King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Isaiah 46
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
boweth down, stoopeth, their idols were upon the , and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they together; they could not the burden, but themselves are gone into . unto me, O house of , and all of the , which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the : And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will you. To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like? They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he maketh it a : they fall down, yea, they . They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him, and set him in his place, and he standeth; from his place shall he not remove: yea, one shall cry unto him, yet can he not answer, nor him out of his trouble. Remember this, and shew yourselves men: bring it again to , O ye transgressors. Remember the former things of old: for I am , and there is none else; I am , and there is none like me, Declaring the end , and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it. unto me, ye stouthearted, that are far from : I bring near my ; it shall not be far off, and my shall not tarry: and I will place in for Israel my .
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 · 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