King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 21
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The word which came unto from , when king sent unto him Pashur the son of Melchiah, and the son of the priest, saying, Enquire, I thee, of for us; for Nebuchadrezzar king of maketh war against us; if so be that will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may go up from us. 3Then said unto them, Thus shall ye say to : Thus saith of Israel; Behold, I will the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of , and against the , which besiege you without the walls, and I will assemble them into the midst of this city. And I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in , and in fury, and in great . And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall of a great pestilence. And afterward, saith , I will king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from , and from the , into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of , and into the hand of their , and into the hand of those that seek their life: and he shall smite them with the edge of ; he shall not spare them, neither have , nor have mercy. And unto this people thou shalt say, Thus saith ; Behold, I set before you of life, and of . He that abideth in this city shall , and by the , and by the pestilence: but he that goeth out, and falleth to the that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey. For I have set against this city for evil, and not for good, saith : it shall be given into the hand of the king of , and he shall burn it with . And touching the house of the king of Judah, say, Hear ye the word of ; O house of , thus saith ; Execute in the morning, and him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go out like , and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings. Behold, I am against thee, O inhabitant of the valley, and of the plain, saith ; which say, Who shall come down against us? or who shall enter into our habitations? But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, saith : and I will kindle a in the forest thereof, and it shall devour all things round about it.
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 Jeremiah