King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 7
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1Moreover unto me, saying, Also, thou , thus saith unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land. Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send mine upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will upon thee all thine . And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have : but I will thy ways upon thee, and thine shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am . Thus saith ; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come. An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come. The morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains. Now will I shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine upon thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will thee for all thine . And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have : I will thee according to thy ways and thine that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am that smiteth. Behold the day, behold, it is come: the morning is gone forth; the hath blossomed, pride hath budded. is up into a of wickedness: none of them shall , nor of their multitude, nor of any of theirs: neither shall there be for them. The time is come, the day draweth near: let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn: for is upon all thereof. For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, although they were yet alive: for the is touching the whole multitude thereof, which shall not return; neither shall any strengthen himself in the of his life. They have blown the , even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle: for my is upon all thereof. is without, and the pestilence and the within: he that is in the field shall with ; and he that is in the city, and pestilence shall devour him. But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like of the valleys, all of them , every one for his . All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water. They shall also gird themselves with , and horror shall cover them; and shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads. They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to them in the day of the of : they shall not satisfy their , neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their . As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty: but they made the of their and of their things therein: therefore have I set it far from them. And I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to of the earth for a spoil; and they shall pollute it. will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it. Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of . Wherefore I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease; and their places shall be defiled. cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none. Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then shall they seek a of the ; but shall from the priest, and from the ancients. The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am .
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