King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 47
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Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the . Then brought he me out of of the northward, and led me about without unto the utter by that looketh eastward; and, behold, there ran out waters on the right side. And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured a thousand , and he brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles. 4Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through the waters; the waters were to the knees. Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through; the waters were to the loins. Afterward he measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were , waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over. And he said unto me, , hast thou seen this? Then he brought me, and caused me to return to the brink of the river. Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other. Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into , and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed. And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh. And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from En–gedi even unto En–eglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many. But the miry places thereof and the marishes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt. And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of : and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine. Thus saith ; This shall be the border, whereby ye shall the land according to the twelve tribes of Israel: shall have two portions. And ye shall it, one as well as another: concerning the which I lifted up mine hand to give it unto your fathers: and this land shall fall unto you for . And this shall be the border of the land toward the north side, from the great sea, of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad; , Berothah, Sibraim, which is between the border of and the border of ; Hazar–hatticon, which is by the coast of Hauran. And the border from the sea shall be Hazar–enan, the border of , and the north northward, and the border of . And this is the north side. And the east side ye shall measure from Hauran, and from , and from , and from the land of Israel by Jordan, from the border unto the east sea. And this is the east side. And the south side southward, from even to the waters of strife in , the river to the great sea. And this is the south side southward. The west side also shall be the great sea from the border, till a man come over against . This is the west side. 21So shall ye divide this land unto you according to the tribes of Israel. And it shall come to pass, that ye shall divide it by lot for an unto you, and to the strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children among you: and they shall be unto you as born in the country among the ; they shall have with you among the tribes of Israel. 23And it shall come to pass, that in what tribe the sojourneth, there shall ye give him his , 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