06_AN_Whitekettle_273_281_273_281 10/07/15 12:42 Pagina 278 278 RICHARD WHITEKETTLE monarch was weak or corrupt. And the people who were deported to Baby- lon in 597 ― King Jehoiachin, members of the royal household, and mem- bers of the elite ― would have thought of themselves as a (displaced) part of the Davidic polity, which was still in operation back in their homeland. In 586, however, the Babylonians brought the Davidic polity to an end, established a different political apparatus in Judah, and deported a portion of the Judahite population to Babylon 10. From that moment on, those living in the land of Judah were no longer under the authority of their own leaders and no longer members of their own polity. And for the Judahites who had been deported, whether in 597 or 586, there was no Davidic polity of which they could consider themselves to be (displaced) members. In sum, beginning in 586, the people who lived in the land of Judah, and those who had been deported to Babylon, had no political leaders, political system, or political identity of their own. Thus, Habakkuk’s com- plaint in 1,14, that God had made the group of people who were the targets of Babylonian aggression structurally leaderless, referred to the cataclysm which took place in 586, when the native political system in Judah ― the Davidic monarchy and its administrative apparatus ― ceased to exist, and the people of Judah were politically absorbed into the vast net of the Babylonian Empire. 10 On Gedaliah’s function, see J. WEINBERG, “Gedaliah, the Son of Ahikam in Mizpah: His Status and Role, Supporters and Opponents”, ZAW 119 (2007) 356-368; K-D. SCHUNK, “Die Funktion Gedaljas und der Status des Landes Juda unter Nebukadnezzar II”, Geschichte Israels und deuteronomistisches Geschichtsdenken. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Winfried Theil (eds. P. MOMMER – A. SCHERER) (AOAT 380; Münster 2010) 259-264; P.-A. BEAULIEU, “History of Israel 6: Babylonian Period”, Dictionary of the Old Testament Historical Books (eds. B.T. ARNOLD – H.G.M. WILLIAMSON) (Downers Grove, IL 2005) 483. It is unclear how the Babylonians governed the area of Judah after Gedaliah’s assassination. For analyses of the situation in the area of Judah and among those taken to Babylon, see O. LIPSCHITS, The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem. Judah under Babylonian Rule (Winona Lake, IN 2005); MILLER – HAYES, A History, 478-497; D. VANDERHOOFT, “Babylonian Strategies of Imperial Control in the West: Royal Practice and Rhetoric”, Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (eds. O. LIPSCHITS – J. BLENKINSOPP) (Winona Lake, IN 2003) 235-262; R. ALBERTZ, Israel in Exile. The History and Literature of the Sixth Century B.C.E. (trans. D. GREEN) (Studies in Biblical Literature 3; Atlanta, GA 2003) 45-111; J.J. AHN, Exile as Forced Migration. A Sociological, Literary, and Theological Approach on the Displacement and Resettlement of the Southern Kingdom of Judah (BZAW 417; Berlin 2011) 1-35.