King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 34
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1And unto me, saying, , against the of Israel, , and say unto them, Thus saith unto the ; Woe be to the of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the feed the flocks? Ye eat , and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with have ye ruled them. And they were scattered, because there is no : and they became meat to all the of the field, when they were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. Therefore, ye , hear the word of ; As I live, saith , surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no , neither did my search for my flock, but the fed themselves, and fed not my flock; 9Therefore, O ye , hear the word of ; Thus saith ; Behold, I am against the ; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the feed themselves any more; for I will my flock from their , that they may not be meat for them. For thus saith ; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. As a seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith . I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy and the strong; I will feed them with . And as for you, O my flock, thus saith ; Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he goats. Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet? 19And as for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet; and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet. Therefore thus saith unto them; Behold, I, even I, will judge between cattle and between the lean cattle. Because ye have thrust with side and with shoulder, and pushed all the diseased with your , till ye have scattered them abroad; Therefore will I my flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle. And I will set up one over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant ; he shall feed them, and he shall be their . And I will be their , and my servant a prince among them; I have spoken it. And I will make with them a of peace, and will cause the evil to cease out of the land: and they shall safely in , and sleep in the woods. And I will make them and the places round about my hill a ; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be of . And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am , when I have broken the bands of their , and them out of the hand of those that themselves of them. And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall of the land devour them; but they shall safely, and none shall make them afraid. And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with in the land, neither bear the of the heathen any more. Thus shall they know that I their am with them, and that they, even the , are my people, saith . And ye my flock, the my pasture, are men, and I am your , 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