King James Version · Under Assyria
2 Chronicles 33
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was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and five years in : But did that which was evil in the sight of , like unto the of the heathen, whom had cast out before the . For he built again the which his had broken down, and he reared up for , and made groves, and of , and them. Also he built in the , whereof had said, In shall my name be for ever. And he built for of in the two courts of the . And he caused his children to pass through the in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used , and dealt with a familiar , and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of , to provoke him to . And he set a , the idol which he had made, in the house of , of which had said to and to his son, In this house, and in , which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever: Neither will I any more remove the foot of Israel from out of the land which I have appointed for your fathers; so that they will take heed to do all that I have commanded them, according to and the and the ordinances by the hand of . So made Judah and the inhabitants of to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom had destroyed before the . And spake to , and to his people: but they would not . Wherefore brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of , which took among the , and bound him with fetters, and carried him to . And when he was in affliction, he besought his , and humbled himself greatly before the of his fathers, And unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his , and brought him again to into . Then knew that he was . Now after this he built a wall without , on the west side of , in the valley, even to the entering in at the fish gate, and compassed about , and it up a very great height, and put captains of war in all the fenced cities of Judah. And he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the , and all the that he had built in the mount of the , and in , and cast them out of the city. And he repaired the of , and thereon and thank , and commanded Judah to of Israel. Nevertheless the people did still in the , yet unto their only. Now the rest of the acts of , and his unto his , and the words of the that spake to him in the name of of Israel, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel. His also, and how was intreated of him, and all his , and his trespass, and the places wherein he built , and set up groves and graven , before he was humbled: behold, they are written among the sayings of the . So slept with his fathers, and they in his own house: and his son reigned in his stead. was two and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned two years in . But he did that which was evil in the sight of , as did his : for unto all the carved which his had made, and them; And humbled not himself before , as his had humbled himself; but trespassed more and more. And his servants conspired against him, and slew him in his own house. But the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against king ; and the people of the land made his son king in his stead.
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.