King James Version · Under Assyria
2 Kings 22
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was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in . And his mother’s name was Jedidah, the daughter of of Boscath. And he did that which was right in the sight of , and walked in all of his , and turned not aside to or to the left. And it came to pass in the eighteenth year of king , that the king sent the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, the , to the , saying, Go up to the , that he may sum the silver which is brought into the , which the keepers of the door have gathered of the people: And let them it into the hand of the doers of the work, that have the oversight of the : and let them give it to the doers of the work which is in the , to repair the breaches of the house, 6Unto carpenters, and builders, and masons, and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house. Howbeit there was no reckoning made with them of the money that was into their hand, because they dealt faithfully. And the said unto the , I have found the book of in the . And gave the book to , and he read it. And the came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, Thy servants have gathered the money that was found in the house, and have it into the hand of them that do the work, that have the oversight of the . And the shewed the king, saying, the priest hath me a book. And read it before the king. And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of , that he rent his clothes. And the king commanded the priest, and the son of , and the son of Michaiah, and the , and Asahiah a the king’s, saying, Go ye, enquire of for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found: for great is the of that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us. So the priest, and , and , and , and Asahiah, went unto the , the wife of the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelt in in the college;) and they communed with her. And she said unto them, Thus saith of Israel, Tell the man that sent you to me, Thus saith , Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read: Because they have forsaken me, and have unto other gods, that they might provoke me to with all the works of their hands; therefore my shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched. But to the king of Judah which sent you to enquire of , thus shall ye say to him, Thus saith of Israel, As touching the words which thou hast heard; Because thine was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before , when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and , and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard thee, saith . Behold therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place. And they brought the king word again.
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.