World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Isaiah 57
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, and no one lays it to . Merciful men are taken away, and no one considers that is taken away from the evil. He enters into peace. They rest in their beds, each one who walks in his uprightness. "But draw near here, you sons of a sorceress, you of and . Whom do you mock? Against whom do you make a wide and stick out your ? Aren't you children of and of falsehood, you who inflame yourselves among the oaks, ; who kill the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks? Among the smooth stones of the valley is your . They, they are your lot. You have even poured a drink to them. You have offered an . Shall I be appeased for these things? On a high and lofty mountain you have set your bed. You also went up there to offer . You have set up your memorial behind the doors and the posts, for you have exposed yourself to someone besides me, and have gone up. You have enlarged your bed and made a for yourself with them. You loved what you saw on their bed. You went to the king with oil, increased your perfumes, sent your ambassadors far off, and degraded yourself even to . You were wearied with the length of your ways; yet you didn't say, 'It is in .' You found a reviving of your strength; therefore you weren't faint. "Whom have you dreaded and feared, so that you lie, and have not remembered me, nor laid it to ? Haven't I held my peace for a long time, and you don't fear me? I will declare your ; and as for your works, they will not benefit you. When you cry, let those whom you have gathered you, but the wind will take them. A breath will carry them all away, but he who takes refuge in me will possess the land, and will my mountain." He will say, "Build up, build up, prepare ! Remove the stumbling-block out of of my people." For the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is , says: "I in the high and place, with him also who is of a contrite and humble , to revive of the humble, and to revive of the contrite. For I will not contend , neither will I always be angry; for would faint before me, and the whom I have made. I was angry because of the of his covetousness and struck him. I hid myself and was angry; and he went on backsliding in of . I have seen his ways, and will heal him. I will lead him also, and restore comforts to him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of : Peace, peace, to him who is far off and to him who is near," ; "and I will heal them." But are like the troubled sea; for it can't rest and its waters cast up mire and mud. "There is no peace", says my , "for ."
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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