King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Isaiah 51
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to me, ye that follow after , ye that seek : look unto whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of whence ye are digged. Look unto your , and unto that you: for I called him alone, and him, and increased him. For shall comfort : he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her like , and her like the garden of ; joy and gladness shall be found therein, , and the voice of melody. unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my to rest for a of the people. My is near; my is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they . Lift up your eyes to , and look upon the earth beneath: for shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that therein shall in like manner: but my shall be for ever, and my shall not be abolished. unto me, ye that know , the people in whose is ; fear ye not the of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my shall be for ever, and my from generation to generation. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of ; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut , and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over? Therefore the of shall return, and come with singing unto ; and joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and shall flee away. I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall , and of which shall be made as grass; And forgettest thy maker, that hath stretched forth , and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor? The hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not in , nor that his bread should fail. But I am thy , that divided the sea, whose waves roared: of hosts is his name. And I have put my words in thy , and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant , and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto , Thou art my people. Awake, awake, stand up, O , which hast drunk at the hand of of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of of trembling, and wrung them out. There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up. These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and , and the , and : by whom shall I comfort thee? Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of , the rebuke of thy . Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with : Thus saith thy , and thy that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand of trembling, even the dregs of of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy , , that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.
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