King James Version · Under Assyria
Isaiah 3
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For, behold, , of hosts, doth take away from and from Judah the stay and the , the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water, The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the , and the prudent, and the ancient, The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator. And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall them. And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable. When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his , saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this be under thy hand: In that day shall he , saying, I will not be an healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing: make me not a ruler of the people. For is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their and their doings are against , to provoke the eyes of his . The shew of their countenance doth against them; and they declare their as , they hide it not. Woe unto their ! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves. Say ye to , that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto ! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him. As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy of thy . standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people. will enter into with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the ; the spoil of is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of ? saith of hosts. Moreover saith, Because the daughters of are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: Therefore will smite with a scab the of the head of the daughters of , and will discover their secret parts. In that day will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings, The rings, and nose jewels, 22The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails. And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of ; and burning instead of beauty. Thy men shall fall , and thy mighty in the war. And her shall and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.
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