King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 17
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1And unto me, saying, , put forth a , and speak unto the ; And say, Thus saith ; A great eagle with great , longwinged, full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto , and took the highest branch of the cedar: He cropped off the top of his young twigs, and carried it into a land of traffick; he set it in a city of merchants. He took also of the of the land, and planted it in a fruitful field; he placed it by great waters, and set it as a willow tree. And it grew, and became a spreading of low stature, whose turned toward him, and the roots thereof were under him: so it became a , and brought forth , and shot forth sprigs. There was also another great eagle with great and many feathers: and, behold, this did bend her roots toward him, and shot forth her toward him, that he might water it by the furrows of her plantation. It was planted in a good soil by great waters, that it might bring forth , and that it might bear fruit, that it might be a goodly . Say thou, Thus saith ; Shall it prosper? shall he not pull up the roots thereof, and the fruit thereof, that it wither? it shall wither in all the leaves of her spring, even without great or many people to pluck it up by the roots thereof. Yea, behold, being planted, shall it prosper? shall it not utterly wither, when the east wind toucheth it? it shall wither in the furrows where it grew. 11Moreover unto me, saying, Say now to the rebellious house, Know ye not what these things mean? tell them, Behold, the king of is come to , and hath taken the king thereof, and the princes thereof, and led them with him to ; And hath taken of the king’s , and made a with him, and hath taken an of him: he hath also taken the mighty of the land: That might be base, that it might not lift itself up, but that by keeping of his it might stand. But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into , that they might give him horses and much people. Shall he prosper? shall he escape that doeth such things? or shall he break , and be ? As I live, saith , surely in the place where the king dwelleth that made him king, whose he despised, and whose he brake, even with him in the midst of he shall . Neither shall with his mighty army and great company make for him in the war, by casting up mounts, and building forts, to many persons: Seeing he despised the by breaking , when, lo, he had given his hand, and hath done all these things, he shall not escape. Therefore thus saith ; As I live, surely mine that he hath despised, and my that he hath broken, even it will I upon his own head. And I will spread my net upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare, and I will bring him to , and will plead with him there for his trespass that he hath trespassed against me. And all his fugitives with all his bands shall fall , and they that shall be scattered toward all winds: and ye shall know that I have spoken it. Thus saith ; I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar, and will set it; I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon an high mountain and eminent: In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it: and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar: and under it shall all fowl of every ; in the shadow of the thereof shall they . And all the trees of the field shall know that I have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish: I have spoken and have done it.
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