King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Isaiah 57
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perisheth, and no man layeth it to : and merciful men are taken away, none considering that is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness. But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the of the and the whore. Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide , and draw out ? are ye not children of , a of falsehood, Enflaming yourselves with idols , slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks? Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy ; they, they are thy lot: even to them hast thou poured a drink , thou hast offered a meat . Should I receive comfort in these? Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set thy bed: even thither wentest thou up to offer . Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance: for thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a with them; thou lovedst their bed where thou sawest it. And thou wentest to the king with ointment, and didst increase thy perfumes, and didst send thy far off, and didst debase thyself even unto hell. Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way; yet saidst thou not, There is no : thou hast found the life of thine hand; therefore thou wast not grieved. And of whom hast thou been afraid or feared, that thou hast lied, and hast not remembered me, nor laid it to thy ? have not I held my peace even of old, and thou fearest me not? I will declare thy , and thy works; for they shall not profit thee. When thou criest, let thy companies thee; but the wind shall carry them all away; shall take them: but he that putteth his in me shall possess the land, and shall my mountain; And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare , take up the stumblingblock out of of my people. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is ; I in the high and place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble , to revive of the humble, and to revive of the contrite ones. For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for should fail before me, and the which I have made. For the of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in of . I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of ; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith ; and I will heal him. But are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my , to .
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