DID THE JEWS WORSHIP IDOLS IN BABYLONIA?

Adele Berlin

University of Maryland

Did the Judean exiles worship other gods (or idols) in Babylonia?1 The
idea that there [in exile] you will serve other gods is expressed in the
warnings in Deut 4:28; 28:36, 64 and also in Jer 5:19 and 16:13, and
many scholars take the phrase literally as indicating actual religious
practice among the exiled Judeans. Yehezkel Kaufmann, speaking of the
Jeremiah passages, says that the prophet adopted from Deuteronomy
the peculiar idea that the exiles will be forced to worship other gods.2
Gerhard von Rad refers to Deuteronomys gloomy picture of an Israel
rejected and sunk in the heathen worship of idols.3 Bernard Levinson
glosses Deut 28:64 with the comment that Dispersion of the popula-
tion dissolves its political identity, and idol worship dissolves its reli-
gious identity.4 Although these deuteronomic and jeremianic passages
present themselves as pre-exilic, they are often considered postexilic
additions, and therefore their predictions are understood as retrojec-
tions of exilic religious practice. Thus Yair Hoffman concludes that the
exiles did, indeed, worship idols. Hoffman reasons that The exilic
author [of the verses in Deuteronomy] would never have ascribed to
Moses false prophecies.5 That is, the postexilic readers of Deuteronomy
could not have accepted Deuteronomys warning if it had not already

1
It is a great pleasure to dedicate this essay to my friend and colleague Bustenay
Oded, who has contributed so much to our knowledge of Israel and Judah and their
intersections with the Assyrian and Babylonian empires.
2
Y. Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel (Translated and abridged by Moshe Greenberg;
Chicago, 1960), p. 423; cf. also p. 204.
3
G. von Rad, Deuteronomy. A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia, 1966), p. 50.
4
New Oxford Annotated Bible (Augmented 3rd ed.; Oxford New York), p. 294. I
would note that although we may separate political and religious identities, the ancient
reader would see them as two facets of the same thing. Levinson is correct, though,
that this threat speaks to national identity.
5
Y. Hoffman, The Conception of Other Gods in Deuteronomistic Literature,
Israel Oriental Studies 14 (1994), p. 114.
324 a. berlin

come true. Hoffmann seems to derive additional support for idol-

worship among the exiles from Second Isaiahs polemics against idols,
in chapters 40 and 48, which were directed at the Judean exilic audi-
ence, not at the Babylonians. But Isaiahs polemics do not prove that
the Judeans worshipped idols. Rather, they argue that the Babylonian
deities, whose power might be deduced from the Babylonian victory
over Judah, were in reality impotent and that, hence, the God of Israel
will triumph over Babylonia. These are prophetic words of hopeful
encouragement, not of chastisement.6 They belittle divine images (i.e.,
Babylonian religion); they do not scold Israel for false worship. Second
Isaiahs most critical anti-idol remarks, found in Isa 43:2224, which
do accuse Israel of improper worship, are best interpreted as referring
to the practices of pre-destruction Israel.7
I find most readings of the deuteronomic prediction of idolatry in
exile to be too literal; I understand the phrase as a literary trope rather
than as a statement of fact. The deuteronomic threat is not an anticipa-
tion of historical reality, but rather a warning that the Judeans would
be cut off from their God. Moreover, postexilic literature is silent
about the worship of foreign gods in exile, and in one case, Psalm 44,
denies that it occurred. I want to examine the deuteronomic threat
and the psalmic denial, not as a historical inquiry to uncover actual
practice (there is precious little evidence for that) but as an inquiry
into the biblical literary/theological trope of idol-worship in exile. For
the purpose of my inquiry, it does not matter whether other gods
means actual deities with powers that competed with Gods (usually
considered the pre-exilic understanding), or man-made images devoid
of power (the exilic understanding).
In its most basic sense, to serve other gods simply means to be out-
side the land of Israel, Gods domain, the territory sanctified by God as
belonging to him. 1 Sam 26:19 expresses this basic sense. When David
is forced to be on the run from Saul, he complains that they have
driven me out today from my share in the heritage of the Lord, saying,

6
See Hoffman, ibid., pp. 109110. For the historical and literary context that
informs Isaiahs anti-idol polemics, the inner-Babylonian disputes over Marduk vs. Sin
in the time of Nabonidus, see P. Machinist, Mesopotamian Imperialism and Israelite
Religion: A Case Study from Second Isaiah, in W. G. Dever and S. Gitin (eds.),
Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past (Winona Lake, 2003), pp. 237277.
7
So J. Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 4055 (AB; New York, 2002), p. 231.
 did the jews worship idols in babylonia? 325

Go, serve other gods . There is a clear sense here that God is territo-
rially limited, at least as it relates to the practice of his cult (cf. 2 Kgs
5:17; Ps 137:4), and that a person can be under the aegis of a god only
when residing in his territory. Residence in another country would
then imply being under the aegis of that countrys gods. Notice that
only when she is about to accompany Naomi to Bethlehem does Ruth
swear allegiance to Naomis people and God, by which she not only
becomes a member of Naomis family but also becomes a member of
Naomis people (Ruth 1:16).8 The nexus between people and God is
clear here, but land is also part of the picture. It is hard to imagine
Ruth making this declaration if the women were to remain together in
Moab. The story is silent on Naomis religious practice in Moab (there
is no reason to think she worshipped Moabite gods), but even in the
postexilic book of Ruth there is a remnant of Gods territoriality, at
least vis vis a non-Jew in a pre-exilic literary setting.
On the national level, for the entire nation of Israel or Judah, to
serve other gods simply means to be exiled from their land, from
Gods territorial domain. Deuteronomy elevated this concept to a cen-
tral position, using it to explain the fact of exile and also the reason
for it. The worship of other gods, quite literally, became the sin par
excellence for which the exile was the punishment. (Notice that in
1 Sam 26:19 service to other gods is not the cause of Davids removal
from the land of Israel but only the result.) For Deuteronomy, to wor-
ship other gods, or idolatry, is the code-word for any failure to observe
Gods commandments, as it is also Leviticus 26 (although Leviticus
does not mention idol-worship in exile). This archetypical sin stands
for any disloyalty to God or any breech of the covenant (Deut 11:28;
17:3; 28:14; 29:25; 30:17; 31: 1820; and cf. 1 Sam 8:8). The reason is
that to serve other gods undermines the absolute and unique authority
of God (e.g., Lev 26:1; Deut 6:1214). It is a political rebellion against
the divine overlord.9 Punishment is always implied, although exile is
not mentioned in every instance.

8
For the idea of a covenant with the family see M. S. Smith, Your People Shall Be
My People: Family and Covenant in Ruth 1:1617, CBQ 69 (2007), pp. 242258.
9
See M. Halbertal and A. Margalit, Idolatry (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), p. 220;
N. MacDonald, Recasting the Golden Calf: The Imaginative Potential of the Old
Testaments Portrayal of Idolatry, in S. C. Barton (ed.), Idolatry. False Worship in
the Bible, Early Judaism and Christianity (London New York, 2007), pp. 2934.
326 a. berlin

Let us look at the major passages in Deuteronomy.

Deut 4:2528: When you have had children and childrens children, and
become complacent in the land, if you act corruptly by making an idol
in the form of anything, thus doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord
your God, and provoking him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness
against you today that you will soon utterly perish from the land that
you are crossing the Jordan to possess; you will not live long on it, but
will be utterly destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples
and only a few of you will be left among the nations where the Lord will
lead you. There you will serve other gods made by human hands, objects
of wood and stone that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
Deuteronomy 4 is concerned with making images, not with worship-
ping the gods of other nations, about which so many other passages
in Deuteronomy speak (e.g., Deut 6:14; 7:2526; 12:2931; 13:25). The
making of cult statues is probably implied in the worship of other gods,
but Deuteronomy 4 insists that even if the image were of the God of
Israel, it would constitute idolatry, for in the view of Deuteronomy
any type of image-worship is antithetical to proper Israelite practice.
The physical representation of God no less than the worship of other
gods constitutes idolatry (cf. Exod 20:8 and Deut 5:89). Deut 4:2531
offers a measure-for-measure punishment: Make images when you are
forbidden to and you will be sent to a place where you will be forced
to worship images.
Jer 5:19 contains a similar measure-for-measure statement, although
it has to do with foreign gods, not images of God: . . . Because you
forsook me and served alien gods ( ) in your own land, so
you will serve foreign ones [ ]in a land not your own. The word
may stand for foreign gods, as in Deut 32:16; Isa 43:12; Jer 2:25;
3:13 or it may refer to foreign people (cf. NRSV: serve strangers).
The result is the same in either case, since it means to be under for-
eign rule in a foreign land with a foreign god.10 Jeremiahs vision of
restoration in Jer 30:89 also juxtaposes serving with serving the
Lord.11 The idea is that in a foreign land, one is under the authority

10
Yair Hoffman suggests that by using the ambiguous term zarim, Jeremiah
has blunted the sense of Deuteronomys warning by interpreting it ambiguously.
(Y. Hoffman, Jeremiah 125 [Miqra leyisrael; Tel Aviv Jerusalem, 2001], pp. 199, 210
[Hebrew]). Note, however, that Jer 16:13 did not have a problem with Deuteronomys
threat of idolatry.
11
The idea of being under foreign rule in the land of Israel is not contemplated
here by Jeremiah, but is a postexilic trope found in Nehemiah 9, part of the trope
 did the jews worship idols in babylonia? 327

of, or the servant of, the king and the gods of that land. The verb ,
to serve, commonly used in this context, does not necessarily mean
to worship but rather to be the servant of . Indeed, there seems to
be some slippage, both ancient and modern, in the meaning of ,
from to acknowledge the supremacy of to to engage in cultic obei-
sance to. Deuteronomy is largely responsible for this slippage by its
construction of the parallel between actual idolatry in the land of Israel
and the threat of idolatry in exile.
Deut 28:36: The Lord will bring you, and the king whom you set over
you, to a nation that neither you nor your ancestors have known, where
you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone.
Deut 28:64: The Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end
of the earth to the other; and there you shall serve other gods, of wood
and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.
Jer 16:13: I will hurl you out of this land to a land that neither you nor
your ancestors have known, and you will serve there other gods, day
and night.
The punishment that Deuteronomy envisions is best understood in
the context of treaty-curses, which themselves should be understood
as threatening the reversal of the ideal norms of life, the blessings that
await those who adhere to the treaty/covenant: agricultural ruin and
famine as opposed to agricultural prosperity; invasion, destruction,
and exile by a foreign enemy as opposed to dwelling securely in the
land. The biblical threat of serving idols in exile is likewise a reversal
of the norm, the norm being the proper worship of God and Gods
protection of his people. In a foreign land, Israel is deprived of the
privilege of serving its God and lacks Gods protection. The expression
that neither you nor your ancestors have not known underlines the
departure from normal experience. Notice that the object that has not
been known is either a nation (Deut 28:36), a land (Jer 16:13), or other
gods (Deut 28:64), all of them pieces of the idea that nation=land=gods.
In pre-exilic thought, when God is limited to a given territory, this is
simply the way to refer to the punishment of exile and there is no
reason that we should take it as evidence of actual exilic religious prac-
tice.12 The confusion arises in exilic times, when God is perceived as

of on-going exile after the Return. Notice, however, that in that context there is no
question of other gods.
12
J. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia, 1996), pp. 5253.
328 a. berlin

universally potent and as being the God of Israel in exile. Then a bifur-
cation arises between recognizing Gods supremacy, which Israel must
do everywhere, and worshipping God in the sacrificial cult, which can
be done only in the Temple. This is seen clearly in Psalm 137, with its
strong allegiance to God despite the impossibility of cultic worship of
him in a foreign land.
In exilic and postexilic literature it was a commonplace to explain
the exile as a result of sin, and to portray the destruction and exile
much as it was described in Deuteronomy (as Lamentations does).
But absent from the postexilic picture is a record of idol-worship in
exile. There is general silence on the matter, except in Ps 44:1822,
where it is specifically denied. This is not to say that there was no devi-
ant religious practice during the Neo-Babylonian or Persian periods,
but that this part of the deuteronomic portrayal of exile is omitted.
I suggest that exilic and postexilic writers came to see idol-worship in
exile as a continuation of the sin that caused the exile, rather than as
the punishment for sin, as Deuteronomy saw it. By omitting or deny-
ing foreign worship in exile, the postexilic writers are saying that the
reason for exile no longer exists, and therefore the exile should come
to an end. They are also saying that they have remained Gods loyal
subjects despite their displacement from the land of Israel a point
that is central to the preservation of their Judean identity.
There are two passages, Isa 43:12 and Ps 44:1822, in which we
glimpse the way exilic or postexilic writers contravene the deutero-
nomic threat of other gods:
Isaiah 43:12. . The phrase is part of Gods highly rhetori-
cal statement, through the mouth of the prophet ,that God alone can
bring about the restoration because he is stronger than any other force
in the world, and that no foreign god protects Israel in Babylonia.13
Joseph Blenkinsopp captures the nuance nicely by translating this is
no alien God in your midst and explaining that God is proving his
identity as the traditional God of Israel, known to the audience, and
not some foreign imitation.14 In Second Isaiah, God has clearly tran-
scended his territorial boundaries and wields his power in Babylonia,
as he does throughout the world (by virtue of having created it). This

13
S. M. Paul, Isaiah 4048 (Miqra Leyisrael; Tel Aviv Jerusalem, 2008), p. 174
(Hebrew).
14
Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 4055, pp. 223225.
 did the jews worship idols in babylonia? 329

Isaianic view, then, supersedes the deuteronomic view that Israel will
be denied Gods protection in a foreign land. The main thrust of Second
Isaiahs message is that God is with Israel in Babylonia. Despite the sin
that caused the exile, YHWH is still Israels God and Israel is Gods
people ([ Isa 43:7]).
Psalm 44:1822.15 There is little consensus regarding the date of
Psalm 44. While some scholars place it in the preexilic period, I fol-
low those who date it to postexilic times. In favor of this later dating,
and its inclusion under the rubric of literature of exile, is language
about destruction and dispersal that calls to mind Lamentations and
other psalms that clearly lament Jerusalem: rejection by God and dis-
grace (v. 10), dispersal among the nations (v. 11), the butt and scorn
of the neighbors (vv. 1415, 17), the place of jackals and deep darkness
(v. 20), the call to God to rouse himself and not to hide his face (vv.
2427). The idea that the exile was a form of slavery into which Judah
was sold for no money, in v. 13, has an echo in Isa 52:3: For nothing
were you sold, and for no money you will be redeemed.
Verses 1822 have been a stumbling-block to modern commentators.
:

:
:
:
:
The crux is v. 18, which many commentators take to be a denial of
Israels guilt prior to the exile, although it is hard to see how the syntax
supports this view. Typical is the comment of J. J. Stewart Perowne,
who describes the psalm as A complaint that all these calamities
have come upon them without any fault or demerit on the part of the
nation. Perowne finds that this assertion of national innocence . . . is
without parallel in the Old Testament.16 Indeed, if this were the
meaning of the psalm, it would be without parallel, for nowhere in the
Bible does anyone make the claim of Israels lack of guilt. At most one
can say that the literature of exile omits or minimizes the confession
of guilt, in order to appeal to Gods mercy for the present suffering

15
An earlier version of this discussion of Psalm 44 is found in A. Berlin, Psalms
and the Literature of Exile: Psalms 137, 44, 69, and 78, in P. W. Flint and P. D. Miller
(eds.), The Book of Psalms. Composition and Reception (Leiden, 2005), pp. 7174.
16
J. J. S. Perowne, The Book of Psalms (Grand Rapids, 1976), p. 364.
330 a. berlin

of his people. But Israels pre-exilic guilt is always hovering in the

background; to deny it would be to remove the theological reason for
the exile. To deny guilt in a psalm of lament unrelated to the exile
is to impugn God. For this reason, James Luther Mays (and others)
compare the psalmist with Job, a man who did not sin but who was
punished nonetheless.17 But I find this Job analogy weak, for unlike the
book of Job, psalms of lament are not concerned with the reason for
suffering but with bringing it to an end. The complaint in psalms is
not that God is unjust, but that he is hiding his face from the psalmist.
To the extent that lament literature is protest literature, it is protesting
the duration and degree of suffering, not the reason for it.18
A look at English translations of Ps 44:18 shows the disagreement
on the interpretation of this verse in regard to the temporal relation-
ship between the clauses. (In some cases this requires paraphrasing;
italics are mine).

KJV, NJPS, NRSV: All this has come upon us, yet we have not forgot-
ten you.
RSV, NAB: All this has come upon us though we have not forgotten
you.
NIV: All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you.
NEB: All this has befallen us, but we do not forget you.
REB: Though all this has befallen us, we do not forget you.

I understand KJV, NJPS, and NRSV to say that we have not forgotten
you occurs simultaneously with all this has come upon us. That is,
despite the event, the people have not forgotten God. But some think
that the have not forgotten preceded what came upon the people.
RSV, NAB, and especially NIV clearly put the forgetting of God before
the exile, making the present speaker deny all guilt, and thereby reject
the deuteronomic idea that exile is the result of current sin. NEB and
REB, on the other hand, clearly make the exile prior to the forgetting

17
J. L. Mays, Psalms (Interpretation; Louisville, 1994), p. 176.
18
I disagree with the sharp dichotomy proposed by Dalit Rom-Shiloni (Psalm
44: The Powers of Protest, CBQ 70/4 [2008], pp. 683698) between the orthodox
views that justify the actions of God by blaming Israel and the nonorthodox views
that protest against God. Rom-Shiloni includes the psalms of lament and the book of
Lamentations in her second category; but a verse like Lam 3:42:
clearly shows that the same author can protest against God and at the
same time acknowledge Israels guilt.
 did the jews worship idols in babylonia? 331

of God that is, the exiles in Babylonia have not forgotten and do not
forget God.
I side with NEB and REB, and take the forgetting clause to apply
to the period during the exile, not before it.19 The syntax also sup-
ports this interpretation. Compare the sequence of qatal verbs in
2 Sam 12:18: ( While the child
was alive, we spoke to him [David] but he did not [or: would not]
listen). Both actions occur at the same time or in rapid succession as
part of the same event. The second verb is clearly not pluperfect, and
is likewise not pluperfect in Ps 44:18. It is not that the people have
been exiled despite their loyalty to God, but rather that they have not
forgotten and still do not forget God in spite of the fact that they have
been exiled. Notwithstanding their trouble and disgrace, the people
have been true God and to the covenant and have not entreated other
gods, for if they had, God would know it (v. 22).20 The last point is a
striking attestation to Gods omniscience, even in Babylonia, a point
made also in Isa 43:12 and elsewhere in Second Isaiah.
Verses 1822 is not a denial that sin led to the exile, but a state-
ment of the faithfulness of the people under adverse circumstances.
The phrasing of the psalm is very deuteronomic. Far from rejecting
the deuteronomic view that the sin of idolatry leads to the punishment
of exile, Psalm 44 embraces it and builds on it. It declares that during
the exile the people desisted from this sin; and that therefore the exile
should end, because the reason for it no longer exists. Verses 1819
echo Deut 28:9: The Lord will establish you as his holy people . . . if
you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his
ways. The psalmist pleads for the positive side of the deuteronomic
promise, without addressing the justification for the negative side (the
punishment of exile), except to say that that is how God wanted it (cf.
v. 4). The psalm prays for the end of the exile, using the same theologi-
cal reasoning that was used in deuteronomic and prophetic literature
to predict it.

19
As does A. Hakham, Psalms, I (Daat Mikrah; Jerusalem, 1970), p. 251 (Hebrew).
20
There is some similarity with Psalm 139, which also is concerned with Gods
inspection of the psalmist and a denial of idolatry, albeit in different language and
context (in v. 24 and perhaps also in v. 20; see J. Holman, Are Idols Hiding in Psalm
139:20? in B. Becking and E. Peels (eds.), Psalms and Prayers [Leiden, 2007], pp.
119128).
332 a. berlin

The absence or denial of idol-worship in exile makes an ideological

point, not a historical one. In the face of the deuteronomic threat that
Israel would be cut off from God in exile, these postexilic texts are at
pains to show an unbroken relationship with God, who obviously, in
Psalm 44 and elsewhere, continued to be addressed in prayer in exile.
The exiles did not abandon God (although they may have felt that he
abandoned them) but remain loyal to him, even while in a foreign
land, and they use traditional biblical loyalty language to express
this. Moreover, they resist the deuteronomic idea that they would be
forced to abandon God and to serve other gods, for by so doing they
prove that they are no longer guilty of the sin that brought about the
exile, and so there is no longer a reason for the exile to continue. By
contradicting the deuteronomic threat of idol-worship, these psalm-
ists are paving the way for the deuteronomic hope for the restoration
(Deut 4:2931; 30:110 and passim).
To sum up, the expression to serve other gods is at times a meta-
phoric expression and should not always be taken literally as signifying
actual idolatrous worship. It has the general sense of being in a foreign
land, under the aegis of the gods of that land. Deuteronomic literature
gives it the stronger nuance of being disloyal to God, either in a literal
sense, in its polemic against impermissible forms of worship, or more
figuratively, in its threat about exile, where it means the opposite of
serving God. In the absence of atheism, one had to serve one god or
another; hence, to serve other gods is another way of saying not
to serve the God of Israel. Similarly, the exilic or postexilic denial of
serving other gods is not to be understood literally as desisting from
idol-worship, but rather as a way of declaring that even in a foreign
country the Jews remained loyal to God, had access to him through
prayer, and continued to view him as their sovereign. This is a key
tenet in maintaining a sense of national identity in exile, for even in
postexilic literature, where God is not confined geographically, ones
nationality is defined by the god one worships (see Ruth 1:16; Jonah
1:89). To worship other gods means, in exilic literature, not only to
be in exile, but to abandon ones Judean-ness.21

21
For a survey of strategies through which Judean exiles preserved their ethnic
identity see B. Oded, The Judean Exiles in Babylonia; Survival Strategy of an Ethnic
Minority, in M. Mor et al. (eds.), For Uriel: studies in the history of Israel in antiq-
uity presented to professor Uriel Rappaport (Jerusalem, 2006), pp. 5376. Although it
reached me too late to be included in this discussion, M. S. Smith, God in Translation
(Tbingen, 2008) touches on related issues.
 did the jews worship idols in babylonia? 333

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