King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 22
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Thus saith ; Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word, And say, Hear the word of , O king of Judah, that sittest upon of , thou, and thy servants, and thy people that enter in by these : Thus saith ; Execute ye and , and the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no to the , , nor the , neither in this place. For if ye do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the of this house kings sitting upon of , riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people. But if ye will not hear these words, I by myself, saith , that this house shall become a desolation. For thus saith unto the king’s house of Judah; Thou art unto me, and the head of : yet surely I will make thee a , and cities which are not inhabited. And I will prepare destroyers against thee, every one with his weapons: and they shall cut down thy choice cedars, and cast them into the . And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbour, Wherefore hath done thus unto this great city? Then they shall answer, Because they have forsaken of their , and other gods, and them. Weep ye not for , neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native country. For thus saith touching Shallum the son of king of Judah, which reigned instead of his , which went forth out of this place; He shall not return thither any more: But he shall in the place whither they have led him , and shall see this land no more. Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour’s without wages, and giveth him not for his work; That saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is cieled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar? did not thy eat and drink, and do and justice, and then it was well with him? He judged the cause of and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith . But thine eyes and thine are not but for thy covetousness, and for to , and for , and for , to do it. Therefore thus saith concerning the son of king of Judah; They shall not for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they shall not for him, saying, Ah ! or, Ah his ! He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the of . Go up to , and cry; and lift up thy voice in , and cry from the passages: for all thy lovers are destroyed. I spake unto thee in thy prosperity; but thou saidst, I will not hear. This hath been thy manner from thy youth, that thou obeyedst not my voice. The wind shall eat up all thy pastors, and thy lovers shall go into : surely then shalt thou be and confounded for all thy wickedness. O inhabitant of , that makest thy nest in the cedars, how shalt thou be when pangs come upon thee, the pain as of a woman in travail! As I live, saith , though the son of king of Judah were the signet upon my , yet would I pluck thee thence; And I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose thou fearest, even into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of , and into the hand of the . And I will cast thee out, and thy mother that thee, into another country, where ye were not born; and there shall ye . But to the land whereunto they to return, thither shall they not return. Is this man a despised broken idol? is he a wherein is no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, he and , and are cast into a land which they know not? O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of . Thus saith , Write ye this man , a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of shall prosper, sitting upon of , and ruling any more in Judah.
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