World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 6
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1 word came to me, saying, ", set your toward the mountains of Israel, and to them, and say, 'You mountains of Israel, hear the word of ! says to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys: "Behold, I, even I, will bring a on you, and I will destroy your . Your will become desolate, and your will be broken. I will cast down your slain men before your idols. I will lay bodies of the before their idols. I will scatter your bones around your . In all your dwelling places, the cities will be laid waste and the will be desolate, so that your may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am . "'"Yet I will leave a , in that you will have some that escape among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries. Those of you that escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried , how I have been broken with their lewd , which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the after their idols. Then they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their . They will know that I am . I have not said in that I would do this evil to them."' " says: 'Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, "Alas!", because of all the evil of the ; for they will fall , by the , and by the pestilence. He who is far off will of the pestilence. He who is near will fall . He who and is besieged will by the . Thus I will accomplish my on them. You will know that I am when their slain men are among their idols around their , on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, , and under every thick oak—the places where they offered pleasant aroma to all their idols. I will stretch out my hand on them and make the land desolate and waste, from toward Diblah, throughout all their habitations. Then they will know that I am .'"
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