evidence of Babylonian destruction, but it is not representative of the whole region. Even Ephraim Stern, who emphasizes the "Babylonian gap" between Iron II levels and Persian-era levels, notes that the land was not truly vacant even though harbor cities like Ashkelon were totally destroyed and settlements were generally abandoned, for there were some notable exceptions, "namely, central Samaria, the Land of Benjamin and Rabat Ammon and its surroundings, where some degree of cultural continuity can be distinguished" ("The Babylonian Gap: The Archaeological Reality", JSOT 2004:274-276). This pattern indicates that the Neo-Babylonian military campaigns completely destroyed the coastal cities and urban centers in Judah, whereas rural parts of the Benjamin region and Samaria to the north were relatively spared. Indeed, the evidence suggests a modest expansion of rural villages in Benjamin (particularly Gibeah, Gibeon, and Mizpah) at a time when other cities were unoccupied. It was not until the Persian period that these sites underwent decline. The article "Ideology and Archaeology in the Neo-Babylonian Period" by Charles E. Carter (in the book Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, ed. by Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blenkinsopp, 2003, pp. 301-322) gives a good overview of the relevant sites and concludes:
"It is not accurate, therefore, to dismiss the Neo-Babylonian period as being absent from the archaeological record of Syria-Palestine. Minimal evidence is not the same as no evidence... Unlike Hans Barstad, I do not think that 'life went on pretty much as usual.' There was very likely a substantial disconnect, given the absence of a monarchy and its attendant infrastructure. And the imprint of this disconnect is present in the biblical traditions themselves. An empty land? Not at all. A subsistence-level economy for those who remained, probably overseen by a Neo-Babylonian appointee? A good guess" (p. 311).
The article "The Rural Settlement of Judah in the Sixth Century B.C.E." by Oded Lipschits (Palestine Exploration Journal, 2004:99-107) similarly notes that "the major and most conspicuous archaeological phenomenon in Judah after the destruction of Jerusalem is the sharp decline in urban life, which is in contrast to the continuity of the rural settlements in the region of Benjamin and in the area between Bethlehem and Beth Zur. These archaeological investigations demonstrate that a new pattern of settlement was created in Judah, in which the core settlements were destroyed or abandoned while, at the same time, the surrounding region continued to exist almost unchanged". This pattern is probably "the outcome of a planned Babylonian policy of using some of the rural highland areas as a source of agricultural products. The settlement in those areas became a place of specialized wine and oil production, and was used both for paying the taxes and supplying the basic products for the Babylonian administration and forces stationed in the area" (p. 99).
On the evidence used to claim that Mizpah was still occupied, but with the entire region basically desolate, who were they going to trade with? Even Tyre was destroyed but would have had few people to trade with.
The land was desolated and heavily depopulated in 587 BC, yet the Babylonians did not themselves abandon the land (cf. the Babylonian soldiers garrisoned in Mizpah mentioned in Jeremiah 41:3). They installed a Jewish administrative governor at Mizpah, indicating that Judah after the destruction of Jerusalem became a minor Babylonian province, and it is unlikely that the Babylonians withdrew from the land after Gedaliah's assassination in c. 580 BC. Indeed, Judah held strategic importance for Babylonians engaged in border conflicts with Egypt -- such as the major 568 BC campaign, which occurred some twelve years later. So agricultural production would have sustained the small local population and the Babylonians garrisoned there. If there was economic exploitation of agricultural resources (such as oil and wine production), it would have probably been mainly for Babylonian consumption. Wine and oil were profitable luxury goods and we know that Babylon imported wine from "Hatti" (cf. the Wadi Brisa Inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, which lists several places in Hatti that were importing wine, and the Stela of Nabonidus which notes that wine was not produced in Babylon and was imported in such quantities that the price was especially cheap in his time). The reference in 2 Kings 25:12 to Nebuzaradan sparing the vinedressers (krmym) and ploughmen (ygbym) makes sense in this context; the Babylonians wanted to preserve some production of wealth from the land, especially since the empire was dependent on wealth obtained outside Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar could no longer obtain tribute from Judah. It would have been against Nebuchadnezzar's interests to waste this potential source of capital.
So the archaeological evidence of wine production in Gibeon and oil production in Mizpah suggests the presence of both Babylonians and native farmers (along the lines of 2 Kings 25:12) in the land. That sixth-century BC Mizpah had a mixed population of Judeans and Babylonians is suggested by epigraphic remains from the Neo-Babylonian levels: a Hebrew ostracon of an Akkadian name (Mar-sharri-usur), Hebrew and Aramaic "Mozah" jar impressions, and a Neo-Babylonian cuneiform inscription on a bronze bracelet. Even after the return of the exiles (who returned in an already-populated land, cf. Ezra 3:3), Mizpah and its environs likely remained the administrative center of Judah for many years -- for Jerusalem in 445 BC only had "a few people in it and no houses had yet been rebuilt" (Nehemiah 7:4), whereas Mizpah and Gibeon were "places under the authority of the governor (pcht) of Trans-Euphrates".
The archaeological challenge is to prove there was not a 70-year gap in the occupation of this town, a town that might have simply been abandoned (not destroyed, like Jerusalem or Ashkelon) and then reinhabited. Further, this seems to be a primary site for pottery - so who knows if lots of premade pottery from this site from earlier periods were then used in later periods after an interruption? So some of this could be a matter of interpretation of the artifacts which are still flexible enough to accommodate the the 70-year historical gap noted in the Bible.
Of course the evidence is never 100% conclusive, but at this point it is generally agreed (even by those emphasizing a "Babylonian gap" at other archaeological sites) that the evidence is best explained by a continued settlement in the land of Benjamin. The cluster of sites in Benjamin together show similar differences from sites where evidence of a gap of settlement is clear-cut. In the case of Gibeah, the town was partially destroyed in either 597 or 587 BC, as there is a minor destruction level at Stratum IIIA, but it was not abandoned until the Persian period (c. 500 BC), and Stratum IIIB shows that the town was rebuilt and expanded in the intervening period. Bethel also shows no evidence of a "gap" of settlement and a few Neo-Babylonian artifacts (including a seal and a stone scarab) have been found there. As for Mizpah, Stratum II there contains the Neo-Babylonian epigraphic artifacts mentioned above, the seal impression of Jaazaniah (cf. 2 Kings 25:23, Jeremiah 40:8), as well as at least three Mesopotamian-style coffins. This level shows moderate architectural development, indicating that the town flourished during the period. And most significantly, the "Mozah" jar handle stamps that are stratigraphically secure appear in the same sixth century BC levels. The Mozah impressions are particularly informative. In all, there are 43 known jars bearing this stamp distributed in Judah, 70% of which were discovered in Mizpah and the rest found in Jericho, Gibeon, and other sites in Benjamin, and neutron activation analysis shows that the clay in these jars all came from the same Moza clay formation. The name "Mozah" is a locality in Benjamin between Jerusalem and Gibeon (cf. Joshua 18:26), and it stood on the Moza clay formation, so it is probable that the jars were produced there. The distribution of the jars in Benjamin, with Mizpah having central importance, fits very well with the situation in the sixth century. Zorn, Yellin & Hayes (IEJ, "The M(w)sh Stamp Impressions and the Neo-Babylonian Period," 1994, pp. 161-182) write:
"The clay out of which the stamped jars were fashioned comes from the area of the Moza clay formation which stretches for a limited distance from Jerusalem to the north, south, and east. Thirty of these 42 examples (excluding the piece from the Bible Lands Museum, whose find-spot is unknown) are from Tell en-Nasbeh. The earliest stratigraphic position of the best stratified pieces is the very end of the Iron Age and the beginning of the Persian period. The palaeography of the impressions does not oppose a date within the seventy to sixth centuries B.C.E. It cannot be determined when the jars went out of production or out of use.
"It is of particular importance that so many of the examples come from Tell en-Nasbeh. At some time in its history Tell en-Nasbeh was sufficiently important to have been a depot for more storage jars of a particular class than Jerusalem. If one accepts the commonly agreed identification of Tell en-Nasbeh with biblical Mizpah, one must ask when, in the course of its history, did it have such special significance. This should be the Neo-Babylonian period, when the Babylonian-appointed governor Gedaliah made Mizpah the seat of his administration. It may be that the distribution of these impressions marks the approximate limits of the territory administered by Gedaliah and his successor(s). Note that the lmlk and yh(w)d impressions [the former from the kingdom of Judah prior to 587 BC and the latter from the Persian province of Judea after 538 BC, N.B.] have a much wider distribution and reflect a larger administrative area. The more limited zone of distribution of the m(w)sh impressions corresponds roughly with the area of the tribe of Benjamin. This theory is compatible with the suggestion that the Babylonians did not devastate the Benjaminite area.
"It may be, as Avigad and Stern have suggested, that these jars contained produce from a governmental estate at Mozah. The wine produced at this estate would have been shipped to teh capital at Mizpah/Tell en-Nasbeh for court use. The inscribed jar handles from Gibeon/el-Jib and another from Mozah itself, which date from the sixth century B.C.E., are another indication of the importance of this area for the logistic system of the Babylonian province.
"It cannot be determined how long individual jars continued to be used after having been stamped. The fact that some impressions were found at various sites in later or mixed contexts may reflect continued use of these jars after the capital was switched back to Jerusalem. Once the court was no longer at Mizpah the jars could have been re-shipped to any place where they could be put to use. It is also possible that these other sites (Jericho, Ramat Rahel, el-Jib, Belmont Castle, and Jerusalem) were sub-centres of the Babylonian administration and received some shipments for use by governmental personnel" (pp. 181-182).
It should be clear however that none of this mitigates the evidence of an extreme demographic crash in sixth century BC Judah, as claimed by the OT. Oded Lipschits has done some interesting demographic research (utilizing as data the relative size of settlements in Judah) that compares the population of Judah at the end of the monarchy and in the Persian period in the fifth century BC. He estimates that Judah originally had a population of 110,000 in the early sixth century BC, which was sharply reduced following the deportation of approximately 20,000 Jews (on the basis of the figures in Jeremiah, adding in the probable numbers of women and children) and the death and flight of tens of thousands of others. Lipschits estimates that EVEN AFTER THE RETURN FROM EXILE the population was still reduced overall by 70% (i.e. about 30,000 people), with the area around Jerusalem at only 10% of the original population (i.e. about 2,700 people compared with 25,000 people before the Exile, cf. Nehemiah 11:1 which claims that the population of Jerusalem was 10% of the total of Judea, or about 3,000), and with Benjamin reduced to only 40% of what it was before the exile. So it took centuries for the population to recover to what it was before the Exile. The evidence doesn't indicate that the land during the Exile was completely vacant (it isn't sociologically or historically plausible that the whole land was "without inhabitant" for 50 years), but if it dropped from an original 100% to 5% (i.e. about 5,500 individuals) and then up to only 30% after the Exile, that is still a truly catastrophic desolation.
Wouldn't the above contradict both Josephus and the Bible's account that the entire region of both Northern and Southern kingdoms were a desolate waste for 70 years with no harvests?
Yes and no. There is a lot of hyperbole in the biblical texts, and this reflects a very common trope in contemporary ANE texts. For instance, Tiglath-pileser III states: "I carried off all the people of the land of Bit-Humria (i.e. the House of Omri) to Assyria, I killed their king Peqah, and I installed Hoshea as king over them", yet we know of course that this was a smaller deportation of Israelites compared to those who were exiled by Shalmaneser in the nineth year of Hoshea's reign (2 Kings 17:3-6). With respect to this later deportation, the biblical text says that "Yahweh rejected all the seed of Israel" and "gave them into the hands of their plunderers" (17:20), yet we know elsewhere that not all the inhabitants of the northern kingdom had been deported (cf. 2 Kings 23:15-20, Jeremiah 41:1-9, 2 Chronicles 30:1-11, 35:18, etc.). Similarly, with respect to the exile of 587 BC, 2 Kings 25 claims that "the rest of the people" were exiled (cf. Jeremiah 39:9), such that "Judah went into captivity away from her land" (v. 11, 21), but the "rest of the people" did not include everyone (v. 12, 22). Jeremiah 4:27 states that "all the towns" and "all the land" would be ruined, but adds that in fact the land wouldn't be completely ruined. So when 2 Kings 25:26 and Jeremiah 43:4-5 state that "all the people" who remained in the land fled to Egypt, it doesn't necessarily mean that every single person left. Unless a census was taken, how would the author know? The idiom would generally mean that a large majority of the people left, not necessarily the total population. Similar uses of hyperbole occur in the prophetic texts. Jeremiah 36:29 says that "the king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause man and beast to cease there," but this is a poetic figure of speech for the totality of the threatened disaster -- there is no reason to believe that Nebuchadnezzar tried to obliterate all animal life in the land (cf. the poetic idiom in 1 Kings 9:7, Isaiah 6:11-13, Ezekiel 6:3-5, 33:28-29). The threat of desolation by Nebuchanezzar is claimed to be so total in Ezekiel 14 that "even if Noah, Danel, and Job were in it, they could not save their own sons or daughters, they alone would be saved" (v. 18), yet this is also hyperbole since "there will be some survivors, sons and daughters who will be brought out of it" (v. 22). Ezekiel 26 prophesies a total destruction of Tyre, such that the rubble would be thrown into the sea and the city would never be rebuilt (v. 12-14), but this is again hyperbole -- it is not what happened historically (i.e. Tyre was rebuilt many times and still exists today). Most strikingly, ch. 29-32 presents a threat against Egypt which warns that Nebuchadnezzar would thoroughly destroy the land, overthrowing "all her hoards," destroying "all her cattle", stripping "the land of everything in it" when he strikes down "all who live there" (32:11-15), yet while there was a campaign against Egypt which may have been successful, it is certain that Nebuchadnezzar did not destroy the country and kill all its citizens, as Egyptian history continued without interruption. Rather, this is the kind of exaggeration that was typical in literature of the time.
As for the much later remark by the Chronicler that implies that the land was abandoned and paid its sabbaths for seventy years (2 Chronicles 36:20-21), this is a midrash on Leviticus 26:33-43 and reflects that text's purification/repentance ideology (which itself does not presume that the land was empty, notice that v. 32 refers to Judah's enemies living there while it lays desolated). The land paying off its sabbaths does not necessarily mean the cessation of all agricultural activity (cf. v. 16: "You will plant seed in vain for your enemies will eat it"), it means that all those of God's covenant people who were polluting the land with sin are no longer there to pollute it, "the land will be deserted by them" (v. 43). As Leviticus 18:24-28 says, "Do not pollute yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became polluted. Even the land was polluted, so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants...And if you pollute the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you". The land thus would have enjoyed a sabbath rest because it is no longer being polluted by the nation's sins. Something similar seems to be assumed by the Chronicler, who refers to "all the leaders of the priests and the people ... polluting the temple of Yahweh which he had consecrated in Jerusalem" (2 Chronicles 36:14), that is, polluting God's own "dwelling place" (v. 15). The desolation of the "land" mentioned in v. 21 refers back to the desolation of Jerusalem and the temple in v. 18-19. The text does not refer to a desolation of Judah as a whole, it is focused on Jerusalem and the temple (cf. Daniel 9, which follows the Chronicler's lead in centering on Jerusalem and its temple). And the desolation ends in v. 23 with Cyrus being appointed "to build a temple for him [Yahweh] at Jerusalem".
There are all sorts of hints and clues however in the OT of (limited) continued settlement during the Exile. As mentioned above, Nebuzaradan left a small number of farmers, the poorest of the people, on the land (2 Kings 25:12), Ezekiel 33:24 mentions people living in the ruins (cf. also Jeremiah 41:5, which describes a pilgrimage of people from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria to the ruined temple), and the Babylonians attempted to install a local government in Mizpah (2 Kings 25:22). Although 2 Kings 25:22 portrays all remaining Jews as fleeing subsequently to Egypt, this is probably an overstatement. Moreover Leviticus 26:32 refers to Judah's enemies (e.g. Babylonians or those of other nations) settling in it while the land lay desolate. Ezra 3:3 portrays the environs of Jerusalem as already inhabited when the exiles returned from Babylon, and the former exiles found themselves in an protracted rivalry with "the adversaries of Judah" who wanted to join the exiles in rebuilding the Temple (4:1-3; these were described as people from Samaria who had been sacrificing since the time of Esarhaddon, cf. Jeremiah 41:5 which refers to pilgrims from Samaria on their way to the desolated Temple c. 580 BC, so possibly Samaritans visited the Jerusalem Temple throughout the exile), as well as with the "people of the land" (`m h-'rts) who co-existed with the returnees (v. 4). Also Ezra 9:1-2, 12, 10:2-44 depicts the community as beset with "foreign women of the people of the land" intermarrying with the returnees, so it is quite evident that the land was far from empty in the early years of the Persian period. The "people of the land" who were at odds with the returnees from Babylon were probably a mixture of non-Jews who settled the land during the exile, along with poor Jews who remained in the land and exiles who returned from Egypt. One tantalizing clue is the reference in Zechariah 7:5, 8:19 to the "people of the land" and the "people of Bethel" in particular as observing a fast mourning the death of Gedaliah "for the past seventy years", as they "have done for so many years" (v. 3). This may suggest that the "people of the land" in conflict with the returnees were themselves of partial Jewish origin, and had a local custom of yearly fasts (unattested in Ezekiel and other sources) throughout the exilic period.
