King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Isaiah 48
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Hear ye this, O house of , which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which by the name of , and make mention of the of Israel, but not in truth, nor in . For they call themselves of the city, and stay themselves upon the of Israel; of hosts is his name. I have declared the former things ; and they went forth out of my , and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass. Because I knew that thou art , and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass; I have even declared it to thee; before it came to pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven , and my molten , hath commanded them. Thou hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare it? I have shewed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them. 7They are created now, and not ; even before the day when thou heardest them not; lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them. Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the . For my name’s sake will I defer mine , and for my will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my unto another. unto me, O and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last. Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my hath spanned : when I call unto them, they stand up together. All ye, assemble yourselves, and hear; which among them hath declared these things? hath loved him: he will do his pleasure on , and his arm shall be on the . I, even I, have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous. Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret ; from the time that it was, there am I: and now , and his , hath sent me. Thus saith , thy , the One of Israel; I am thy which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by that thou shouldest go. O that thou hadst hearkened to my ! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy as the waves of the sea: Thy also had been as the sand, and the of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been nor destroyed from before me. Go ye forth of , flee ye from the , with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, hath his servant . And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of for them: he clave also, and the waters gushed out. There is no peace, saith , unto .
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