World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 39
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In the ninth year of king of Judah, in the tenth month, king of and all his army came against , and besieged it. In the eleventh year of , in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city. All the princes of the king of came in, and sat in the middle : , Samgarnebo, Sarsechim the , the Rabmag, with all the rest of the princes of the king of . When the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled and went out of the city by night, by of the king's garden, through the between the two walls; and he went out toward the . But the army of the pursued them, and overtook in the plains of . When they had taken him, they brought him up to king of to in the land of ; and he pronounced on him. Then the king of killed sons in before his eyes. The king of also killed all the nobles of Judah. Moreover he put out eyes and bound him in fetters, to carry him to . The burned the king's house and the people's houses with and broke down the walls of . Then the captain of the guard into the rest of the people who remained in the city, the deserters also who fell away to him, and the rest of the people who remained. But the captain of the guard left of of the people, who had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time. Now king of commanded the captain of the guard concerning , saying, "Take him and take care of him. Do him no harm; but do to him even as he tells you." So the captain of the guard, Nebushazban, , and , Rabmag, and all the chief officers of the king of sent and took out of the court of the guard, and committed him to the son of , the son of , that he should bring him home. So he lived among the people. Now word came to while he was shut up in the court of the guard, saying, "Go, and speak to Ebedmelech the , saying, ' of Armies, the of Israel, says: "Behold, I will bring my words on this city for evil, and not for good; and they will be accomplished before you in that day. But I will you in that day," ; "and you will not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid. For I will surely you. You won't fall , but you will escape with your life, because you have put your in me," .'"
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