World English Bible · Under Assyria
Isaiah 8
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said to me, "Take a large tablet, and write on it with a man's pen, 'For Maher Shalal Hash Baz'; and I will take for myself to testify: the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah." I went to the , and she conceived, and bore a son. Then said to me, "Call his name 'Maher Shalal Hash Baz.' For before the child knows how to say, '' and 'My mother,' the riches of and the plunder of will be by the king of ." spoke to me yet again, saying, "Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and son; now therefore, behold, brings upon them the mighty flood waters of : the king of and all his . It will come up over all its channels, and go over all its banks. It will sweep onward into Judah. It will overflow and pass through. It will reach even to the neck. The stretching out of its will fill the width of your land, O Immanuel. Make an uproar, you peoples, and be broken in pieces! Listen, all you from far countries: dress for battle, and be shattered! Dress for battle, and be shattered! Take together, and it will be brought to nothing; speak the word, and it will not stand, for is with us." For spoke this to me with a strong hand, and instructed me not to walk in of this people, saying, "Don't call a conspiracy all that this people call a conspiracy. Don't fear their threats or be terrorized. of Armies is who you must respect as . He is the one you must fear. He is the one you must dread. He will be a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel, he will be a stumbling stone and a that makes them fall. For the people of , he will be a trap and a snare. Many will stumble over it, fall, be broken, be snared, and be captured." Wrap up . Seal among my . I will , who hides from the house of , and I will look for him. Behold, I and the children whom has given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from of Armies, who dwells in Mount . When they tell you, "Consult with those who have familiar spirits and with the wizards, who chirp and who mutter," shouldn't a people consult with their ? Should they consult on behalf of the living? Turn to and to ! If they don't speak according to this word, surely there is no morning for them. They will pass through it, very distressed and hungry. It will happen that when they are hungry, they will worry, and their king and their . They will turn their faces upward, then look to the earth and see distress, , and the gloom of anguish. They will be driven into thick .
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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