King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 36
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And it came to pass in the fourth year of the son of king of Judah, that this word came unto from , saying, Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of , even unto this day. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their and their . Then called the son of : and wrote from the of all the words of , which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book. And commanded , saying, I am shut up; I cannot go into the : Therefore go thou, and read in the roll, which thou hast written from my , the words of in the ears of the people in ’s house upon the day: and also thou shalt read them in the ears of all Judah that come out of their cities. It may be they will present their before , and will return every one from his evil way: for great is the and the fury that hath pronounced against this people. And the son of did according to all that the commanded him, reading in the book the words of in ’s house. And it came to pass in the fifth year of the son of king of Judah, in the ninth month, that they proclaimed a before to all the people in , and to all the people that came from the cities of Judah unto . Then read in the book the words of in the , in the chamber of Gemariah the son of the , in the higher court, at the entry of the new of ’s house, in the ears of all the people. When Michaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of , had heard out of the book all the words of , Then he went down into the king’s house, into the ’s chamber: and, lo, all the princes sat there, even Elishama the , and Delaiah the son of Shemaiah, and the son of , and Gemariah the son of , and the son of , and all the princes. Then Michaiah declared unto them all the words that he had heard, when read the book in the ears of the people. Therefore all the princes sent the son of , the son of , the son of Cushi, unto , saying, Take in thine hand the roll wherein thou hast read in the ears of the people, and come. So the son of took the roll in his hand, and came unto them. 15And they said unto him, Sit down now, and read it in our ears. So read it in their ears. Now it came to pass, when they had heard all the words, they were afraid both one and other, and said unto , We will surely tell the king of all these words. And they asked , saying, Tell us now, How didst thou write all these words at his ? Then answered them, He pronounced all these words unto me with his , and I wrote them with ink in the book. Then said the princes unto , Go, hide thee, thou and ; and let no man know where ye be. And they went in to the king into the court, but they laid up the roll in the chamber of Elishama the , and told all the words in the ears of the king. So the king sent to fetch the roll: and he took it out of Elishama the ’s chamber. And read it in the ears of the king, and in the ears of all the princes which stood beside the king. Now the king sat in the winterhouse in the ninth month: and there was a on the hearth burning before him. And it came to pass, that when had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the that was on the hearth. Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words. Nevertheless and Delaiah and Gemariah had made intercession to the king that he would not burn the roll: but he would not hear them. But the king commanded Jerahmeel the son of Hammelech, and the son of , and the son of Abdeel, to take the and the : but hid them. Then to , after that the king had burned the roll, and the words which wrote at the of , saying, Take thee again another roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll, which the king of Judah hath burned. And thou shalt say to king of Judah, Thus saith ; Thou hast burned this roll, saying, Why hast thou written therein, saying, The king of shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from thence man and beast? Therefore thus saith of king of Judah; He shall have none to sit upon of : and his body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. And I will punish him and and his servants for their ; and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of , and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them; but they hearkened not. Then took another roll, and gave it to the , the son of ; who wrote therein from the of all the words of the book which king of Judah had burned in the : and there were added besides unto them many like words.
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