King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 31
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third month, in the first day of the month, that unto me, saying, , speak unto king of , and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness? Behold, the was a cedar in with fair , and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his became long because of of waters, when he shot forth. All the fowls of made their nests in his boughs, and under his did all the of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. 7Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his : for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the garden of could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chesnut trees were not like his ; nor any tree in the garden of was like unto him in his beauty. I have made him fair by of his : so that all the trees of , that were in the garden of , envied him. Therefore thus saith ; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and is lifted up in his height; I have therefore him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness. And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him. Upon his shall all the fowls of the , and all the of the field shall be upon his : To the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height, neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs, neither their trees stand up in their height, all that drink water: for they are all unto , to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to . Thus saith ; In the day when he went down to the I caused a : I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into : and all the trees of , the choice and best of , all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth. They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain with ; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen. To whom art thou thus like in and in greatness among the trees of ? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of unto the nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the with them that be slain . This is and all his multitude, 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