King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Isaiah 49
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Listen, O isles, unto me; and , ye people, from far; hath called me from the ; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. And he hath made my like a sharp ; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me; And said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. Then I said, I have laboured in , I have spent my strength for nought, and in : yet surely my is with , and my work with my . And now, saith that formed me from the to be his servant, to bring again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be in the eyes of , and my shall be my strength. And he said, It is a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of , and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a to the , that thou mayest be my unto the end of the earth. Thus saith , the of Israel, and his One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a , Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall , because of that is , and the One of Israel, and he shall choose thee. Thus saith , In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to the desolate heritages; That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are , Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all . They shall not nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them. And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted. Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim. Sing, O ; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. But said, hath forsaken me, and my hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have on the son of her ? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. Thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee. Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith , thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a doeth. For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy , shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may . Then shalt thou say in thine , Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a , and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been? Thus saith , Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the , and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall to thee with their toward the earth, and lick up of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am : for they shall not be that wait for me. Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful ? But thus saith , Even the of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be : for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will thy children. And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own ; and they shall be drunken with their own , as with sweet : and shall know that I am thy and thy , the mighty One of .
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