Israelite Worship During the Exile and Restoration

The return of Israel after the Exile brought renewed interest in worship; the temple was rebuilt and sacrifices were reinstated. The synagogue, originated during the Exile, now became the focal point of a nonsacrificial worship. The nature of worship in the exilic period is much debated. One theory postulates that the absence of the temple and the deportation to a new land forced the faithful to restructure worship to accommodate the new situation. The Psalms speak to the discouragement of those in exile and their longing for the land of Zion (Ps. 137:16). Historically it seems that not all Jews desired to return as earnestly as the author of Psalm 137, for not all Jews did return to Jerusalem when they were eventually allowed to do so by an edict of Cyrus (538 b. c. ). It also appears that not all Jews were deported from the land in the Exile. Tension developed between the returning Babylonian Jews and the Jews who had remained behind and intermarried with other peoples. The Persi…