World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 45
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"'"Moreover, when you divide by lot the land for , you shall offer an to , a of the land. The length shall be the length of twenty-five thousand reeds, and the width shall be ten thousand. It shall be in all its border all around. Of this there shall be a five hundred by five hundred square for the place, and fifty for its pasture lands all around. Of this measure you shall measure a length of twenty-five thousand, and a width of ten thousand. In it shall be , which is most . It is a of the land; it shall be for the priests, the ministers of , who come near to minister to . It shall be a place for their houses and a place for . Twenty-five thousand in length and ten thousand in width shall be for the , the ministers of the house, as a possession for themselves, for twenty rooms. "'"You shall appoint the possession of the city five thousand wide and twenty-five thousand long, side by side with the of the . It shall be for the whole . "'"What is for the prince shall be on the one side and on the other side of the and of the possession of the city, in front of the and in front of the possession of the city, on the west side westward, and on the east side eastward, and in length corresponding to one of the portions, from the west border to the east border. In the land it shall be to him for a possession in Israel. My princes shall no more oppress my people, but they shall give the land to the according to their tribes." "' says: "Enough, you princes of Israel! Remove and plunder, and and ! Stop dispossessing my people!" . "You shall have balances, a ephah, and a bath. The ephah and the bath shall be of one measure, that the bath may contain one tenth of a homer, and the ephah one tenth of a homer. Its measure shall be the same as the homer. The shall be twenty gerahs. Twenty plus twenty-five plus fifteen shall be your . 13"'"This is the that you shall offer: the sixth part of an ephah from a homer of wheat, and you shall give the sixth part of an ephah from a homer of barley, 14and the set of oil, of the bath of oil, one tenth of a bath out of the cor, which is ten baths, even a homer (for ten baths are a homer), and one lamb of the flock out of two hundred, from the well-watered pastures of Israel—for a , for a burnt offering, and for , to make atonement for them," . "All the people of the land shall give to this for the prince in Israel. It shall be the prince's part to give the burnt offerings, the , and the drink , in the feasts, and on the new moons, and on the , in all the of the . He shall prepare the , the , the burnt offering, and the , to make atonement for the ." "' says: "In the first month, on the first day of the month, you shall take a young bull , and you shall cleanse . The priest shall take of of the and put it on the door posts of the house, and on the four corners of the ledge of the , and on the posts of the of the inner court. So you shall do on the seventh day of the month for everyone who errs, and for him who is simple. So you shall make atonement for the house. "'"In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall have , a feast of seven days; shall be eaten. On that day the prince shall prepare for himself and for all the people of the land a bull for a . The seven days of the feast he shall prepare a burnt offering to , seven bulls and seven rams daily the seven days; and a male goat daily for a . He shall prepare a , an ephah for a bull, an ephah for a ram, and a hin of oil to an ephah. "'"In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, during the feast, he shall do like that for seven days. He shall make the same provision for , the burnt offering, the , and the oil."
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