World English Bible · Under Assyria
Isaiah 22
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The burden of the valley of . What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops? You that are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, a joyous town, your slain are not slain with , neither are they in battle. All your fled away together. They were bound by the archers. All who were found by you were bound together. They fled far away. Therefore I said, "Look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Don't labor to comfort me for the of the daughter of my people. For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity from , of Armies, in the valley of , a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains." carried his quiver, with chariots of men and horsemen; and uncovered the shield. Your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at the . He took away the covering of Judah; and you looked in that day to the armor in the house of the forest. You saw the breaches of city, that they were many; and you gathered together the waters of the lower pool. 10You counted the houses of , and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. You also made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you didn't look to him who had done this, neither did you have respect for him who planned it long ago. In that day, , of Armies, called to weeping, to , to baldness, and to dressing in ; and behold, there is joy and gladness, killing cattle and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking : "Let's eat and drink, for tomorrow we will ." of Armies himself in my ears, "Surely this will not be forgiven you until you ," , of Armies. , of Armies says, "Go, get yourself to this treasurer, even to , who is over the house, and say, 'What are you doing here? Who has you here, that you have dug out a here?' Cutting himself out a on high, chiseling a habitation for himself in !" Behold, will overcome you and hurl you away violently. Yes, he will grasp you firmly. He will surely wind you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a large country. There you will , and there the chariots of your will be, you of your house. I will thrust you from your office. You will be pulled down from your station. It will happen in that day that I will call my servant the son of , and I will clothe him with your robe, and strengthen him with your belt. I will commit your government into his hand; and he will be a to the inhabitants of , and to the house of Judah. I will lay the key of house on his shoulder. He will open, and no one will shut. He will shut, and no one will open. I will fasten him like a nail in a sure place. He will be for a of to his house. They will hang on him all the of his house, the and the issue, every small , from the even to all the pitchers. "In that day," of Armies, "the nail that was fastened in a sure place will give way. It will be cut down and fall. The burden that was on it will , for has spoken it."
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. 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