World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Isaiah 56
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says: "Maintain and do what is right, for my is near and my will soon be . is the man who does this, and who holds it ; who keeps the without profaning it and keeps his hand from doing any evil." Let no who has joined himself to speak, saying, " will surely separate me from his people." Do not let say, "Behold, I am a dry tree." For says, "To the who keep my , choose the things that please me, and hold to my , I will give them in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than of sons and of daughters. I will give them an name that will not . Also the who join themselves to to him, and to love name, to be his servants, everyone who keeps the from profaning it, and holds my , I will bring these to my mountain, and make them joyful in my house of . Their burnt offerings and their will be accepted on my ; for my house will be called a house of for all peoples." , who gathers the outcasts of Israel, says, "I will yet gather others to him, in addition to his own who are gathered." All you animals of the field, come to devour, all you animals in the forest. His watchmen are blind. They are all without knowledge. They are all mute dogs. They can't bark— dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. Yes, the dogs are greedy. They can never have enough. They are who can't understand. They have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter. "Come," they say, "I will get , and we will fill ourselves with ; and tomorrow will be as today, great beyond measure."
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