'Diaspora' as a word and concept in early Judaism

Abstract

The divine promise that the Israelites will establish themselves in the land promised to the Abrahamic family is perhaps the foremost unifying theme of the Hebrew Bible. Its countertheme, the possibility that the Israelites might be displaced from this land, undergirds much of the Hebrew Bible as well, and the threat of exile looms large in the Deuteronomistic History and prophetic literature. 1 Peaceful settlement in the promised land was viewed as an indicator of God’s satisfaction with Israel, while displacement signified just, divine punishment for Israel’s sins.2 The biblical prophets exploited the Israelites’ fear of displacement by warning them of potential exile should they not repent of their sins. These warnings were realized with the Babylonian exile, an event that the Hebrew Bible refers to as the גולה (gôlâ), a term that appears forty times in the Hebrew Bible.3 It is unclear whether the postexilic biblical authors viewed the Babylonian exile as having come to a close following Cyrus’s edict permitting the exiled Judeans to return to Yehud, since most Judeans did not return at that time. By the late Second Temple period, most Jews lived outside of Judea.