King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 29
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In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, unto me, saying, , set thy against king of , and against him, and against all : Speak, and say, Thus saith ; Behold, I am against thee, king of , the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales. And I will leave thee thrown into , thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the of the field and to the fowls of the . And all the inhabitants of shall know that I am , because they have been a of reed to the . When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand. Therefore thus saith ; Behold, I will bring a upon thee, and man and beast out of thee. And the land of shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am : because he hath said, is mine, and I have made it. Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of even unto the border of . No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years. And I will make the land of desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries. Yet thus saith ; At the end of forty years will I gather the from the people whither they were scattered: And I will bring again of , and will cause them to return into the land of , into the land of their habitation; and they shall be there a base kingdom. It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more the nations. And it shall be no more the confidence of the , which bringeth their to remembrance, when they shall look after them: but they shall know that I am . And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, unto me, saying, , Nebuchadrezzar king of caused his army to a great against : every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for , for the that he had against it: Therefore thus saith ; Behold, I will give the land of unto Nebuchadrezzar king of ; and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army. I have given him the land of for his labour wherewith he against it, because they wrought for me, saith . In that day will I cause of the to bud forth, and I will give thee the opening of the in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am .
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