World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Isaiah 46
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bows down. stoops. Their idols are carried by animals, and on the livestock. The things that you carried around are heavy loads, a burden for the weary. They stoop and they together. They could not the burden, but they have gone into . "Listen to me, house of , and all of the , that have been carried from their birth, that have been carried from the . Even to old age I am he, and even to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear. Yes, I will carry, and will . "To whom will you compare me, and consider my equal, and compare me, as if we were the same? Some pour out gold from the bag, and weigh silver in the balance. They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a . They fall down— yes, they . They bear it on their shoulder. They carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands there. It cannot move from its place. Yes, one may cry to it, yet it can not answer. It cannot him out of his trouble. "Remember this, and show yourselves men. Bring it to again, you transgressors. Remember the former things of old; for I am , and there is no other. I am , and there is none like me. I declare the end , and from ancient times things that are not yet done. I say: My will stand, and I will do all that I please. I call a ravenous bird from the east, the man of my from a far country. Yes, I have spoken. I will also bring it to pass. I have planned. I will also do it. Listen to me, you -hearted, who are far from ! I bring my near. It is not far off, and my will not wait. I will grant to , my to Israel.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Babylon and the exile, 612 BC to 539 BC ›
Babylon replaces Assyria, Jerusalem and its temple are destroyed in 586 BC, and the leadership of Judah lives in Mesopotamia without a king, a temple, or a country.
- Babylon
- Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilds the city on a scale meant to be seen from a distance: the Ishtar Gate in glazed blue brick, the processional way, the ziggurat, and gardens later counted among the wonders of the world. Babylonian tablets record rations issued to the captive king Jehoiachin of Judah by name, which is one of the tidier points of contact between the Bible and the archives.
- Egypt
- Briefly resurgent. Pharaoh Neco marches north, kills King Josiah at Megiddo, and installs and deposes kings in Jerusalem, until Babylon beats him decisively at Carchemish in 605 BC. Jeremiah spends his career saying that betting on Egypt is suicide, and is proved right.
- Judah
- Deported in stages, then destroyed. The temple is burned, the walls broken, and the leadership marched to Mesopotamia. What happens next is one of the strangest survivals in history: a people keeps its identity without land, king, or sanctuary, and comes out of it with its scriptures more central than before.
- Further afield
- An extraordinary century for ideas everywhere at once. Thales and the first Greek philosophers, Solon's reforms at Athens, the Buddha in India, Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Zoroaster in Persia all fall within a few generations of the exile.
All of Isaiah