King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 11
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Moreover lifted me up, and brought me unto the east of ’s house, which looketh eastward: and behold at the door of the five and twenty men; among whom I saw the son of Azur, and the son of , princes of the people. Then said he unto me, , these are the men that devise mischief, and give in this city: Which say, It is not near; let us build houses: this city is the caldron, and we be . Therefore against them, , O . And of fell upon me, and said unto me, Speak; Thus saith ; Thus have ye said, O : for I know the things that come into , every one of them. Ye have multiplied your slain in this city, and ye have filled the streets thereof with the slain. Therefore thus saith ; Your slain whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they are , and this city is the caldron: but I will bring you forth out of the midst of it. Ye have feared ; and I will bring a upon you, saith . And I will bring you out of the midst thereof, and you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you. Ye shall fall ; I will judge you in the border of Israel; and ye shall know that I am . This city shall not be your caldron, neither shall ye be in the midst thereof; but I will judge you in the border of Israel: And ye shall know that I am : for ye have not walked in , neither executed my judgments, but have done after the manners of the heathen that are round about you. And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that the son of . Then fell I down upon , and cried with a loud voice, and said, Ah ! wilt thou make a full end of of Israel? 14Again unto me, saying, , thy brethren, even thy brethren, the men of thy kindred, and all the wholly, are they unto whom the inhabitants of have said, Get you far from : unto us is this land given in possession. Therefore say, Thus saith ; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come. Therefore say, Thus saith ; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the things thereof and all the thereof from thence. And I will give them one , and I will put a new within you; and I will take the stony out of their , and will give them an of : That they may walk in , and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their . But as for them whose walketh after of their things and their , I will their way upon their own heads, saith . Then did the cherubims lift up their , and the wheels beside them; and the of the of Israel was over them above. And went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city. Afterwards took me up, and brought me in a by of into , to them of . So the that I had seen went up from me. Then I spake unto them of all the things that had shewed me.
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