King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 34
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
The word which came unto from , when king of , and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth of his , and all the people, fought against , and against all the cities thereof, saying, Thus saith , the of Israel; Go and speak to king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith ; Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of , and he shall burn it with : And thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken, and into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of , and he shall speak with thee to , and thou shalt go to . 4Yet hear the word of , O king of Judah; Thus saith of thee, Thou shalt not : But thou shalt in peace: and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings which were before thee, so shall they burn odours for thee; and they will thee, saying, Ah ! for I have pronounced the word, saith . Then the spake all these words unto king of Judah in , When the king of ’s army fought against , and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against , and against : for these defenced cities remained of the cities of Judah. This is the word that came unto from , after that the king had made a with all the people which were at , to proclaim unto them; That every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being an or an Hebrewess, go free; that none should himself of them, to wit, of a his brother. Now when all the princes, and all the people, which had entered into , heard that every one should let his manservant, and every one his maidservant, go free, that none should themselves of them any more, then they , and let them go. But afterward they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids. 12Therefore to from , saying, Thus saith , the of Israel; I made a with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of , out of the house of bondmen, saying, At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an , which hath been sold unto thee; and when he hath thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee: but your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear. And ye were now turned, and had done right in my sight, in proclaiming every man to his neighbour; and ye had made a before me in the house which is called by my name: But ye turned and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom ye had at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids. Therefore thus saith ; Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming , every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbour: behold, I proclaim a for you, saith , to , to the pestilence, and to the ; and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. And I will give the men that have transgressed my , which have not performed the words of which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof, The princes of Judah, and the princes of , the , and the priests, and all the people of the land, which passed between the parts of the calf; I will even give them into the hand of their , and into the hand of them that seek their life: and their bodies shall be for meat unto the fowls of the , and to the of the earth. And king of Judah and his princes will I give into the hand of their , and into the hand of them that seek their life, and into the hand of the king of ’s army, which are gone up from you. Behold, I will command, saith , and cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with : and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without an inhabitant.
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