King James Version · Under Assyria
Isaiah 28
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Woe to the of pride, to the drunkards of , whose beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of valleys of them that are overcome with ! Behold, hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand. The of pride, the drunkards of , shall be trodden under feet: And the beauty, which is on the head of valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up. In that day shall of hosts be for a of , and for a of beauty, unto the residue of his people, And for a of to him that sitteth in , and for strength to them that turn the battle to the . But they also have erred through , and through are out of ; the priest and the have erred through , they are swallowed up of , they are out of through ; they err in , they stumble in . For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean. Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: For with stammering and another will he speak to this people. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear. But the word of was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. Wherefore hear the word of , ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in . Because ye have said, We have made a with , and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: Therefore thus saith , Behold, I lay in for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. also will I lay to the line, and to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your with shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it. From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report. For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. For shall rise up as in mount , he shall be wroth as in the valley of , that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act. Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth. Give ye ear, and ; , and hear my speech. Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? For his doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a , and the cummin with a . Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also cometh forth from of hosts, which is wonderful in , and excellent in working.
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