World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 5
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"You, , take a sharp . You shall take it as a barber's razor to yourself, and shall cause it to pass over your head and over your beard. Then take balances to weigh and divide the hair. A third part you shall burn in the in the middle of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled. You shall take a third part, and strike with around it. A third part you shall scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a after them. You shall take a small number of these and bind them in the folds of your robe. Of these again you shall take, and cast them into the middle of the , and burn them in the . From it a will come out into all the . " says: 'This is . I have set her in the middle of the nations, and countries are around her. She has rebelled against my ordinances in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against more than the countries that are around her; for they have rejected my ordinances, and as for , they have not walked in them.' "Therefore says: 'Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are around you, and have not walked in , neither have kept my ordinances, neither have followed the ordinances of the nations that are around you; therefore says: 'Behold, I, even I, am against you; and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations. I will do in you that which I have not done, and which I will not do anything like it any more, because of all your . Therefore the fathers will eat the sons within you, and the sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you; and I will scatter the whole of you to all the winds. Therefore as I live,' , 'surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your things, and with all your , therefore I will also diminish you. My eye won't spare, and I will have no . A third part of you will with the pestilence, and they will be consumed with within you. A third part will fall around you. A third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out a after them. "'Thus my will be accomplished, and I will cause my toward them to rest, and I will be comforted. They will know that I, , have spoken in my , when I have accomplished my on them. "'Moreover I will make you a desolation and a among the nations that are around you, in the sight of all that pass by. So it will be a and a taunt, an and an astonishment, to the nations that are around you, when I execute judgments on you in and in , and in wrathful rebukes—I, , have spoken it— when I send on them the evil arrows of that are for , which I will send to destroy you. I will increase the on you and will break your of bread. I will send on you and evil animals, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and will pass through you. I will bring on you. I, , have spoken it.'"
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