King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 35
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The word which came unto from in the days of the son of king of Judah, saying, Go unto the house of the , and speak unto them, and bring them into the , into one of the chambers, and give them to drink. 3Then I took the son of , the son of Habaziniah, and his brethren, and all his sons, and the whole house of the ; And I brought them into the , into the chamber of the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah, a , which was by the chamber of the princes, which was above the chamber of the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door: And I set before the sons of the house of the pots full of , and , and I said unto them, Drink ye . But they said, We will drink no : for the son of commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no , neither ye, nor your sons for ever: Neither shall ye build house, nor sow , nor plant , nor have any: but all your days ye shall in tents; that ye may live many days in the land where ye be strangers. Thus have we the voice of the son of in all that he hath charged us, to drink no all our days, we, our wives, our sons, nor our daughters; Nor to build houses for us to in: neither have we , nor field, nor : 10But we have dwelt in tents, and have , and done according to all that commanded us. But it came to pass, when Nebuchadrezzar king of came up into the land, that we said, Come, and let us go to for fear of the army of the , and for fear of the army of : so we at . 12Then came the word of unto , saying, Thus saith of hosts, the of Israel; Go and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of , Will ye not receive to to my words? saith . The words of the son of , that he commanded his sons not to drink , are performed; for unto this day they drink none, but their ’s : notwithstanding I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking; but ye hearkened not unto me. I have sent also unto you all my servants , rising up early and sending them, saying, Return ye now every man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and go not after other gods to them, and ye shall in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers: but ye have not inclined your ear, nor hearkened unto me. Because the sons of the son of have performed the of their , which he commanded them; but this people hath not hearkened unto me: Therefore thus saith of hosts, the of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon Judah and upon all the inhabitants of all the evil that I have pronounced against them: because I have spoken unto them, but they have not heard; and I have called unto them, but they have not answered. And said unto the house of the , Thus saith of hosts, the of Israel; Because ye have the of your , and kept all his precepts, and done according unto all that he hath commanded you: Therefore thus saith of hosts, the of Israel; the son of shall not want a man to stand before me for ever.
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