King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 22
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1Moreover unto me, saying, Now, thou , wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? yea, thou shalt shew her all her . Then say thou, Thus saith , The city sheddeth in the midst of it, that her time may come, and maketh idols against herself to defile herself. Thou art become guilty in thy that thou hast shed; and hast defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years: therefore have I made thee a unto the heathen, and a mocking to all countries. Those that be near, and those that be far from thee, shall mock thee, which art infamous and much vexed. Behold, the princes of Israel, every one were in thee to their to shed . In thee have they set by and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by with the : in thee have they vexed and the . Thou hast despised mine things, and hast profaned my . In thee are men that carry tales to shed : and in thee they eat upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they commit lewdness. In thee have they discovered their fathers’ : in thee have they humbled her that was for pollution. And one hath committed with his neighbour’s wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter in law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his ’s daughter. In thee have they taken gifts to shed ; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith . Behold, therefore I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy which hath been in the midst of thee. Can thine , or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I have spoken it, and will do it. And I will scatter thee among the heathen, and disperse thee in the countries, and will consume thy filthiness out of thee. And thou shalt take thine in thyself in the sight of the heathen, and thou shalt know that I am . 17And unto me, saying, , the is to me become dross: all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are even the dross of silver. Therefore thus saith ; Because ye are all become dross, behold, therefore I will gather you into the midst of . As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in mine and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you. Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you in the of my , and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof. As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I have poured out my fury upon you. 23And unto me, saying, , say unto her, Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of . There is a conspiracy of her in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured ; they have taken the and precious things; they have made her many in the midst thereof. Her priests have violated , and have profaned mine things: they have put no difference between the and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my , and I am profaned among them. Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed , and to destroy , to get dishonest gain. And her have daubed them with untempered morter, seeing , and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith , when hath not spoken. The people of the land have used , and exercised robbery, and have vexed and needy: yea, they have oppressed the wrongfully. And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. Therefore have I poured out mine upon them; I have consumed them with the of my : their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith .
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