King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 52
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was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in . And his mother’s name was the daughter of of . And he did that which was evil in the eyes of , according to all that had done. For through the of it came to pass in and Judah, till he had cast them out from his , that rebelled against the king of . And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadrezzar king of came, he and all his army, against , and pitched against it, and built forts against it round about. 5So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king . And in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the was sore in the city, so that there was for the people of the land. Then the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night by of the between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden; (now the were by the city round about:) and they went by of the plain. But the army of the pursued after the king, and overtook in the plains of ; and all his army was scattered from him. Then they took the king, and carried him up unto the king of to in the land of ; where he gave upon him. And the king of slew the sons of before his eyes: he slew also all the princes of Judah in . Then he put out the eyes of ; and the king of bound him in chains, and carried him to , and put him in prison till the day of his . Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar king of , came Nebuzar–adan, captain of the guard, which the king of , into , And burned the , and the king’s house; and all the houses of , and all the houses of the great men, burned he with : And of the , that were with the captain of the guard, brake down all the walls of round about. Then Nebuzar–adan the captain of the guard certain of of the people, and the residue of the people that remained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to the king of , and the rest of . But Nebuzar–adan the captain of the guard left certain of of the land for vinedressers and for husbandmen. Also the pillars of brass that were in the , and the bases, and the brasen sea that was in the , the brake, and carried all the brass of them to . The caldrons also, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the bowls, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass wherewith they ministered, took they away. And the basons, and the firepans, and the bowls, and the caldrons, and the candlesticks, and the spoons, and the ; that which was of gold in gold, and that which was of silver in silver, took the captain of the guard away. The two pillars, one sea, and twelve brasen bulls that were under the bases, which king had made in the : the brass of all these vessels was without weight. And concerning the pillars, the height of one pillar was eighteen ; and a fillet of twelve did compass it; and the thickness thereof was four fingers: it was hollow. And a chapiter of brass was upon it; and the height of one chapiter was five , with network and pomegranates upon the chapiters round about, all of brass. The second pillar also and the pomegranates were like unto these. And there were ninety and six pomegranates on a side; and all the pomegranates upon the network were an hundred round about. And the captain of the guard took the , and the second priest, and the three keepers of the door: He took also out of the city an , which had the charge of the men of war; and seven men of them that were near the king’s person, which were found in the city; and the principal of the host, who mustered the people of the land; and threescore men of the people of the land, that were found in the midst of the city. 26So Nebuzar–adan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of to . And the king of smote them, and put them to in in the land of . Thus Judah was out of his own land. This is the people whom Nebuchadrezzar : in the seventh year three thousand and three and twenty: In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he from eight hundred thirty and two persons: In the three and twentieth year of Nebuchadrezzar Nebuzar–adan the captain of the guard of the seven hundred forty and five persons: all the persons were four thousand and six hundred. And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of of king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the five and twentieth day of the month, that king of in the first year of his reign lifted up the head of king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison, And spake kindly unto him, and set his above of the kings that were with him in , And changed his prison garments: and he did continually eat bread before him all the days of his life. And for his diet, there was a continual diet given him of the king of , every day a until the day of his , all the days of his life.
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