King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 10
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Then I looked, and, behold, in the firmament that was above the head of the cherubims there appeared over them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the of a . And he spake unto the man clothed with linen, and said, Go in between the wheels, even under the , and fill thine hand with coals of from between the cherubims, and scatter them over the city. And he went in in my sight. Now the cherubims stood on the right side of the house, when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court. Then went 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 ’s . And the sound of the cherubims’ was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of when he speaketh. And it came to pass, that when he had commanded the man clothed with linen, saying, Take from between the wheels, from between the cherubims; then he went in, and stood beside the wheels. And one stretched forth his hand from between the cherubims unto the that was between the cherubims, and took thereof, and put it into the hands of him that was clothed with linen: who took it, and went out. And there appeared in the cherubims the form of a man’s hand under their . And when I looked, behold the four wheels by the cherubims, one wheel by one , and another wheel by another : and the appearance of the wheels was as the colour of a beryl stone. And as for their appearances, they four had one , as if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel. When they went, they went upon their four sides; they turned not as they went, but to the place whither the head looked they followed it; they turned not as they went. And their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their , and the wheels, were full of eyes round about, even the wheels that they four had. 13As for the wheels, it was cried unto them in my hearing, O wheel. And every one had four faces: the first was the of a , and the second was the of a man, and the third the of a lion, and the fourth the of an eagle. And the cherubims were lifted up. This is the that I saw by the river of . And when the cherubims went, the wheels went by them: and when the cherubims lifted up their to mount up from the earth, the same wheels also turned not from beside them. When they stood, these stood; and when they were lifted up, these lifted up themselves also: for of the was in them. Then departed from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubims. And the cherubims lifted up their , and mounted up from the earth in my sight: when they went out, the wheels also were beside them, and every one stood at the door of the east of ’s house; and the of the of Israel was over them above. This is the that I saw under the of Israel by the river of ; and I knew that they were the cherubims. Every one had four faces apiece, and every one four ; and the of the hands of a man was under their . And the of their faces was the same faces which I saw by the river of , their appearances and themselves: they went every one straight forward.
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 · 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