World English Bible · Under Assyria
Isaiah 14
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For will have on , and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land. The will join himself with them, and they will unite with the house of . The peoples will take them, and bring them to their place. The will possess them in land for servants and for handmaids. They will take as those whose they were; and they shall their oppressors. It will happen in the day that will from your sorrow, from your trouble, and from the hard in which you were made to , that you will take up this against the king of , and say, "How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!" has broken the of , the of the , who struck the peoples in with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in , with a persecution that no one restrained. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet. They break out in song. Yes, the cypress trees rejoice with you, with the cedars of , saying, "Since you are humbled, no lumberjack has come up against us." from beneath has moved for you to meet you at your coming. It stirs up the departed spirits for you, even all the of the earth. It has up from their all the kings of the nations. They all will answer and ask you, "Have you also become as weak as we are? Have you become like us?" Your pomp is brought down to , with the sound of your stringed instruments. Maggots are spread out under you, and worms cover you. How you have fallen from , , ! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low! You said in , "I will ascend into ! I will exalt my above the stars of ! I will sit on the mountain of , in the far north! I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like !" Yet you shall be brought down to , to the depths of . Those who see you will stare at you. They will you, saying, "Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a , and overthrew its cities, who didn't his prisoners to their home?" All the kings of the nations sleep in , everyone in his own house. But you are cast away from your like an branch, clothed with the slain who are thrust through with , who go down to the stones of ; like a body trodden under foot. You will not join them in burial, because you have destroyed your land. You have killed your people. The of will not be named . Prepare for slaughter of his children because of the of their fathers, that they not rise up and possess the earth, and fill the surface of the world with cities. "I will rise up against them," of Armies, "and name and , and son and son's son," . "I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water. I will sweep it with the broom of ," of Armies. of Armies has , saying, "Surely, as I have thought, so shall it happen; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: that I will break the in my land, and tread him under foot on my mountains. Then his will leave them, and his burden leave their shoulders. This is the plan that is determined for the whole earth. This is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations. For of Armies has planned, and who can stop it? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?" This burden was in the year that King . Don't rejoice, O , all of you, because the that struck you is broken; for out of root an adder will emerge, and his fruit will be a flying . of will eat, and will lie down in safety; and I will kill your root with , and your will be killed. Howl, ! Cry, city! You are melted away, , all of you; for smoke comes out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks. What will they answer the of the nation? That has founded , and in her of his people will take refuge.
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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.
All of Isaiah