King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Isaiah 63
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
Who is this that cometh from , with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in , mighty to . Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine , and trample them in my fury; and their shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of is in mine , and the year of my is come. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine , and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth. I will mention the lovingkindnesses of , and the of , according to all that hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the , which he hath bestowed on them according to his , and according to of his lovingkindnesses. For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their . In all their affliction he was afflicted, and of his them: in his love and in his he them; and he them, and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled, and vexed his : therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them. Then he remembered the days of old, , and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the of his flock? where is he that put his within him? That led them by of with his arm, dividing the water before them, to make himself an name? That led them through the deep, as an horse in , that they should not stumble? As a beast goeth down into the valley, of caused him to rest: so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a name. Look down from , and behold from the habitation of thy and of thy : where is thy and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy toward me? are they restrained? Doubtless thou art , though be ignorant of us, and Israel us not: thou, O , art , our ; thy name is from . O , why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine . The people of thy have it but a little while: our have trodden down thy sanctuary. We are thine: thou never barest them; they were not called by thy name.
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