King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 51
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Thus saith ; Behold, I will raise up against , and against them that in the midst of them that rise up against me, a destroying wind; And will send unto fanners, that shall fan her, and shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about. Against him that bendeth let the archer bend his bow, and against him that lifteth himself up in his brigandine: and spare ye not her young men; destroy ye utterly all her host. Thus the slain shall fall in the land of the , and they that are thrust through in her streets. For Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of his , of of hosts; though their land was filled with against the One of Israel. Flee out of the midst of , and every man his : be not in her ; for this is the time of ’s ; he will render unto her a recompence. hath been a golden in ’s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her ; therefore the nations are mad. is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed. We would have healed , but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her reacheth unto , and is lifted up even to the skies. hath brought forth our : come, and let us declare in the work of our . Make bright the arrows; gather the shields: hath up of the kings of the : for his device is against , to destroy it; because it is the of , the of his temple. Set up the standard upon the walls of , make the watch strong, set up the watchmen, prepare the ambushes: for hath both devised and done that which he spake against the inhabitants of . O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in , thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness. of hosts hath by himself, saying, Surely I will fill thee with men, as with caterpillers; and they shall lift up a shout against thee. He hath made the earth by his , he hath established the world by his , and hath stretched out the by his understanding. When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in ; and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth: he maketh lightnings with , and bringeth forth the wind out of his . Every man is brutish by his knowledge; every founder is confounded by the graven : for his molten is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. They are , the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall . The of is not like them; for he is the former of all things: and Israel is the of his : of hosts is his name. Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms; And with thee will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with thee will I break in pieces the chariot and his rider; With thee also will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in pieces old and young; and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the maid; I will also break in pieces with thee the and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his of oxen; and with thee will I break in pieces captains and . And I will render unto and to all the inhabitants of all their evil that they have done in in your sight, saith . Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith , which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain. And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith . Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of , Minni, and Ashchenaz; appoint a captain against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough caterpillers. Prepare against her the nations with the kings of the , the captains thereof, and all the thereof, and all the land of his . And the land shall tremble and sorrow: for every purpose of shall be performed against , to make the land of a desolation without an inhabitant. The of have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwellingplaces; her bars are broken. One post shall run to meet another, and one to meet another, to shew the king of that his city is taken at one end, And that the passages are stopped, and the reeds they have burned with , and the men of war are affrighted. For thus saith of hosts, the of Israel; The daughter of is like a threshingfloor, it is time to thresh her: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come. Nebuchadrezzar the king of hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty , he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out. The done to me and to my be upon , shall the inhabitant of say; and my upon the inhabitants of , shall say. Therefore thus saith ; Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry. And shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant. They shall roar together like lions: they shall yell as lions’ whelps. In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith . I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he goats. How is Sheshach taken! and how is the of the whole earth surprised! how is become an astonishment among the nations! The sea is come up upon : she is covered with of the waves thereof. Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a , a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any pass thereby. And I will punish in , and I will bring forth out of his that which he hath swallowed up: and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him: yea, the wall of shall fall. My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and ye every man his from the of . And lest faint, and ye fear for the rumour that shall be heard in the land; a rumour shall both come one year, and after that in another year shall come a rumour, and in the land, ruler against ruler. Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will do upon the graven of : and her whole land shall be confounded, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her. Then the and the earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for : for the spoilers shall come unto her from the north, saith . As hath caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at shall fall the slain of all the earth. Ye that have escaped , go away, stand not still: remember afar off, and let come into . We are confounded, because we have heard : hath covered our faces: for strangers are come into the sanctuaries of ’s house. Wherefore, behold, the days come, saith , that I will do upon her graven : and through all her land the wounded shall groan. Though should mount up to , and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith . A sound of a cry cometh from , and great from the land of the : Because hath spoiled , and destroyed out of her the great voice; when her waves do roar like great waters, a noise of their voice is uttered: Because the spoiler is come upon her, even upon , and her are taken, every one of their bows is broken: for of recompences shall surely requite. And I will make drunk her princes, and her men, her captains, and her , and her : and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is of hosts. Thus saith of hosts; The broad walls of shall be utterly broken, and her high shall be burned with ; and the people shall labour in , and the folk in the , and they shall be weary. The word which the commanded the son of , the son of , when he went with the king of Judah into in the fourth year of his reign. And this was a quiet prince. So wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon , even all these words that are written against . And said to , When thou comest to , and shalt see, and shalt read all these words; Then shalt thou say, O , thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever. And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of : And thou shalt say, Thus shall sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of .
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