A Little More Historyish Stuff
The Treehouse: Conversations About God
Okay, so the northern kingdom of Israel has been eradicated, and now the southern kingdom of Judah is exiled into Babylonia, with Jerusalem and the Temple1 having been destroyed.
We think of living in exile as something akin to the time of Egyptian slavery, with subjugation, terrible conditions, and abuses, and there definitely was that. But often those brought into exile entered into society, adapted to the polytheistic culture, became tradespeople and merchants, married the locals and had children.