King James Version · Under Assyria
Isaiah 14
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For will have mercy on , and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of . And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the shall possess them in the land of for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them , whose they were; and they shall their oppressors. And it shall come to pass in the day that shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to , That thou shalt take up this against the king of , and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! hath broken the of , and the sceptre of the . He who smote the people in with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in , is persecuted, and none hindereth. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of , saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath up from their all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the , and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from , O , ! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine , I will ascend into , I will exalt my above the stars of : I will sit also upon the mount of , in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like . Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of . They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a , and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in , every one in his own house. But thou art cast out of thy like an branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a , that go down to the stones of ; as a carcase trodden under feet. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the of shall never be renowned. Prepare slaughter for his children for the of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the of the world with cities. For I will rise up against them, saith of hosts, and the name, and , and son, and nephew, saith . I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of , saith of hosts. of hosts hath , saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: That I will break the in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? In the year that king was this burden. Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the of him that smote thee is broken: for out of ’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a flying . And of shall feed, and shall lie down in safety: and I will kill thy root with , and he shall thy . Howl, O ; cry, O city; thou, whole Palestina, art dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall be alone in his . What shall one then answer the of the nation? That hath founded , and of his people shall in it.
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.
All of Isaiah