King James Version · Under Assyria
2 Kings 17
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In the twelfth year of king of Judah began the son of Elah to reign in over Israel nine years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of , but not as the kings of Israel that were before him. Against him came up Shalmaneser king of ; and became his servant, and gave him presents. And the king of found conspiracy in : for he had sent to So king of , and brought no present to the king of , as he had done year by year: therefore the king of shut him up, and bound him in prison. Then the king of came up throughout all the land, and went up to , and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of the king of took , and carried Israel away into , and placed them in and in by the river of , and in the cities of the . For so it was, that the had against their , which had brought them up out of the land of , from under the hand of king of , and had feared other gods, And walked in the of the heathen, whom cast out from before the , and of the kings of Israel, which they had made. And the did secretly those things that were not right against their , and they built them in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. And they set them up and groves in every high hill, and : And there they burnt in all the , as did the heathen whom before them; and wrought things to provoke to : For they idols, whereof had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing. Yet testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all , and by all the , saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my and , according to all which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants . Notwithstanding they would not hear, but , like to the neck of their fathers, that did not in their . And they rejected his , and his that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed , and became , and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom had charged them, that they should not do like them. And they left all of their , and made them , even two calves, and made a grove, and of , and . And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the , and used and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of , to provoke him to . Therefore was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only. Also Judah kept not of their , but walked in the of Israel which they made. And rejected all the of Israel, and afflicted them, and them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight. For he rent Israel from the house of ; and they made the son of king: and drave Israel from following , and made them a great . For the walked in all the of which he did; they departed not from them; Until removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants . So was Israel out of their own land to unto this day. And the king of brought men from , and from , and from Ava, and from , and from , and placed them in the cities of instead of the : and they , and dwelt in the cities thereof. And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not : therefore sent lions among them, which slew some of them. Wherefore they spake to the king of , saying, which thou hast removed, and placed in the cities of , know not the manner of the of the land: therefore he hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they them, because they know not the manner of the of the land. Then the king of commanded, saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence; and let them go and there, and let him teach them the manner of the of the land. Then one of the priests whom they had from came and dwelt in Beth–el, and taught them how they should . Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the which the had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. And the men of made , and the men of Cuth made , and the men of made , And the Avites made and , and the Sepharvites burnt their children in to and , the gods of . So they feared , and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the , which for them in the houses of the . They feared , and their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they from thence. Unto this day they do after the former manners: they fear not , neither do they after their , or after their ordinances, or after and which commanded the children of , whom he named Israel; With whom had made a , and charged them, saying, Ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor them, nor to them: But , who brought you up out of the land of with great and a stretched out arm, him shall ye fear, and him shall ye , and to him shall ye do . And the , and the ordinances, and , and the , which he wrote for you, ye shall observe to do for evermore; and ye shall not fear other gods. And that I have made with you ye shall not forget; neither shall ye fear other gods. But your ye shall fear; and he shall you out of the hand of all your . Howbeit they did not , but they did after their former manner. So these nations feared , and their graven , both their children, and their children’s children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.
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.