King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 37
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The hand of was upon me, and carried me out in of , and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, , can these bones live? And I answered, O , thou knowest. Again he said unto me, upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of . Thus saith unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am . So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. 8And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, unto the wind, , , and say to the wind, Thus saith ; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said unto me, , these bones are the whole : behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our is lost: we are for our parts. Therefore and say unto them, Thus saith ; Behold, O my people, I will open your , and cause you to come up out of your , and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am , when I have opened your , O my people, and brought you up out of your , And shall put in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I have spoken it, and performed it, saith . 15 again unto me, saying, Moreover, thou , take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For , the stick of , and for all the his companions: And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand. And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? Say unto them, Thus saith ; Behold, I will take the stick of , which is in the hand of , and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand. And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes. And say unto them, Thus saith ; Behold, I will take the from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all: Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their things, nor with any of their : but I will them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have , and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their . And my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one : they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe , and do them. And they shall in the land that I have given unto my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant shall be their prince for ever. Moreover I will make a of peace with them; it shall be an with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My also shall be with them: yea, I will be their , and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I do Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.
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