King James Version · Under Assyria
Isaiah 8
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
Moreover said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Maher–shalal–hash–baz. And I took unto me to record, the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. And I went unto the ; and she conceived, and a son. Then said to me, Call his name Maher–shalal–hash–baz. For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, , and my mother, the riches of and the spoil of shall be taken away before the king of . spake also unto me again, saying, Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and ’s son; Now therefore, behold, bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of , and all his : and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks: And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel. Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for is with us. For spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in of this people, saying, Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of . And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. Bind up the , seal among my . And I will wait upon , that hideth from the house of , and I will look for him. Behold, I and the children whom hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from of hosts, which dwelleth in mount . And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their ? for the living to ? To and to the : if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no in them. And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and their king and their , and look upward. And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and , dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to .
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 · 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