World English Bible · Under Assyria
Isaiah 2
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This is what the son of saw concerning Judah and . It shall happen in the , that the mountain of house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. Many peoples shall go and say, "Come, let's go up to the mountain of , to the house of the of ; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his ." For shall go out of , and word from . He will judge between the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples. They shall beat their into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. House of , come, and let's walk in of . For you have forsaken your people, the house of , because they are filled from the east, with those who practice like the , and they clasp hands with the children of . Their land is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their . Their land also is full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots. Their land also is full of idols. They the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. Man is brought low, and mankind is humbled; therefore don't forgive them. Enter into , and hide in , from before the terror of , and from the of his majesty. The lofty looks of man will be brought low, the arrogance of men will be , and alone will be exalted in that day. For there will be a of Armies for all that is proud and arrogant, and for all that is lifted up, and it shall be brought low— for all the cedars of , that are high and lifted up, for all the oaks of , for all the high mountains, for all the hills that are lifted up, for every lofty tower, for every fortified wall, for all the ships of , and for all pleasant imagery. The loftiness of man shall be , and the arrogance of men shall be brought low; and alone shall be exalted in that day. The idols shall utterly pass away. Men shall go into the caves of the rocks, and into the holes of the earth, from before the terror of , and from the of his majesty, when he arises to shake the earth mightily. In that day, men shall cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which have been made for themselves to , to the moles and to the bats, to go into the caverns of the rocks, and into the clefts of the ragged rocks, from before the terror of , and from the of his majesty, when he arises to shake the earth mightily. Stop trusting in man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for of what account is he?
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