World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 10
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Then I looked, and see, in the expanse that was over the head of the there appeared above them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the of a . He spoke to the man clothed in linen, and said, "Go in between the whirling wheels, even under the , and fill both your hands with coals of from between the , and scatter them over the city." He went in as I watched. Now the stood on the right side of the house when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court. mounted up from the , and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of . The sound of the of the was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of when he speaks. It came to pass, when he commanded the man clothed in linen, saying, "Take from between the whirling wheels, from between the ," that he went in and stood beside a wheel. The stretched out his hand from between the to the that was between the , and took some of it, and put it into the hands of him who was clothed in linen, who took it and went out. The form of a man's hand appeared here in the under their . I looked, and behold, there were four wheels beside the , one wheel beside one , and another wheel beside another . The appearance of the wheels was like a beryl stone. As for their appearance, the four of them had one , like a wheel within a wheel. When they went, they went in their four directions. They didn't turn as they went, but to the place where the head looked they followed it. They didn't turn as they went. Their whole body, including their backs, their hands, their , and the wheels, were full of eyes all around, even the wheels that the four of them had. 13As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing, "the whirling wheels". Every one of them had four faces. The first was the of the . The second was the of a man. The third was the of a lion. The fourth was the of an eagle. The mounted up. This is the that I saw by the river . When the went, the wheels went beside them; and when the lifted up their to mount up from the earth, the wheels also didn't turn from beside them. When they stood, these stood. When they mounted up, these mounted up with them; for of the was in them. went out from over the threshold of the house and stood over the . The lifted up their and mounted up from the earth in my sight when they went out, with the wheels beside them. Then they stood at the door of the east of house; and the of the of Israel was over them above. This is the that I saw under the of Israel by the river ; and I knew that they were . Every one had four faces, and every one four . The of the hands of a man was under their . As for the of their faces, they were the faces which I saw by the river , their appearances and themselves. They each went straight forward.
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The world at this moment · Babylon and the exile, 612 BC to 539 BC ›
Babylon replaces Assyria, Jerusalem and its temple are destroyed in 586 BC, and the leadership of Judah lives in Mesopotamia without a king, a temple, or a country.
- Babylon
- Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilds the city on a scale meant to be seen from a distance: the Ishtar Gate in glazed blue brick, the processional way, the ziggurat, and gardens later counted among the wonders of the world. Babylonian tablets record rations issued to the captive king Jehoiachin of Judah by name, which is one of the tidier points of contact between the Bible and the archives.
- Egypt
- Briefly resurgent. Pharaoh Neco marches north, kills King Josiah at Megiddo, and installs and deposes kings in Jerusalem, until Babylon beats him decisively at Carchemish in 605 BC. Jeremiah spends his career saying that betting on Egypt is suicide, and is proved right.
- Judah
- Deported in stages, then destroyed. The temple is burned, the walls broken, and the leadership marched to Mesopotamia. What happens next is one of the strangest survivals in history: a people keeps its identity without land, king, or sanctuary, and comes out of it with its scriptures more central than before.
- Further afield
- An extraordinary century for ideas everywhere at once. Thales and the first Greek philosophers, Solon's reforms at Athens, the Buddha in India, Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Zoroaster in Persia all fall within a few generations of the exile.
All of Ezekiel