King James Version · Under Assyria
2 Kings 21
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was twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty and five years in . And his mother’s name was Hephzi–bah. And he did that which was evil in the sight of , after the of the heathen, whom cast out before the . For he built up again the which his had destroyed; and he reared up for , and made a grove, as did king of Israel; and of , and them. And he built in the , of which said, In will I put my name. And he built for of in the two courts of the . And he made his son pass through the , and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of , to provoke him to . And he set a graven of the grove that he had made in the house, of which said to , and to his son, In this house, and in , which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever: Neither will I make the feet of Israel move any more out of the land which I gave their fathers; only if they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all that my servant commanded them. But they hearkened not: and seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom destroyed before the . And spake by his servants , saying, Because king of Judah hath done these , and hath done wickedly above all that the did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to with his idols: Therefore thus saith of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle. And I will stretch over the line of , and the plummet of the house of : and I will wipe as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. And I will forsake of mine , and them into the hand of their ; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their ; Because they have done that which was evil in my sight, and have provoked me to , since the day their fathers came forth out of , even unto this day. Moreover very much, till he had filled from one end to another; beside his wherewith he made Judah to , in doing that which was evil in the sight of . Now the rest of the acts of , and all that he did, and his that he , are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of : and his son reigned in his stead. was twenty and two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in . And his mother’s name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. And he did that which was evil in the sight of , as his did. 21And he walked in all that his walked in, and the idols that his , and them: And he forsook of his fathers, and walked not in of . And the servants of conspired against him, and slew the king in his own house. And 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. Now the rest of the acts of which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And he was buried in his in the garden of : and his son reigned 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.