King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Isaiah 59
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Behold, ’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot ; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your have separated between you and your , and your have hid from you, that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled with , and your fingers with ; your have spoken lies, your hath muttered perverseness. None calleth for , nor any pleadeth for truth: they in , and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth . They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of , and the act of is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to : their are of ; wasting and are in their . of peace they know not; and there is no in their goings: they have made them crooked : whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. Therefore is far from us, neither doth overtake us: we wait for , but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk . We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as men. We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like : we look for , but there is none; for , but it is far off from us. For our are multiplied before thee, and our testify against us: for our are with us; and as for our , we know them; In transgressing and lying against , and departing away from our , speaking and revolt, conceiving and uttering from words of falsehood. And is turned away backward, and standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and saw it, and it displeased him that there was no . And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought unto him; and his , it sustained him. For he put on as a breastplate, and an helmet of upon his head; and he put on the garments of for clothing, and was clad with as a cloke. According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his , recompence to his ; to the islands he will repay recompence. So shall they fear the name of from the west, and his from the rising of the sun. When shall come in like a flood, of shall lift up a standard against him. And the shall come to , and unto them that turn from in , saith . As for me, this is my with them, saith ; that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy , shall not depart out of thy , nor out of the of thy , nor out of the of thy ’s , saith , from henceforth and for ever.
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