King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 25
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1 again unto me, saying, , set thy against , and against them; And say unto , Hear the word of ; Thus saith ; Because thou saidst, Aha, against my sanctuary, when it was profaned; and against the land of Israel, when it was desolate; and against the house of Judah, when they went into ; Behold, therefore I will thee to the men of the east for a possession, and they shall set their palaces in thee, and make their dwellings in thee: they shall eat thy fruit, and they shall drink thy milk. And I will make a stable for camels, and a couchingplace for flocks: and ye shall know that I am . For thus saith ; Because thou hast clapped thine hands, and stamped with the feet, and rejoiced in with all thy despite against the land of Israel; Behold, therefore I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and will thee for a spoil to the heathen; and I will cut thee off from the people, and I will cause thee to out of the countries: I will destroy thee; and thou shalt know that I am . Thus saith ; Because that and do say, Behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the heathen; Therefore, behold, I will open the side of from the cities, from his cities which are on his frontiers, the of the country, , , and , Unto the men of the east with , and will give them in possession, that may not be remembered among the nations. And I will execute judgments upon ; and they shall know that I am . Thus saith ; Because that hath dealt against the house of Judah by taking , and hath greatly offended, and revenged himself upon them; Therefore thus saith ; I will also stretch out mine hand upon , and will man and beast from it; and I will make it desolate from ; and they of shall fall . And I will lay my upon by the hand of my people Israel: and they shall do in according to mine and according to my fury; and they shall know my , saith . Thus saith ; Because the have dealt by , and have taken with a despiteful , to destroy it for the old hatred; Therefore thus saith ; Behold, I will stretch out mine hand upon the , and I will the Cherethims, and destroy of the sea coast. And I will execute great upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am , when I shall lay my upon them.
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