King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 27
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of the reign of the son of king of Judah came this word unto from , saying, Thus saith to me; Make thee bonds and , and put them upon thy neck, And send them to the king of , and to the king of , and to the king of , and to the king of , and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the which come to unto king of Judah; And command them to say unto their masters, Thus saith of hosts, the of Israel; Thus shall ye say unto your masters; I have made the earth, the man and that are upon the ground, by my great and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me. And now have I given all these lands into the hand of the king of , my servant; and the of the field have I given him also to him. And all nations shall him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the very time of his land come: and then many nations and great kings shall themselves of him. And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not the same the king of , and that will not put their neck under the of the king of , that nation will I punish, saith , with , and with the , and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. Therefore not ye to your , nor to your , nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not the king of : For they a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; and that I should drive you out, and ye should . But the nations that bring their neck under the of the king of , and him, those will I let still in their own land, saith ; and they shall till it, and therein. I spake also to king of Judah according to all these words, saying, Bring your necks under the of the king of , and him and his people, and live. Why will ye , thou and thy people, , by the , and by the pestilence, as hath spoken against the nation that will not the king of ? Therefore not unto the words of that speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not the king of : for they a lie unto you. For I have not sent them, saith , yet they a lie in my name; that I might drive you out, and that ye might , ye, and that unto you. Also I spake to the priests and to all this people, saying, Thus saith ; not to the words of your that unto you, saying, Behold, the vessels of ’s house shall now shortly be brought again from : for they a lie unto you. not unto them; the king of , and live: wherefore should this city be laid waste? But if they be , and if the word of be with them, let them now make intercession to of hosts, that the vessels which are left in the , and in the house of the king of Judah, and at , go not to . For thus saith of hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the residue of the vessels that in this city, Which king of took not, when he the son of king of Judah from to , and all the nobles of Judah and ; 21Yea, thus saith of hosts, the of Israel, concerning the vessels that in the , and in the house of the king of Judah and of ; They shall be carried to , and there shall they be until the day that I visit them, saith ; then will I bring them up, and restore them to this place.
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