King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 6
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O ye children of , gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of , and blow the in Tekoa, and set up a sign of in Beth–haccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north, and great . I have likened the daughter of to a comely and delicate woman. The with their flocks shall come unto her; they shall pitch their tents against her round about; they shall feed every one in his place. Prepare ye war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe unto us! for the day goeth away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out. Arise, and let us go by night, and let us destroy her palaces. For thus hath of hosts said, Hew ye down trees, and cast a mount against : this is the city to be visited; she is wholly in the midst of her. As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness: and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds. Be thou instructed, O , lest depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited. Thus saith of hosts, They shall throughly of Israel as a : thine hand as a grapegatherer into the baskets. To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is , and they cannot : behold, the word of is unto them a ; they have no delight in it. Therefore I am full of the fury of ; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days. And their houses shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith . For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they when they had committed ? nay, they were not at all , neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith . Thus saith , Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old , where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your . But they said, We will not walk therein. Also I set watchmen over you, saying, to the sound of the . But they said, We will not . Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O , what is among them. Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their , because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to , but rejected it. To what purpose cometh there to me from , and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sweet unto me. Therefore thus saith , Behold, I will lay stumblingblocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall fall upon them; the neighbour and his friend shall . Thus saith , Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be from the sides of the earth. They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against thee, O daughter of . We have heard the fame thereof: our hands wax feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in travail. Go not forth into the field, nor walk by ; for of and fear is on every side. O daughter of my people, gird thee with , and wallow thyself in : make thee , as for an only son, most bitter : for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us. I have set thee for a tower and a among my people, that thou mayest know and try their way. They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are brass and iron; they are all corrupters. The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the ; the founder melteth in : for are not plucked away. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because hath rejected them.
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