King James Version · Under Assyria
Isaiah 1
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The of the son of , which he saw concerning Judah and in the days of , , , and , kings of Judah. Hear, O , and give ear, O earth: for hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah nation, a people laden with , a of , children that are corrupters: they have forsaken , they have provoked the One of Israel unto , they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with : your land, strangers devour it in your , and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of is left as a cottage in a , as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except of hosts had left unto us a very small , we should have been as , and we should have been like unto . Hear the word of , ye of ; give ear unto of our , ye people of . To what purpose is of your unto me? saith : I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and fed ; and I delight not in of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more oblations; is an unto me; the new moons and , the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is , even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of . Wash you, make you clean; the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek , relieve the oppressed, judge , plead for the . Come now, and let us reason together, saith : though your be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with : for hath spoken it. How is the city become an ! it was full of ; lodged in it; but now . Thy silver is become dross, thy mixed with water: Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not , neither doth the cause of the come unto them. Therefore saith , of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine , and me of mine : And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of , the city. shall be with , and her converts with . And the of the transgressors and of the shall be together, and they that forsake shall be consumed. For they shall be of the oaks which ye have , and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen. For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.
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