King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 45
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
Moreover, when ye shall divide by lot the land for , ye shall offer an oblation unto , an of the land: the length shall be the length of five and twenty thousand reeds, and the breadth shall be ten thousand. This shall be in all the borders thereof round about. Of this there shall be for five hundred in length, with five hundred in breadth, square round about; and fifty round about for the suburbs thereof. And of this measure shalt thou measure the length of five and twenty thousand, and the breadth of ten thousand: and in it shall be and the most place. The of the land shall be for the priests the ministers of , which shall come near to minister unto : and it shall be a place for their houses, and an place for . And the five and twenty thousand of length, and the ten thousand of breadth, shall also the , the ministers of the house, have for themselves, for a possession for twenty chambers. And ye shall appoint the possession of the city five thousand broad, and five and twenty thousand long, over against the oblation of the : it shall be for the whole . And a shall be for the prince on the one side and on the other side of the oblation of the , and of the possession of the city, before the oblation of the , and before the possession of the city, from the west side westward, and from the east side eastward: and the length shall be over against one of the portions, from the west border unto the east border. In the land shall be his possession in Israel: and my princes shall no more oppress my people; and the rest of the land shall they give to the according to their tribes. Thus saith ; Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: remove and spoil, and execute and justice, take away your exactions from my people, saith . Ye shall have balances, and a ephah, and a bath. The ephah and the bath shall be of one measure, that the bath may contain the tenth part of an homer, and the ephah the tenth part of an homer: the measure thereof shall be after the homer. And the shall be twenty gerahs: twenty , five and twenty , fifteen , shall be your maneh. 13This is the oblation that ye shall offer; the sixth part of an ephah of an homer of wheat, and ye shall give the sixth part of an ephah of an homer of barley: 14Concerning the of oil, the bath of oil, ye shall offer the tenth part of a bath out of the cor, which is an homer of ten baths; for ten baths are an homer: And one lamb out of the flock, out of two hundred, out of pastures of Israel; for a meat , and for a burnt offering, and for , to make reconciliation for them, saith . All the people of the land shall give this oblation for the prince in Israel. And it shall be the prince’s part to give burnt offerings, and meat , and drink , in the feasts, and in the new moons, and in the , in all solemnities of the : he shall prepare the , and the meat , and the burnt offering, and the , to make reconciliation for the . Thus saith ; In the first month, in the first day of the month, thou shalt take a young bullock , and cleanse : And the priest shall take of of the , and put it upon the posts of the house, and upon the four corners of the settle of the , and upon the posts of the of the inner court. And so thou shalt do the seventh day of the month for every one that erreth, and for him that is simple: so shall ye reconcile the house. In the first month, in the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have , a feast of seven days; shall be eaten. And upon that day shall the prince prepare for himself and for all the people of the land a bullock for a . And seven days of the feast he shall prepare a burnt offering to , seven bullocks and seven rams daily the seven days; and a kid of the goats daily for a . And he shall prepare a meat of an ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and an hin of oil for an ephah. In the seventh month, in the fifteenth day of the month, shall he do the like in the feast of the seven days, according to the , according to the burnt offering, and according to the meat , and according to the oil.
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