King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 44
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Then he brought me back of the of the outward sanctuary which looketh toward the east; and it was shut. Then said unto me; This shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because , the of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before ; he shall enter by of the porch of that , and shall go out by of the same. Then brought he me of the north before the house: and I looked, and, behold, filled the : and I fell upon . And said unto me, , mark well, and behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears all that I say unto thee concerning all the ordinances of the , and all the laws thereof; and mark well the entering in of the house, with every going forth of . And thou shalt say to the rebellious, even to the , Thus saith ; O ye , let it suffice you of all your , In that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers, in , and in , to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer my bread, and , and they have broken my because of all your . And ye have not kept the charge of mine things: but ye have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for yourselves. Thus saith ; No , in , nor in , shall enter into my sanctuary, of any that is among the . And the that are gone away far from me, when Israel went astray, which went astray away from me after their idols; they shall even bear their . Yet they shall be ministers in my sanctuary, having charge at the of the house, and ministering to the house: they shall the burnt offering and the for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister unto them. Because they ministered unto them before their idols, and caused the to fall into ; therefore have I lifted up mine hand against them, saith , and they shall bear their . And they shall not come near unto me, to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my things, in the most place: but they shall bear their , and their which they have committed. But I will make them keepers of the charge of the house, for all the thereof, and for all that shall be done therein. But the priests the , the sons of , that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer unto me and , saith : They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge. And it shall come to pass, that when they enter in at the of the inner court, they shall be clothed with linen garments; and no wool shall come upon them, whiles they minister of the inner court, and within. They shall have linen bonnets upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon their loins; they shall not gird themselves with any thing that causeth sweat. And when they go forth into the utter court, even into the utter court to the people, they shall put off their garments wherein they ministered, and lay them in the chambers, and they shall put on other garments; and they shall not the people with their garments. Neither shall they shave their heads, nor suffer their locks to grow long; they shall only poll their heads. Neither shall any priest drink , when they enter into the inner court. Neither shall they take for their wives a , nor her that is : but they shall take maidens of the of the , or a that had a priest before. And they shall teach my people the difference between the and profane, and cause them to discern between the and the clean. And in controversy they shall stand in ; and they shall judge it according to my judgments: and they shall keep my laws and in all mine assemblies; and they shall hallow my . And they shall come at no person to defile themselves: but for , or for mother, or for son, or for daughter, for brother, or for sister that hath had no husband, they may defile themselves. And after he is cleansed, they shall reckon unto him seven days. And in the day that he goeth into , unto the inner court, to minister in , he shall offer his , saith . And it shall be unto them for an : I am their : and ye shall give them no possession in Israel: I am their possession. They shall eat the meat , and the , and the trespass offering; and every dedicated thing in Israel shall be theirs. And the first of all the of all things, and every oblation of all, of every sort of your oblations, shall be the priest’s: ye shall also give unto the priest the first of your dough, that he may cause the to rest in thine house. The priests shall not eat of any thing that is of itself, or torn, whether it be fowl or beast.
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