King James Version · Under Assyria
Hosea 4
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Hear the word of , ye : for hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing , they break out, and toucheth . Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the of the field, and with the fowls of ; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away. Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for thy people are as they that strive with the priest. Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten of thy , I will also forget thy children. As they were increased, so they against me: therefore will I change their into . They eat up the of my people, and they set their on their . And there shall be, like people, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings. For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase: because they have left off to take heed to . Whoredom and and take away . My people ask at their stocks, and their declareth unto them: for of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a from under their . They upon the tops of the mountains, and upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your spouses shall . I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they : for themselves are separated with whores, and they with harlots: therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall. Though thou, Israel, play the , yet let not Judah offend; and come not ye unto , neither go ye up to Beth–aven, nor , liveth. For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer: now will feed them as in a large place. is joined to idols: let him alone. Their drink is sour: they have committed whoredom continually: her with do love, Give ye. The wind hath bound her up in her , and they shall be because of their .
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.