King James Version · Under Assyria
Hosea 10
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Israel is an empty , he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to of his fruit he hath increased the ; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly . Their is divided; now shall they be found faulty: he shall break down their , he shall spoil their . For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not ; what then should a king do to us? They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a : thus springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field. The inhabitants of shall fear because of the calves of Beth–aven: for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the thereof, because it is departed from it. It shall be also carried unto for a present to king Jareb: shall receive , and Israel shall be of his own . As for , her king is as the foam upon the water. The also of , the of Israel, shall be destroyed: the and the thistle shall come up on their ; and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us. O Israel, thou hast from the days of : there they stood: the battle in against the children of did not overtake them. It is in my that I should them; and the people shall be gathered against them, when they shall bind themselves in their two furrows. And is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn; but I passed over upon her fair neck: I will make to ride; Judah shall plow, and shall break his clods. Sow to yourselves in , reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek , till he come and upon you. Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped ; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst in thy way, in of thy . Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shalman spoiled Beth–arbel in the day of battle: the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children. So shall Beth–el do unto you because of your great wickedness: in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly .
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 · Under Assyria, 745 BC to 612 BC ›
Assyria at full stretch, deporting whole populations as policy. The northern kingdom is destroyed in 722 BC and Judah survives as a tribute-paying vassal.
- Assyria
- The first empire to run mass deportation as ordinary administration: move the leadership somewhere else, settle strangers in their place, and the province stops being a nation. It worked. Samaria fell in 722 BC and the northern tribes did not come back. Assyria also advertised its cruelty deliberately, carving flayings and impalements on palace walls where envoys would see them, because terror is cheaper than garrisons.
- Judah
- Survives by paying. Hezekiah rebels, Sennacherib takes forty-six Judean towns and besieges Jerusalem in 701 BC, and the city holds. The Assyrian account boasts of shutting Hezekiah up like a bird in a cage and pointedly does not claim to have taken the city, which is one of the more interesting silences in ancient records.
- Egypt
- The splintered reed of a staff that Assyria's field commander mocks Judah for leaning on. It promises help and cannot deliver, and Isaiah spends decades saying so. Assyria eventually invades and sacks Thebes.
- Further afield
- Greece is in its archaic period, founding colonies from Spain to the Black Sea. Rome is under kings. Assyria's own libraries are collecting the literature of Mesopotamia, which is how Gilgamesh survived to be read again in the nineteenth century.