World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 11
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Moreover lifted me up and brought me to the east of house, which looks eastward. Behold, twenty-five men were at the door of the ; and I saw among them the son of Azzur, and the son of , princes of the people. He said to me, ", these are the men who devise , and who give in this city; who say, 'The time is not near to build houses. This is the cauldron, and we are the meat.' Therefore against them. , ." fell on me, and he said to me, "Speak, ' says: "Thus you have said, ; for I know the things that come into . You have multiplied your slain in this city, and you have filled its streets with the slain." "'Therefore says: "Your slain whom you have laid in the middle of it, they are the meat, and this is the cauldron; but you will be brought out of the middle of it. You have feared ; and I will bring on you," . "I will bring you out of the middle of it, and you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you. You will fall . I will judge you in the border of Israel. Then you will know that I am . This will not be your cauldron, neither will you be the meat in the middle of it. I will judge you in the border of Israel. You will know that I am , for you have not walked in . You have not executed my ordinances, but have done after the ordinances of the nations that are around you."'" When I prophesied, the son of . Then I fell down on , and cried with a loud voice, and said, "Ah ! Will you make a full end of of Israel?" 14 word came to me, saying, ", your brothers, even your brothers, the men of your relatives, and all the , all of them, are the ones to whom the inhabitants of have said, 'Go far away from . This land has been given to us for a possession.' "Therefore say, ' says: "Whereas I have removed them far off among the nations, and whereas I have scattered them among the countries, yet I will be to them a sanctuary for a little while in the countries where they have come."' "Therefore say, ' says: "I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel." "'They will come there, and they will take away all its things and all its from there. I will give them one , and I will put a new within them. I will take the stony out of their , and will give them a of , that they may walk in , and keep my ordinances, and do them. They will be my people, and I will be their . But as for them whose walks after of their things and their , I will bring their way on their own heads,' ." Then the lifted up their , and the wheels were beside them. The of the of Israel was over them above. went up from the middle of the city, and stood on the mountain which is on the east side of the city. lifted me up, and brought me in the by of into , to the . So the that I had seen went up from me. Then I spoke to the all the things that had shown me.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. 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