World English Bible · Under Assyria
Isaiah 26
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In that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah: "We have a strong city. appoints for walls and bulwarks. Open the , that nation may enter: the one which keeps . You will keep whoever's is steadfast in perfect peace, because he trusts in you. in ; for in , , is an . For he has brought down those who on high, the lofty city. He lays it low. He lays it low even to the ground. He brings it even to . The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of and the steps of ." of the is uprightness. You who are upright make of level. Yes, in of your judgments, , we have waited for you. Your name and your renown are the of our . With I have you in the night. Yes, with within me I will seek you earnestly; for when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn . Let be shown to , yet he will not learn . In the land of uprightness he will deal wrongfully, and will not see majesty. , your hand is lifted up, yet they don't see; but they will see your for the people and be disappointed. Yes, will consume your . , you will ordain peace for us, for you have also done all our work for us. our , other lords besides you have had over us, but we will only your name. shall not live. The departed spirits shall not rise. Therefore you have visited and destroyed them, and caused all memory of them to . You have increased the nation, O . You have increased the nation! You are glorified! You have enlarged all the borders of the land. , in trouble they have visited you. They poured out a when your chastening was on them. as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain and cries out in her pangs, so we have been before you, . We have been with child. We have been in pain. We gave birth, it seems, only to wind. We have not worked any in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. Your shall live. Their bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who in ; for your is like the of herbs, and the earth will cast out the departed spirits. Come, my people, enter into your rooms, and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourself for a little moment, until the is past. For, behold, comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their . The earth also will disclose her , and will no longer cover her slain.
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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