King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Habakkuk 2
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I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved. And answered me, and said, Write the , and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the is yet for an , but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Behold, his which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the shall live by his . Yea also, because he transgresseth by , he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his as hell, and is as , and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people: Shall not all these take up against him, and a taunting against him, and say, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and to him that ladeth himself with thick ! Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all of the people shall spoil thee; because of men’s , and for the of the land, of the city, and of all that therein. Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be from the of evil! Thou hast consulted to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast against thy . For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. Woe to him that buildeth a town with , and stablisheth a city by ! Behold, is it not of of hosts that the people shall labour in the very , and the people shall weary themselves for very ? For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of , as the waters cover the sea. Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their ! Thou art filled with for : drink thou also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered: of ’s shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy . For the of shall cover thee, and the spoil of , which made them afraid, because of men’s , and for the of the land, of the city, and of all that therein. What profiteth the graven that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten , and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols? Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach! Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it. But is in his temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.
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.