King James Version · Under Assyria
2 Chronicles 29
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began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in . And his mother’s name was , the daughter of . And he did that which was right in the sight of , according to all that his had done. He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the , and repaired them. And he brought in the priests and the , and gathered them together into the east street, And said unto them, Hear me, ye , now yourselves, and the of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the place. For our fathers have trespassed, and done that which was evil in the eyes of our , and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of , and turned their backs. Also they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not nor offered burnt offerings in the place unto the of Israel. Wherefore the of was upon Judah and , and he hath them to trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing, as ye see with your eyes. For, lo, our fathers have fallen , and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in for this. Now it is in mine to make a with of Israel, that his fierce may turn away from us. My sons, be not now negligent: for hath chosen you to stand before him, to him, and that ye should minister unto him, and . Then the arose, the son of , and Joel the son of , of the sons of the : and of the sons of , the son of , and the son of Jehalelel: and of the ; Joah the son of , and the son of Joah: And of the sons of Elizaphan; Shimri, and Jeiel: and of the sons of ; , and : And of the sons of ; Jehiel, and : and of the sons of Jeduthun; , and . And they gathered their brethren, and themselves, and came, according to the of the king, by the words of , to cleanse the . And the priests went into the inner part of the , to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in of into the court of the . And the took it, to carry it out abroad into the brook . Now they began on the first day of the first month to , and on the eighth day of the month came they to the porch of : so they the in eight days; and in the sixteenth day of the first month they made an end. Then they went in to the king, and said, We have cleansed all the , and the of burnt offering, with all the vessels thereof, and the table, with all the vessels thereof. Moreover all the vessels, which king in his reign did cast away in his , have we prepared and , and, behold, they are before the of . Then the king rose early, and gathered the of the city, and went up to the . And they brought seven bullocks, and seven rams, and seven lambs, and seven he goats, for a for , and for , and for Judah. And he commanded the priests the sons of to offer them on the of . So they killed the bullocks, and the priests received , and sprinkled it on the : likewise, when they had killed the rams, they sprinkled upon the : they killed also the lambs, and they sprinkled upon the . And they brought forth the he goats for the before the king and ; and they upon them: And the priests killed them, and they made reconciliation with their upon the , to make an atonement for all Israel: for the king commanded that the burnt offering and the should be made for all Israel. And he set the in the with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the of , and of Gad the king’s , and the : for so was the of by his . And the stood with the instruments of , and the priests with the . And commanded to offer the burnt offering upon the . And when the burnt offering began, the song of began also with the , and with the instruments ordained by king of Israel. And all , and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded: and all this continued until the burnt offering was finished. And when they had made an end of , the king and all that were present with him bowed themselves, and . Moreover the king and the princes commanded the to sing unto with the words of , and of the . And they sang with gladness, and they bowed their heads and . Then answered and said, Now ye have yourselves unto , come near and bring and thank into the . And brought in and thank ; and as many as were of a free burnt offerings. And the number of the burnt offerings, which brought, was threescore and ten bullocks, an hundred rams, and two hundred lambs: all these were for a burnt offering to . 33And the things were six hundred oxen and three thousand sheep. But the priests were too few, so that they could not flay all the burnt offerings: wherefore their brethren the did help them, till the work was ended, and until the other priests had themselves: for the were more upright in to themselves than the priests. And also the burnt offerings were in abundance, with the , and the drink for every burnt offering. So the of the was set in order. And rejoiced, and all the people, that had prepared the people: for the thing was done suddenly.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Under Assyria, 745 BC to 612 BC ›
Assyria at full stretch, deporting whole populations as policy. The northern kingdom is destroyed in 722 BC and Judah survives as a tribute-paying vassal.
- Assyria
- The first empire to run mass deportation as ordinary administration: move the leadership somewhere else, settle strangers in their place, and the province stops being a nation. It worked. Samaria fell in 722 BC and the northern tribes did not come back. Assyria also advertised its cruelty deliberately, carving flayings and impalements on palace walls where envoys would see them, because terror is cheaper than garrisons.
- Judah
- Survives by paying. Hezekiah rebels, Sennacherib takes forty-six Judean towns and besieges Jerusalem in 701 BC, and the city holds. The Assyrian account boasts of shutting Hezekiah up like a bird in a cage and pointedly does not claim to have taken the city, which is one of the more interesting silences in ancient records.
- Egypt
- The splintered reed of a staff that Assyria's field commander mocks Judah for leaning on. It promises help and cannot deliver, and Isaiah spends decades saying so. Assyria eventually invades and sacks Thebes.
- Further afield
- Greece is in its archaic period, founding colonies from Spain to the Black Sea. Rome is under kings. Assyria's own libraries are collecting the literature of Mesopotamia, which is how Gilgamesh survived to be read again in the nineteenth century.