evil in execution of his righteous judgment because of the repentance on the part of those concerned. (Jonah 3:10) Additionally, in having a warning given, Jehovah has undeservedly provided opportunities for the practicers of bad to change their course and thus to keep living.—Ezek. 33:11.

AVOIDANCE OF EVIL

Since Jehovah determines the standard of right and wrong, it behooves the individual to acquaint himself with that standard fully so as to be able to discern what course must be followed. (Heb. 5:14) The love of money is one of those evil or injurious things to be avoided. (1 Tim. 6:10) It is unwise to be anxious about material things, for, as Jesus said, “sufficient for each day is its own evil [ka·kiʹa],” that is, the evil of trouble or affliction. (Matt. 6:34) In putting on the new personality “hurtful desire” is included among the things to be eliminated. (Col. 3:5) As the Devil tempted Jesus with evil, so Christians find that evil thoughts crop up or are presented to them. But to avoid being drawn into sin when this happens, the Christian should follow Jesus’ example and dismiss such evil immediately. (Jas. 1:13-15; Matt. 4:1-11; Phil. 4:8) Although, because of human imperfection, a Christian finds himself in constant conflict with the fallen flesh, as did Paul, and may do the bad that he does not wish to practice, he must not give in to the flesh but must keep up the fight against it. (Rom. 7:21; 8:8) The danger of failing to live up to God’s righteous requirements is clearly seen in what Jesus foretold concerning the evil slave. The severest punishment is to be meted out to that slave for his failure to care for the responsibilities entrusted to him and for going even to the point of beating his fellow slaves.—Matt. 24:48-51.

CHRISTIAN SUFFERING OF EVIL

The Scriptures do not authorize the Christian to bring evil upon others, or to retaliate in kind. The Bible’s counsel is: “Return evil for evil to no one.” “Do not avenge yourselves . . . ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says Jehovah.’” “Do not let yourself be conquered by the evil, but keep conquering the evil with the good.” (Rom. 12:17, 19, 21) Moreover, in giving relative subjection to the governments ruling over them, servants of God should never be found to be practicers of what is bad, for such governments, through their rulers who have a measure of God-given conscience to a lesser or greater degree, act against badness according to the law of the land and rightfully exercise their authority to punish wrongdoers. (Rom. 13:3, 4) For any misuse of their authority they will be accountable to the Supreme Judge. By suffering evil for righteousness’ sake the Christian shares in the privilege of having a part in the glorifying of God’s holy name.—1 Pet. 4:16.

EVIL-MERODACH

(Eʹvil-me·roʹdach) [man of Marduk; also called Amel-Marduk].

The oldest son of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar and his immediate successor to the throne in 580 B.C.E. Evil-merodach receives mention in the Bible for the kindness he extended, in the year of his becoming king, to Jehoiachin the king of Judah by releasing him from the house of detention in the thirty-seventh year of his exile in Babylon and granting him a position of favor above all the other kings who were in captivity in Babylon. (2 Ki. 25:27-30; Jer. 52:31-34) Josephus claims that Evil-merodach viewed Jehoiachin as one of his most intimate friends.

There is also archaeological testimony concerning Evil-merodach. For example, an inscription on a vase found near Susa reads: “Palace of Amil-Marduk, King of Babylon, son of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.” However, no historical annals of his reign have been found. On the basis of a statement by Berossus, quoted by Josephus, historians assign him a reign of two years. Josephus himself assigns him eighteen years. Supposedly slain as the result of a plot, Evil-merodach was replaced by Neriglissar (Nergal-sharezer), his brother-in-law. Reliable confirmation of these details is lacking.

EXCLUSIVE DEVOTION

[Heb., qan·naʼʹ (used only of God), jealous, demanding exclusive service; qin·ʼahʹ, zeal, jealousy, ardor].

Qan·naʼʹ is variously translated “jealous,” AV, AT, Ro, NW; “zealous,” Yg, La, and “exacting exclusive devotion,” NW. Qin·ʼahʹ is also rendered by the same English words. Doubtless the root idea of jealousy is warmth, heat. It is based on the feeling of a husband’s exclusive right to his wife. When this word is used of God it has reference to his not tolerating any rivalry, the worship of any other gods. He will not transfer to another the honor due to himself. (Isa. 42:8) To depart from exclusive devotion to him would incur the heat of his zealous anger. (Ex. 20:5; Deut. 4:24; 5:9; 6:15) Israel was considered as being married to Jehovah. As a husband, Jehovah claimed exclusive devotion, loyalty, fidelity from Israel. He would be zealous, full of ardor in her behalf, in her defense. (Ezek. 36:5) Conversely, disobedience, going after other gods, would be adultery, thereby meriting Jehovah’s righteous anger and his jealousy for his own name.—Deut. 32:16, 21; Ezek. 16:38, 42.

The word “exclusive” is from the Latin ex, “out,” plus claudere, “to shut.” Devotion means strong attachment and ardent love. Exclusive devotion, therefore, means keeping others out or excluded from God’s position in our hearts and actions. Everyone and everything else stays outside this exclusive, most honored position that only he can hold.

JEHOVAH GOD TOLERATES NO RIVALRY

Exclusive devotion is demanded by Jehovah in the second of the “Ten Words” or ten commandments written by the finger of God: “I am Jehovah your God . . . You must never have any other gods against my face [or, any other gods in defiance of me]. . . . because I Jehovah your God am a God exacting exclusive devotion.” (Deut. 5:6-9) On Exodus 34:14 the French Abbé Drioux Version, 1884, says: “God wants to be loved uniquely,” that is, in a class by himself, singularly. Jesus supported this view when he spoke to a Jew who tried to test him. (Matt. 22:37) Jehovah was both God and King of Israel, Head of religion and of State. Therefore, for an Israelite to break the first and second commandments by serving other gods meant that he was committing lese majesty or treason, the highest of crimes and meriting the heaviest punishment. On one occasion Israel was engaging in the worship of a false god along with immorality and, because of Jehovah’s full insistence on exclusive devotion, was about to be exterminated, but was saved by swift action on the part of Phinehas, Aaron’s grandson, in “tolerating no rivalry” toward Jehovah.—Num. 25:11.

Jehovah’s purpose in restoring his people after the Babylonian exile was for his name’s sake. (Ezek. 39:25-28) At Exodus 34:14, Fenton’s translation reads: “The EVER-LIVING is jealous of HIS NAME.” Since he is jealous of his name or exclusively devoted to it, he did not tolerate any rivalry by the name of any other god among his people.

MASTER AND SLAVE RELATIONSHIP

Exclusive devotion also suggests the relation between master and slave. Jehovah as Creator is Owner and Master. He is God by reason of his creatorship, for it is his right to receive exclusive devotion from his created subjects and they must do his will. The right-minded person, on learning about Jehovah and appreciating his relationship toward God, will voluntarily render exclusive devotion from the heart, which is what Jehovah desires. Mere formal devotion or worship he hates. (Matt. 15:8, 9) This relationship and the freewill devotion that Jehovah desires were illustrated in the Mosaic law. A Hebrew slave was let go free in his seventh year of servitude. “But if the slave should insistently say, ‘I really love my master, my wife and my sons, I do not want to go out as one set free,’ then his master must bring him near to the true God and must bring him up against the door or the doorpost; and his master must pierce his ear through with an awl, and he must be his slave to time indefinite.” (Ex. 21:2, 5, 6) Paul speaks to non-Jews in the Thessalonian congregation about the voluntary shift of devotion, when they became Christians, from slavery to idols “to slave for a living and true God.”—1 Thess. 1:9.

JESUS’ EXCLUSIVE DEVOTION TO GOD

Jesus appreciated the exclusive position of his Father and rendered him exclusive devotion, both when he was in heaven and when he was on earth, as shown in Philippians 2:5-8. He pointed out that the most important commandment in the Law demanded wholehearted love of God. (Matt. 22:37) Moreover, Jesus manifested exclusive devotion to Jehovah’s name and emphasized the fact that his disciples should have the same attitude. In the prayer he taught his disciples, he started off with the words, “Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified.” (Matt. 6:9) This devotion in Jesus was coupled with burning zeal, as manifested at his cleansing of the temple, where he fulfilled the prophecy, “The zeal for your house will eat me up.” (John 2:17; Ps. 69:9) Nowhere is Jesus’ exclusive devotion toward his Father exemplified more than in what is written of him at 1 Corinthians 15:24-28, where it says that, after his heavenly kingdom rule puts down all authority, power and all enemies, he turns over the kingdom to the Father and subjects himself to Him so that “God may be all things to everyone.”

EXECRATION

A severe or even violent denunciation of that which is viewed as detestable and worthy of cursing. In Hebrew the word qa·vavʹ conveys this idea. It literally means “to cut into,” but in a figurative sense means “to malign or speak with cutting words,” and hence “to execrate.” This word appears only in the account of King Balak’s futile efforts to get the prophet Balaam to execrate the nation of Israel and thus present that nation before God as worthy of his curse.—Num. 22:11, 17; 23:11, 13, 25, 27; 24:10.

The word na·qavʹ also appears in this same account, as well as in many other texts. Literally, it means “to pierce” or “perforate” (2 Ki. 18:21; Hab. 3:14), but it is used in a figurative sense to mean “to speak abusively of” or “to execrate.” (Lev. 24:11, 16; Job 3:8; 5:3; Prov. 11:26; 24:24) An imprecation, that is, an invocation of evil from a divine source, is not always stated but may be implied.—See CURSE; MALEDICTION.

EXECUTION, EXECUTIONER

For laws, commandments and commissions to have vitality and worth, they must be legally enforced. Execution usually has to do with enforcing the penalties, especially the death penalty, imposed for violation of laws. Supreme Law not only has a Lawgiver, it also has a Law Enforcer: “Jehovah is our Judge, Jehovah is our Statute-giver, Jehovah is our King.” “One there is that is lawgiver and judge.” (Isa. 33:22; Jas. 4:12) So Jehovah himself is an executioner of judgment and vengeance upon violators of His law.—Ex. 12:12; Deut. 10:17, 18; Ezek. 25:11-17; 2 Thess. 1:6-9; Jude 14, 15.

Jehovah also delegated certain power of execution to others. For example: “Your blood of your souls shall I ask back. . . . From the hand of each one who is his brother, shall I ask back the soul of man. Anyone shedding man’s blood, by man will his own blood be shed, for in God’s image he made man.” (Gen. 9:5, 6) In this regard certain responsibilities as executioner fell upon the “avenger of blood.” (Num. 35:19) (See AVENGER OF BLOOD.) Depending upon the circumstances, the authority as executioner was sometimes invested in the priests of Israel (Num. 5:15-31), or in the entire congregation, with the eyewitnesses taking the lead in executing an offender. (Lev. 24:14-16; Deut. 17:2-7) The power of execution was also in the hands of the judges and kings, or someone whom they appointed.—Judg. 8:20, 21; 2 Sam. 1:15; 1 Chron. 14:16; 2 Ki. 9:6-9; 10:24-28; Jer. 21:12; 22:3.

Ancient rulers were surrounded by trusted bodyguards to whom execution of their master’s edicts could be entrusted. Potiphar was one who held this position. (Gen. 37:36; 41:12) It was one of Herod’s body guardsmen who beheaded John the Baptist.—Mark 6:27.

Execution of the death penalty in Israel was either by stoning or by the sword. (Lev. 20:2; 2 Sam. 1:15) Jehovah’s Messianic King, the Lord Jesus Christ, and other loyal heavenly associates of his are legal executioners, authorized as such by “the Judge of all the earth.”—Gen. 18:25; Ps. 149:6-9; Rev. 12:7-9; 19:11-16; 20:1-3.

EXILE

Expulsion from one’s own native land or home by authoritative decree. Cain, who killed his brother Abel, was cursed in banishment from the ground to become a wanderer and a fugitive in the earth. He had been a farmer, but the ground thereafter would not respond to his cultivation.—Gen. 4:2, 3, 11-14.

Israel was told that Jehovah would lead the nation away into exile if they became unfaithful to the covenant he made with them through Moses. (Deut. 28:36, 37, 64; 29:28) So God was really the Authority who decreed the exile of his people in several instances, although he allowed the armies of other nations to be his instruments. These occasions are: (1) Israel’s exile by the hand of the Assyrians (2 Ki. 15:29; 18:9-12); (2) Judah’s exile in Babylon (2 Ki. 25:8-11, 21); (3) the Jewish exile at the hands of the Romans.—Luke 21:20-24.

ISRAEL

Tiglath-pileser III took inhabitants of Naphtali into exile in Assyria before Israelite King Pekah’s rule ended in 758 B.C.E. Reubenites, Gadites and those from the eastern half tribe of Manasseh were also carried off by the king of Assyria, apparently at the same time. (1 Chron. 5:4-6, 26) Shalmaneser V later besieged Samaria, and after three years, in 740 B.C.E., either he or his successor, Sargon II, deported great numbers of the inhabitants and “brought people from Babylon and Cuthah and Avva and Hamath and Sepharvaim and had them dwell in the cities of Samaria instead of the sons of Israel.”—2 Ki. 17:5, 6, 24.

JUDAH

In 617 B.C.E., King Nebuchadnezzar took the royal court and the foremost men of Judah into exile at Babylon. (2 Ki. 24:11-16) About ten years later, in 607 B.C.E., at the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, Nebuzar-adan, the chief of the Babylonian bodyguard, took most of the remaining ones and deserters of the Jews with him to Babylon, from which exile only a mere remnant returned seventy years later.—2 Ki. 25:11; Jer. 39:9; Isa. 10:21, 22; see CAPTIVITY.

After the fall of Babylon many Jews did not return to their homeland, and the dispersion therefore continued. In the time of Ahasuerus (Xerxes I, king of Persia who ruled from India to Ethiopia, over 127 jurisdictional districts), Haman, in making an indictment of them, said: “There is one certain people scattered and separated among the peoples in all the jurisdictional districts of your realm.”—Esther 1:1; 3:8.

IN THE FIRST CENTURY C.E.

In the first century C.E. there were settlements of Jews in Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, Rome and Babylon, as well as other cities. (Acts 17:1, 16,