King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 3
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Moreover he said unto me, , eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the . So I opened my , and he caused me to eat that roll. And he said unto me, , cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my as honey for sweetness. And he said unto me, , go, get thee unto the , and speak with my words unto them. For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the ; Not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee. But the will not unto thee; for they will not unto me: for all the are impudent and hardhearted. Behold, I have made thy strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house. Moreover he said unto me, , all my words that I shall speak unto thee receive in thine , and hear with thine ears. And go, get thee to them of , unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith ; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear. Then took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing, saying, be from his place. I heard also the noise of the of the living creatures that touched one another, and the noise of the wheels over against them, and a noise of a great rushing. So lifted me up, and took me away, and I went in bitterness, in the heat of ; but the hand of was strong upon me. Then I came to them of at , that dwelt by the river of , and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days. And it came to pass at the end of seven days, that unto me, saying, , I have made thee a watchman unto the : therefore hear the word at my , and give them warning from me. When I say unto , Thou shalt surely ; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn from his way, to his life; the same man shall in his ; but his will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn , and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his way, he shall in his ; but thou hast thy . Again, When a man doth turn from his , and commit , and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall : because thou hast not given him warning, he shall in his , and his which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless if thou warn man, that not, and he doth not , he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast thy . And the hand of was there upon me; and he said unto me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with thee. Then I arose, and went forth into the plain: and, behold, stood there, as the which I saw by the river of : and I fell on . Then entered into me, and set me upon my feet, and spake with me, and said unto me, Go, shut thyself within thine house. But thou, O , behold, they shall put bands upon thee, and shall bind thee with them, and thou shalt not go out among them: And I will make thy cleave to the roof of thy , that thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be to them a reprover: for they are a rebellious house. But when I speak with thee, I will open thy , and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith ; He that heareth, let him hear; and he that forbeareth, let him forbear: for they are a rebellious house.
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