King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 43
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Afterward he brought me to the , even the that looketh toward the east: And, behold, the of the of Israel came from of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his . And it was according to the appearance of the which I saw, even according to the that I saw when I came to destroy the city: and the were like the that I saw by the river ; and I fell upon . And came into the house by of the whose prospect is toward the east. So took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, filled the house. And I heard him speaking unto me out of the house; and the man stood by me. And he said unto me, , the place of my , and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will in the midst of the for ever, and my name, shall the no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their kings in their . In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds, and their post by my posts, and the wall between me and them, they have even defiled my name by their that they have committed: wherefore I have consumed them in mine . Now let them their whoredom, and the carcases of their kings, far from me, and I will in the midst of them for ever. Thou , shew the house to the , that they may be of their : and let them measure the pattern. And if they be of all that they have done, shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them. This is of the house; Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most . Behold, this is of the house. And these are the measures of the after the : The is a and an hand breadth; even the bottom shall be a , and the breadth a , and the border thereof by the edge thereof round about shall be a : and this shall be the higher place of the . 14And from the bottom upon the ground even to the lower settle shall be two , and the breadth one ; and from the lesser settle even to the greater settle shall be four , and the breadth one . So the shall be four ; and from the and upward shall be four . And the shall be twelve long, twelve broad, square in the four squares thereof. And the settle shall be fourteen long and fourteen broad in the four squares thereof; and the border about it shall be half a ; and the bottom thereof shall be a about; and his stairs shall look toward the east. And he said unto me, , thus saith ; These are the ordinances of the in the day when they shall make it, to offer burnt offerings thereon, and to sprinkle thereon. And thou shalt give to the priests the that be of the of , which approach unto me, to minister unto me, saith , a young bullock for a . And thou shalt take of thereof, and put it on the four of it, and on the four corners of the settle, and upon the border round about: thus shalt thou cleanse and purge it. Thou shalt take the bullock also of the , and he shall burn it in the appointed place of the house, without . And on the second day thou shalt offer a kid of the goats for a ; and they shall cleanse the , as they did cleanse it with the bullock. When thou hast made an end of cleansing it, thou shalt offer a young bullock , and a ram out of the flock . And thou shalt offer them before , and the priests shall cast salt upon them, and they shall offer them up for a burnt offering unto . Seven days shalt thou prepare every day a goat for a : they shall also prepare a young bullock, and a ram out of the flock, . Seven days shall they purge the and purify it; and they shall themselves. And when these days are expired, it shall be, that upon the eighth day, and so forward, the priests shall make your burnt offerings upon the , and your ; and I will accept you, 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