World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Isaiah 52
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Awake, awake! Put on your strength, . Put on your beautiful garments, , the city, for from now on the and the will no more come into you. Shake yourself from ! Arise, sit up, ! yourself from the bonds of your neck, daughter of ! For says, "You were sold for nothing; and you will be without money." For says: "My people went down at the first into to live there; and the has oppressed them without cause. "Now therefore, what do I do here," , "seeing that my people are taken away for nothing? Those who them mock," , "and my name is blasphemed continually all day long. Therefore my people shall know my name. Therefore they shall know in that day that I am he who speaks. Behold, it is I." How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings , who publishes peace, who brings , who proclaims , who says to , "Your reigns!" Your watchmen lift up their voice. Together they sing; for they shall see eye to eye when returns to . Break out into joy! Sing together, you waste places of ; for has comforted his people. He has . has made his arm in the eyes of all the nations. All the ends of the earth have seen the of our . Depart! Depart! Go out from there! Touch no thing! Go out from among her! Cleanse yourselves, you who carry vessels. For you shall not go out in haste, neither shall you go by flight; for will go before you, and the of Israel will be your rear guard. Behold, my servant will deal wisely. He will be exalted and lifted up, and will be very high. as many were astonished at you— his appearance was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men— so he will cleanse many nations. Kings will shut their mouths at him; for they will see that which had not been told them, and they will understand that which they had not heard.
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