King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 33
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Moreover unto the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying, Thus saith the maker thereof, that formed it, to establish it; is his name; Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. For thus saith , the of Israel, concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are thrown down by the mounts, and ; They come to fight with the , but it is to fill them with bodies of men, whom I have slain in mine and in my fury, and for all whose wickedness I have hid from this city. Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will unto them the abundance of peace and truth. And I will cause of Judah and of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first. And I will cleanse them from all their , whereby they have against me; and I will pardon all their , whereby they have , and whereby they have transgressed against me. And it shall be to me a name of joy, a and an before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them: and they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it. Thus saith ; Again there shall be heard in this place, which ye say shall be desolate without man and without beast, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of , that are desolate, without man, and without inhabitant, and without beast, The voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the , and the voice of the , the voice of them that shall say, of hosts: for is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: and of them that shall bring the of into the . For I will cause to return of the land, as at the first, saith . Thus saith of hosts; Again in this place, which is desolate without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, shall be an habitation of causing their flocks to lie down. In the cities of the mountains, in the cities of the vale, and in the cities of the south, and in the land of , and in the places about , and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks pass again under the hands of him that telleth them, saith . Behold, the days come, saith , that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the and to the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of to grow up unto ; and he shall execute and in the land. In those days shall Judah be , and shall safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, our . For thus saith ; shall never want a man to sit upon of the ; Neither shall the priests the want a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat , and to do continually. 19And unto , saying, Thus saith ; If ye can break my of the day, and my of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; Then may also my be broken with my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his ; and with the the priests, my ministers. As cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the of my servant, and the that minister unto me. 23Moreover to , saying, Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which hath chosen, he hath even cast them off? thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Thus saith ; If my be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of and earth; Then will I cast away the of , and my servant, so that I will not take any of to be over the of , , and : for I will cause their to return, and have mercy on them.
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