King James Version · Under Assyria
Amos 7
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Thus hath shewed unto me; and, behold, he formed of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings. And it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O , forgive, I beseech thee: by whom shall arise? for he is small. for this: It shall not be, saith . Thus hath shewed unto me: and, behold, called to contend by , and it devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part. Then said I, O , cease, I beseech thee: by whom shall arise? for he is small. for this: This also shall not be, saith . Thus he shewed me: and, behold, stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. And said unto me, , what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said , Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more: And the of shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of with . Then the priest of Beth–el sent to king of Israel, saying, hath conspired against thee in the midst of the : the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus saith, shall , and Israel shall surely be led away out of their own land. Also said unto , O thou , go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and there: But not again any more at Beth–el: for it is the king’s chapel, and it is the king’s court. Then answered , and said to , I was no , neither was I a ’s son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit: And took me as I followed the flock, and said unto me, Go, unto my people Israel. Now therefore hear thou the word of : Thou sayest, not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the house of . Therefore thus saith ; Thy wife shall be an in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall , and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into forth of his land.
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.