World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Isaiah 50
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says, "Where is the bill of your mother's , with which I have put her away? Or to which of my creditors have I sold you? Behold, you were sold for your , and your mother was for your . Why, when I came, was there no one? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it can't ? Or have I no to ? Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea. I make the rivers a . Their fish stink because there is no water, and of thirst. I clothe with blackness. I make their covering." has given me of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with words him who is weary. He awakens morning by morning, he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. has opened my ear. I was not rebellious. I have not turned back. I gave my back to those who beat me, and my cheeks to those who plucked off the hair. I didn't hide from and spitting. For will help me. Therefore I have not been confounded. Therefore I have set like a flint, and I know that I won't be disappointed. He who me is near. Who will bring charges against me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, will help me! Who is he who will condemn me? Behold, they will all grow old like a garment. The moths will eat them up. Who among you fears and obeys the voice of his servant? He who walks and has no , let him in name, and rely on his . Behold, all you who kindle a , who adorn yourselves with torches around yourselves, walk in the flame of your , and among the torches that you have kindled. You will have this from my hand: you will lie down in sorrow.
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