A Political History of Judea from 609 Bce to 135 Ce

By Martin Sicker

The geopolitical history of the Middle East in antiquity is principally the story of the continuing struggle for domination of the trade routes of the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean Sea, some of the most valued of which passed through the relatively narrow strip of territory stretching from the Egyptian frontier in the Sinai desert to southern Syria, and from there to Mesopotamia. That strip of territory, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Jordan River to the east, known as Cisjordan, constituted the primary land-bridge between northeastern Africa and southwestern Asia. As a consequence of its geopolitical role as a buffer zone between Egypt and the major powers of antiquity, it was always in the interests of the dominant powers of the region to keep that strip of territory divided into numerous small city-states that would be dependent on one or the other of the major powers for their political survival.
The present study is primarily concerned with the political history of the Jewish states that emerged in Cisjordan in antiquity, in effect continuing the narrative of my previous study, The Rise and Fall of the Ancient Israelite States, which concluded with the final destruction of the First Hebrew Commonwealth by the Babylonians, including the Temple built in Jerusalem by Solomon, in 586 BCE. This study begins with a brief discussion of the circumstances that led to that disastrous event and its aftermath. The subsequent Persian conquest of Babylonia unexpectedly led to the emergence of what is frequently spoken of as the Second Hebrew Commonwealth or the Second Temple period. The present study reviews the political history of the Jews in the Land of Israel between the destruction of the First Temple to the destruction of the Second Temple, nearly seven hundred years later, and its aftermath, until the early second century CE.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664158566

Martin Sicker

Dr. Martin Sicker is a writer and lecturer on the Middle East and Jewish history and religion. His is the author of 42 previous books including Reading Genesis Politically; The Trials of Abraham; The Ordeals of Isaac and Jacob; Aspects of Jewish Metarational Thought; The Exodus and the Reluctant Prophet; The Convocation at Sinai; The Theopolitical Discourses of Moses; and Pondering the Imponderable.

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Copyright © 2021 by Martin Sicker.

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Rev. date: 02/16/2021

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CONTENTS

Introduction

1: Judea under Babylonian, Persian, and Macedonian Rule

2: Judea under Hasmonean Rule

3: The Rise of the Antipatrids

4: Judea under Herod

5: Judea under Roman Rule

6: Revolt against Roman Rule

7: The Aftermath of Defeat

References

Endnotes

Introduction

The geopolitical history of the Middle East in antiquity is principally the story of the continuing struggle for control of the Fertile Crescent, the arching swath of territory circumscribing the Arabian Desert between Egypt and the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that the Roman emperor Trajan named Mesopotamia. Over the centuries, the primary antagonists in this struggle were the rulers of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The prize for which they contended, for the most part, was domination of the trade routes of the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean Sea, some of the most valued of which passed through the relatively narrow strip of territory stretching from the Egyptian frontier in the Sinai desert to southern Syria, where it branched off to Damascus and on to Mesopotamia. That strip of territory, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Jordan River to the east, known as Cisjordan, constituted the primary land-bridge between northeastern Africa and southwestern Asia. The histories of the lands and peoples contained within that relatively small geopolitical region were conditioned to a large extent by the prevailing state of the Egyptian-Mesopotamian struggle for regional supremacy.

As a consequence of its geopolitical role as a buffer zone between the major powers of antiquity, the people that settled in the narrow territorial strip of Cisjordan were never permitted to evolve into a major power in their own right. It was always in the interests of Egypt and the dominant power in Mesopotamia to keep that strip of territory divided into numerous small city-states that would be dependent on one or the other of the major powers for their political survival. Accordingly, it was only during periods of stalemate or internal disarray in or between Egypt and the dominant power in Mesopotamia that any formidable states arose in the land-bridge region, only to be suppressed or destroyed once the struggle between the major powers resumed. Because of this, the geopolitical history of the core region of the ancient Middle East can best be understood in terms of the political histories of Egypt and Mesopotamia, their relations with the peoples, nations, and states on their peripheries, and the competition between them for regional supremacy.

The present study is particularly concerned with the political history of the Jewish states that emerged in Cisjordan in antiquity, in effect continuing the narrative of my previous study, The Rise and Fall of the Ancient Israelite States, which concluded with the final destruction of the First Hebrew Commonwealth by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. This study begins with a brief discussion of the circumstances that led to that disastrous event and its aftermath. The subsequent Persian conquest of Babylonia unexpectedly led to the emergence of what is frequently spoken of as the Second Hebrew Commonwealth or the Second Temple period, since the First Temple, built by Solomon, was destroyed with what remained of the ancient Israelite kingdom of Judah. The study reviews the political history of the Jews in the Land of Israel between the destruction of the First Temple to that of the Second Temple nearly seven hundred years later, and its aftermath, until the early second century CE.

One of the major difficulties in pursuing the political history of the Jews in the Land of Israel during this long period is the extreme paucity of historical source material. The primary source for much of this period is the historical writings of Flavius Josephus, which are based on non-extant sources and in numerous instances are inconsistent in his different writings of the same period and events, making some of his work obviously unreliable. In the latter regard, the numbers of people mentioned in various contexts in the narrative, not only cited by Josephus but also by Roman historians seem rather exaggerated and this concern should be borne in mind.

It is noteworthy that there also is a tendency among modern writers on the topic to use the term Palestine to refer to both the land-bridge region and those parts of that region primarily populated by Jews. The term itself was concocted by the Romans quite late in the period under consideration to eliminate any reference to the Land of Israel, replacing it with the name related to the no longer existent Philistines who in much earlier times occupied parts of the Mediterranean coast of the land-bridge region. The use of the term Palestine since the twentieth century carries more of a political than geographical connotation. Accordingly, in this study the geographical term Cisjordan will be employed to describe the strip of coastal land between Egypt and Syria, some of which was never actually part of the ancient Israelite states or the later Jewish political entities in Cisjordan. To describe the latter, the term Judea is used throughout this study.

1

Judea under Babylonian, Persian, and Macedonian Rule

Caught in the maelstrom of the seemingly perennial wars between ancient Egypt and the dominant powers in Mesopotamia, the rulers of the small Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, located in strategically important Cisjordan, effectively sealed their fate by misreading the realities of the regional geopolitics in which they became ensnared. Thus the northern Israelite kingdom was obliterated by Assyria in the eighth century, its people being dispersed throughout the wider region through population transfers. During the reign of Josiah (640-609) over the small kingdom of Judah, the entire Middle East was caught up in a state of violent flux, in which small states like Judah were essentially pawns in larger power struggles. Nonetheless, and recognizing the limitations on their freedom of action, the rulers of the mini-states of the land-bridge area still had to engage in strategies and critical decision-making to attempt to ensure their survival, and Josiah was no exception. He could not be impervious to events taking place in the broader region and he too was stirred to aspire to independence for his nation once again. Josiah thus developed an activist agenda that reflected a radical departure from Judah’s supine political posture during the preceding half-century since the disappearance of the northern kingdom.

Internally, beginning when he was about sixteen years old, Josiah launched a major reform movement that brought about a national and religious revival that dramatically bolstered the nation’s morale and gave it the impetus to recreate its past glories, a clear indication of his desire and intent to break away from the morally debilitating subservience to Assyria. And, making a bold move in this regard, he incrementally imposed religious reforms in the Assyrian province of Samaria, formerly the northern kingdom of Israel. Most notably, according to the biblical account, he took the bones of the dead out of the sepulchers at the sanctuary of Bethel and burned them on the altar originally established there by northern Israel’s first king Jereboam (2 Kings 23:15-16) as an act of defiance against Jerusalem as the religious and political capital of the dual monarchy of Israel and Judah. His defilement of the altar, which he subsequently destroyed, was a symbolic act of profound significance. It was a public declaration that the old rebellion against the kingdom had been illegitimate, and that the memory of that first rebel was now purged. At the same time, it was a defilement of the altar that may be said to have symbolized the revolt of the Kingdom of Israel against Judah. Thus, by his action at Beth-el, Josiah proclaimed the nullification of the Kingdom of Israel as an independent force and declared his intention of restoring the united kingdom of the days of David and Solomon.¹

With Assyria unable to respond to this effrontery by a minor vassal because of its preoccupation with more serious challenges, Josiah proceeded to incorporate Samaria into the kingdom of Judah, effectively recreating not the dual monarchy of David but the unified state of Israel as it was in the days of Saul. Josiah’s popularity soared; it appeared as though he was inaugurating a new golden age for the people of Israel. Nonetheless, the prophetess Huldah presciently advised the king’s ministers that despite the dramatic changes that were taking place the long-term prospects for the nation were bleak, and that Josiah would probably not live to see the forthcoming destruction of his kingdom (2 Kings 22:15-20). She clearly foresaw the consequences for Judah of the forces at play in the wider region. Both Babylonia and Egypt were determined to gain control of the Cisjordan land-bridge, and there was little if anything that Josiah could do to counter the force they could bring to bear on it. As a practical matter, Josiah’s claim to the territory of Samaria was of little tangible importance. Nonetheless, as the decline in Assyria’s power became increasingly evident, popular resentment in Judah against their foreign oppressor soon reached a boiling point. The sense and expectation of revolt against the kingdom of Judah’s subservience to Assyria was in the air.

With the Assyrians effectively having withdrawn from Samaria under the pressure of events elsewhere, Josiah expanded northward into the resulting power vacuum reaching as far as the Galilee. He also expanded southward into the Negev, and westward into northern Philistia, where he regained control of the Via Maris, the primary military and trade route between Egypt and Syria, so named by the Romans. This last move was bound to put Judah on a collision course with an expansionist Egypt, which had its own designs on the land-bridge region. Indeed, typical of the convoluted politics of the Near East, around the year 616 Egypt, still under the rule of Psammetichus I, began aligning itself with Assyria to forestall its replacement by a resurgent Babylonia, at a time when continued Assyrian weakness served Egyptian interests better. That same year, an Egyptian army marched north, passing through the nominally Assyrian province of Samaria unopposed, to assist their new Assyrian allies. To consolidate their control of the region, the new Egyptian-Assyrian entente sought to crush between them the variety of small kingdoms that aspired to full independence, Judah being but one of them.

As Assyria became progressively weaker, the Chaldean rulers of Babylonia, with the help of the Medes, who controlled most of Iran, stood poised to strike at the Assyrian heartland. The ancient capital of the country fell to the Medes in 614. Two years later, in 612, the Medes and Babylonians placed the new capital Nineveh, considered to be virtually impregnable, under a siege that lasted only thirteen weeks, a relatively short period as sieges went in antiquity, before its walls were penetrated. The repercussions of the fall of Nineveh were felt throughout the entire Near East.

Asshur-uballit (612-605), who had just mounted the Assyrian throne, fled to Haran, the ancient biblical crossroads city in northeastern Syria, which served as the Assyrian administrative center for the western provinces of the empire, where he attempted to mobilize what was left of the once invincible Assyrian army. Having lost its home base in Assyria, the army continued to fight from its new base in Haran. Egypt had committed itself to assist Assyria in an attempt to prop up the regime, but to no avail. Haran fell to a Babylonian-Median alliance force in 610. At this point, when Assyria was in a life and death struggle for its survival, Egypt sensed an opportunity for it to regain its traditional role as a major regional power. The new pharaoh Necho II (609-594) entered into a military alliance with Asshur-uballit and took the field in 609 against the Babylonian-Median entente, hoping to retake Haran. With Assyria no longer a threat to its security, Egypt was determined to try to prevent Babylonia from taking Assyria’s place as the dominant regional power. Accordingly, it was prepared to join forces with its erstwhile enemy in an effort to tip the regional balance of power in its own favor.

However, for Judah under Josiah, as for the other small states of the region, relative territorial security and national independence were possible only when the regional balance of power was such that Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia were in contention with one another. Josiah thus interpreted the Egyptian-Assyrian alliance as a threat to Judah’s independence, and he attempted to prevent Necho from actually joining forces with Assyria against Babylonia. Judah, in effect, had made itself a de facto ally of Babylonia, and Josiah became determined not to allow the Egyptian army to follow the same route through Samaria as it did only a few years earlier, before Josiah effectively annexed the former Assyrian province to Judah.

Josiah’s decision was broadly popular in Judah, many seeing the Babylonians as a divine instrument for punishing the Assyrians for the hardships they had inflicted on the nation. However, there were also clearer heads that saw the Chaldean rulers of Babylonia as being no better than the Assyrians they were displacing. The prophet Habbakuk spoke of them as that bitter and impetuous nation, that march through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling-places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful; their law and their majesty proceed from themselves . . . They come all of them for violence (Hab. 1:6-9).

Generally displaying little interest in the geopolitics of the region and its effect on the history of ancient Israel, the biblical text simply notes that in his days Pharaoh-necho king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates; and king Josiah went against him; and he slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him (2 Kings 23:29). The biblical chronicler adds that before Necho engaged with Josiah, the Egyptian king sent ambassadors to him, saying: What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war; and God hath given command to speed me; forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that He destroy thee not. Nevertheless Josiah . . . hearkened not unto the words of Necho, from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo (2 Chron. 35:21-22).

Josiah rejected the Egyptian offer to recognize Judah’s neutrality as disingenuous and attempted to block the northward advance of Necho’s army at the strategic crossroads of Megiddo, where his forces were overwhelmed and he was critically wounded in the ensuing battle. The context in which this confrontation took place was, as noted above, the decline of Assyrian power and dominance in the region. Determined to prevent the Babylonians from replacing Assyria as hegemon over the wider region, in 609 the Egyptian king decided to send an army to assist the Assyrians against Babylonian expansionism, a move that required passage through the territory under the control of Josiah, who decided to challenge him. It is not clear what Josiah had in mind in so doing. Although it is possible, it seems unlikely that Josiah saw it in Judah’s interest to help the Babylonians overrun Assyria. It seems more likely that, given the turmoil in the region, Josiah believed it to be an opportunity to assert Judean independence from any of the major contending imperialist nations, most immediately from a newly aggressive Egypt.

For reasons that are unclear, Josiah decided not to oppose the Egyptian army’s advance through his territory before it reached the area near Megiddo. It has been suggested by some military historians that in choosing this battlefield, Josiah was well aware of the psycho-political advantages. His plan was to prove the military superiority over Egypt in a set battle in the open field. He hoped that by doing so he would create a lasting deterrent impression on any would-be invaders. Tactically, he banked on catching his enemy disorganized and off balance as it emerged from the [Iyron] pass, and on making the Carmel range a huge anvil against which to pound and crush the Egyptians with a general attack of chariots and infantry.²

Of course, in adopting this high risk tactic, Josiah must have been confident that his forces were robust enough to defeat the Egyptians on an open battlefield. What he evidently did not take into consideration was that Necho might have expected that Josiah would probably plan to attack at the pass near Megiddo before he could effect an orderly, full deployment in the valley. Presumably he formed his massed archers into an advanced screening force to break, or at least slow down, the expected Judean attack on his deploying formations.³

Confident in his strategy, Josiah engaged the Egyptian forces at Megiddo and was soon mortally wounded by an Egyptian archer. This was not accidental. It was one of the recognized objectives in the assault plan of battles in open terrain, where the rival kings took part, to try and kill the enemy king, and thereby to break the morale and offensive spirit of the adversary forces.⁴

The death of Josiah spelled the end of Judah’s independence, for all practical purposes. Henceforth, and until the state was destroyed, it was continually subjected to one major power or another. In the immediate aftermath of Josiah’s defeat, Judah came within the Egyptian sphere of control. Nonetheless, the political leaders of Judah remained committed to Josiah’s pro-Babylonian policy and, in an evident gesture of defiance to Egypt, anointed Josiah’s second son Jehoahaz (609), who was similarly committed to his father’s policy, to be his successor.

Jehoahaz, however, was permitted to reign for only three months before he was deposed and exiled to Egypt for the rest of his life by Necho, who replaced him with his more accommodating older brother Jehoiakim (609-598). The latter was willing and able to meet the Egyptian demand for tribute by imposing heavy taxes on the population. Vain and self-serving, Jehoiakim exacerbated the economic crisis in the country by imposing additional taxes to finance a new palace at Beth-hakerem just outside Jerusalem, for which he was publicly reprimanded by the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 22:13-19). Moreover, Jehoiakim apparently rejected the reforms instituted by his father, and once again restored the religious syncretism that the latter had striven to eradicate, a move that triggered a negative internal reaction, led by the prophets, that bordered on open insurrection that was ultimately suppressed by force.

The regional situation changed significantly in 605, with the collapse of the Egyptian-Assyrian alliance. As a practical matter, Babylonia was not in a position to replace the Assyrian empire with its own. The rise of a powerful Median state on its eastern flank precluded this. As a result, control of the trade routes in the west became even more important to Babylonia than they had been to Assyria. Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562), who succeeded to the throne of Babylonia, was determined to establish his absolute mastery of Syria and the eastern Mediterranean coastal region. Thus, while still the crown prince, Nebuchadnezzar undertook the task of re-conquering Syria for Babylonia in 607. For two years, the Babylonian army struggled to establish bridgeheads at other Euphrates crossing points that would enable them to outflank the Egyptian-Assyrian forces ensconced in Carchemish, but to no avail. Finally, in 605, Nebuchadnezzar launched a successful frontal attack on Carchemish, on the upper Euphrates, inflicting a decisive defeat on the combined armies of the Assyrian-Egyptian alliance and taking the city.

Nebuchadnezzar completed his conquest of Assyria in 604-603 and then, with nothing to stop him, marched south to Philistia, which was an Egyptian vassal. Ashkelon resisted and was destroyed. In Jerusalem, Jehoiakim panicked, caught in the same dilemma that had plagued his royal forebears who almost consistently chose sides poorly. Once again a great foreign policy debate ensued. The king’s top advisers, for reasons that were not at all obvious, insisted that Egypt would ultimately prevail against Babylonia and that Judah must therefore remain in its orbit. The opposing view, articulated most forcefully by the prophet Jeremiah, predicted a Babylonian victory in the conflict. The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saith: Behold, I will punish Amon of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with her gods, and her kings; even Pharaoh, and them that trust in him; and I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants (Jer. 46:25-26).

It was argued therefore that Judah needed to break with Egypt and align itself with what would be the winning side. Although the latter view was surely the more prescient, particularly in consideration of the major defeat Egypt had already suffered at Carchemish, the people of Judah were more familiar with the Egyptians than with the Babylonians, who tended to be viewed comparatively as barbarians, and the pro-Egypt policy prevailed. For his opposition to this decision and his implicit calls for Jehoiakim’s overthrow, Jeremiah was persecuted by the regime and was forced to flee to exile in Egypt, as was another prophet, Uriah ben Shemaiah, who must have been an even greater thorn in Jehoiakim’s side than Jeremiah himself. Uriah was subsequently extradited from Egypt and put to death by the king (Jer. 26:20-23). Powerful friends in Jerusalem saved Jeremiah from a similar fate.

In the meantime, with a Babylonian army positioned along the Mediterranean coast, Jehoiakim dutifully paid tribute to Nebuchadnezzar for three years at the same time that he discreetly maintained his connections with the Egyptian government. Then, in 601 the Babylonians advanced on Egypt and were blocked as the result of an indecisive battle fought in Philistia near the Egyptian frontier. When the Babylonians withdrew, Jehoiakim became convinced that Nebuchadnezzar was finished and that the time had come to activate his pro-Egyptian policy. As an act signaling his rejection of Babylonian suzerainty, he withheld payment of the annual tribute, the equivalent of a declaration of war. What he failed to understand was that the Babylonian withdrawal was not an acknowledgment of a decisive defeat but only an indication that Nebuchadnezzar needed to rebuild and reequip his armies after the years of continual warfare. It took Nebuchadnezzar about a year to replenish his armies and return to the region. In 599, he launched a campaign to pacify the Arab tribes of the semi-desert areas in the land-bridge region and, at the end of 598 a Babylonian punitive expedition marched into Judah. Jehoiakim evidently died as the Babylonian force approached Jerusalem, the circumstances of his death uncertain and his burial place unknown. Some have speculated that opponents of his pro-Egypt policy may have assassinated him in a last moment effort to appease Nebuchadnezzar.

With the expected assistance from Egypt nowhere in sight, Jehoiakim’s eighteen-year old son and successor Jehoiachin held out in Jerusalem for about three months before he felt it necessary to surrender. Opening Jerusalem to the Babylonians evidently saved it from destruction and helped preserve Judah as a kingdom, albeit a puppet-state. However, as punishment for its government’s disloyalty to Babylon, Jehoiachin and some 10,000 of Judah’s political, intellectual, and technical elite, presumably those identified as supporters of the pro-Egyptian party, were exiled to Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar then designated Jehoiachin’s twenty-one year old uncle Mattaniah, who was probably a known member of the pro-Babylonian party, as ruler of the kingdom, under the regnal name of Zedekiah (597-587).

Zedekiah’s status was essentially that of a regent because Jehoiachin was still regarded by the Babylonians as the legitimate king of Judah. The reason for this, presumably, was that Jehoiachin might still be allowed to return to Jerusalem if the population sufficiently demonstrated a pro-Babylonian sentiment and acceptance of Nebuchadnezzar’s suzerainty. And, indeed, Zedekiah did demonstrate fealty to Nebuchadnezzar for four years, before the temptation to deviate from that path ensnared him into a course that would prove disastrous.

Babylonia became involved in some major wars in Mesopotamia and was forced to withdraw its armies that were stationed in the west. This was interpreted as the beginning of the decline in Nebuchadnezzar’s power and an opportunity for the subject nations to free themselves from the Babylonian yoke. Once again, the major agitator was Egypt. It was proposed that Judah and Ammon, Edom, Moab, Sidon, and Tyre form an anti-Babylonian alliance and together repudiate Nebuchadnezzar’s suzerainty. Jeremiah vehemently opposed this strategy. The prophet had a perceptive understanding of the significance of the events unfolding so rapidly in the region. He anticipated that Babylonia’s rise to regional dominance would be short-lived, perhaps seventy years, before it would come to an end. He therefore argued that it was in Judah’s national interest to remain subject to the Mesopotamian power without challenging it during this relatively brief period. He dreaded the thought of unnecessarily bringing upon Judah the same fate of destruction and exile experienced by the kingdom of Israel. He therefore pleaded with Zedekiah not to get involved in any rebellion against Babylonian hegemony (Jer. 27:12-15).

Nonetheless, the idea of independence caught the popular imagination, and a strong pro-rebellion party arose. In the event, Zedekiah did not have the courage to rebel against his Babylonian overlord, but the agitation for such a course of action grew and came to the attention of the Babylonians. Egypt promised to help and ultimately the pro-rebellion party won out. Two significant events helped set the course that Zedekiah would follow. At the end of 595, rumors circulated regarding a major insurrection involving elements of the army in Babylonia itself, which suggested that Nebuchadnezzar was in serious trouble at home. Then, in 594, the pharaoh Necho of Egypt died and was replaced by Psammetichus II (594-589), a renowned general, suggesting that Egypt was preparing for a forthcoming major war with Babylonia. However, the new pharaoh’s attention was diverted to Ethiopia for the next several years, and it was not until the final year of his reign that he redirected his attention to the status of the land-bridge region.

Accordingly, it was not until 589, when Egypt began stirring anti-Assyrian sentiment in the land-bridge region that the war party in Zedekiah’s court succeeded in convincing the regent to commit Judah to a rebellion against Babylonia. The betrayal of Zedekiah’s commitment to the Babylonian king was roundly condemned by the prophet Ezekiel, who considered it as an affront to God and contrary to the interests of Israel (Ezek. 17: 11-21). From Zedekiah’s perspective, however, the oath of fealty that he swore was a result of force majeur, and its violation was fully justified both from a religious as well as a nationalist standpoint.

Judah’s revolt in 589 was predicated primarily on the basis of Egyptian assurances of support. But, as it turned out, Psammetichus II died that same year and was replaced by Hophra as king of Egypt. Although he made similar promises of aid to Zedekiah, a period of transition from one regime to another was not a propitious time for carrying out foreign