The Jewish nation, which was of considerable political importance in the days of David and Solomon, was much weakened, during the reigns of Ahaz and his successors, by the encroachments of the Assyrians, and extinguished, for a time, as a political power, by the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. [B. C. 588.]

But the national feeling in a people of 800 years’ standing, of peculiar manners, associations, and religious worship, survives the capture of their towns; and, during each successive transportation of their tribes [B. C. 725–588], and their subsequent captivity at Babylon, the Jews consoled themselves with the hope of a speedy restoration to their own land. They compensated themselves for their present insignificance with the expectation of future greatness ; and their very sufferings were made a theme soothing to their vanity, by being considered, not as the effect of superior power on the part of their enemies, but as a paternal and corrective chastisement from their own God.

[B. C. 536.] When Cyrus permitted the small remnant of pure Jews to re-occupy their own land, and to re-build their temple and city, their most extravagant hopes seemed about to be realized. A new era opened upon them ; they were in the way to take rank again amongst the nations; and if this could be attained out of a state of general servitude, a patriotic Jew might easily believe his nation destined, in the end, to eclipse Egypt and Assyria.

Accordingly in their writings about the time of the restoration, (and a large proportion of those called the prophets appear to be nearly of that date,) these topics occur in almost every page.