World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 35
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Moreover word came to me, saying, ", set your against Mount , and against it, and tell it, ' says: "Behold, I am against you, Mount , and I will stretch out my hand against you. I will make you a desolation and an astonishment. I will lay your cities waste, and you will be desolate. Then you will know that I am . "'"Because you have had a perpetual hostility, and have given over the to the of in the time of their calamity, in the time of the of the end, therefore, as I live," , "I will prepare you for , and will pursue you. Since you have not hated , therefore will pursue you. Thus I will make Mount an astonishment and a desolation. I will it him who passes through and him who returns. I will fill its mountains with its slain. The slain with will fall in your hills and in your valleys and in all your watercourses. I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am . "'"Because you have said, 'These two nations and these two countries will be mine, and we will possess it,' although was there, therefore, as I live," , "I will do according to your , and according to your envy which you have shown out of your hatred against them; and I will make myself known among them when I judge you. You will know that I, , have heard all your insults which you have spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, 'They have been laid desolate. They have been given to us to devour.' You have magnified yourselves against me with your , and have multiplied your words against me. I have heard it." says: "When the whole earth rejoices, I will make you desolate. As you rejoiced over the of the because it was desolate, so I will do to you. You will be desolate, Mount , and all , even all of it. Then they will know that I am .'"
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. 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