World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 37
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the son of reigned as king instead of the son of , whom king of made king in the land of Judah. But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, listened to words, which he spoke by the . the king sent the son of and the son of , the priest, to the , saying, " now to our for us." Now came in and went out among the people, for they had not put him into prison. army had come out of ; and when the who were besieging heard news of them, they withdrew from . 6Then word came to the , saying, ", the of Israel, says, 'You shall tell the king of Judah, who sent you to me to inquire of me: "Behold, army, which has come out to help you, will return to into their own land. The will come again, and fight against this city. They will take it and burn it with ."' " says, 'Don't deceive yourselves, saying, "The will surely depart from us;" for they will not depart. For though you had struck the whole army of the who fight against you, and only wounded men remained among them, they would each rise up in his tent and burn this city with .'" When the army of the had withdrawn from for fear of army, then went out of to go into the land of , to receive his there, in the middle of the people. When he was in , a captain of the guard was there, whose name was , the son of , the son of ; and he seized the , saying, "You are defecting to the !" Then said, "That is false! I am not defecting to the ." But he didn't listen to him; so seized , and brought him to the princes. The princes were angry with , and struck him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the ; for they had made that the prison. When had come into the dungeon house and into the cells, and had remained there many days, then the king sent and had him brought out. The king asked him secretly in his house, "Is there any word from ?" said, "There is." He also said, "You will be into the hand of the king of ." Moreover said to King , "How have I against you, against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me in prison? Now where are your who prophesied to you, saying, 'The king of will not come against you, nor against this land'? Now please hear, my the king: please let my be presented before you, that you not cause me to return to the house of Jonathan the , lest I there." Then the king commanded, and they committed into the court of the guard. They gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers' street, until all the bread in the city was gone. Thus remained in the court of the guard.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. 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