World English Bible · Under Assyria
Isaiah 7
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In the days of the son of , the son of , king of Judah, Rezin the king of and the son of , king of Israel, went up to to war against it, but could not prevail against it. house was told, " is allied with ." trembled, and of his people, as the trees of the forest tremble with the wind. Then said to , "Go out now to meet , you, and Shearjashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway of the fuller's field. Tell him, 'Be careful, and keep calm. Don't be afraid, neither let be faint because of these two tails of smoking torches, for the of Rezin and , and of the son of . Because , , and the son of , have plotted evil against you, saying, 6"Let's go up against Judah, and tear it apart, and let's divide it among ourselves, and set up a king within it, even the son of ." This is what says: "It shall not stand, neither shall it happen." For the head of is , and the head of is Rezin. Within sixty-five years shall be broken in pieces, so that it shall not be a people. The head of is , and the head of is son. If you will not , surely you shall not be established.'" spoke again to , saying, "Ask a sign of your ; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above." But said, "I won't ask. I won't ." He said, "Listen now, house of . Is it not enough for you to try the of men, that you will try the of my also? Therefore himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat butter and honey when he knows to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you abhor shall be forsaken. will bring on you, on your people, and on your house days that have not come, from the day that departed from Judah, even the king of . It will happen in that day that will whistle for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of , and for the bee that is in the land of . They shall come, and shall all rest in the desolate valleys, in the clefts of the rocks, on all hedges, and on all pastures. In that day will shave with a razor that is hired in the parts beyond , even with the king of , the head and the hair of the feet; and it shall also consume the beard. It shall happen in that day that a man shall keep alive a young cow, and two sheep. It shall happen, that because of the abundance of milk which they shall give he shall eat butter, for everyone will eat butter and honey that is left within the land. It will happen in that day that every place where there were a thousand worth a thousand silver , will be for and . People will go there with arrows and with bow, because all the land will be and . All the hills that were cultivated with the hoe, you shall not come there for fear of and ; but it shall be for the sending out of oxen, and for sheep to tread on."
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Under Assyria, 745 BC to 612 BC ›
Assyria at full stretch, deporting whole populations as policy. The northern kingdom is destroyed in 722 BC and Judah survives as a tribute-paying vassal.
- Assyria
- The first empire to run mass deportation as ordinary administration: move the leadership somewhere else, settle strangers in their place, and the province stops being a nation. It worked. Samaria fell in 722 BC and the northern tribes did not come back. Assyria also advertised its cruelty deliberately, carving flayings and impalements on palace walls where envoys would see them, because terror is cheaper than garrisons.
- Judah
- Survives by paying. Hezekiah rebels, Sennacherib takes forty-six Judean towns and besieges Jerusalem in 701 BC, and the city holds. The Assyrian account boasts of shutting Hezekiah up like a bird in a cage and pointedly does not claim to have taken the city, which is one of the more interesting silences in ancient records.
- Egypt
- The splintered reed of a staff that Assyria's field commander mocks Judah for leaning on. It promises help and cannot deliver, and Isaiah spends decades saying so. Assyria eventually invades and sacks Thebes.
- Further afield
- Greece is in its archaic period, founding colonies from Spain to the Black Sea. Rome is under kings. Assyria's own libraries are collecting the literature of Mesopotamia, which is how Gilgamesh survived to be read again in the nineteenth century.
All of Isaiah