World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Isaiah 61
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is on me, because has me to preach to the humble. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim to the and to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of and the day of of our , to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in , to give to them a garland for , the oil of joy for , the garment of for of heaviness, that they may be called trees of , the planting of , that he may be glorified. They will rebuild the old ruins. They will raise up the former devastated places. They will repair the ruined cities that have been devastated for many generations. Strangers will stand and feed your flocks. will work your fields and your vineyards. But you will be called priests. Men will call you the servants of our . You will eat the wealth of the nations. You will boast in their . Instead of your you will have double. Instead of dishonor, they will rejoice in their . Therefore in their land they will possess double. joy will be to them. "For I, , love . I hate robbery and . I will give them their reward in truth and I will make an with them. Their will be known among the nations, and their among the peoples. All who see them will them, that they are the which has ." I will greatly rejoice in ! will be joyful in my , for he has clothed me with the garments of . He has covered me with the robe of , as a decks himself with a garland and as a adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth produces its bud, and as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring up, so will cause and to spring up before all the nations.
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