King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 9
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Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Oh that I had in a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all , an of treacherous men. And they bend their like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith . Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders. And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit . Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith . Therefore thus saith of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people? Their is as an arrow shot out; it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his , but in he layeth his wait. Shall I not visit them for these things? saith : shall not be on such a nation as this? For the mountains will I take up a weeping and , and for the habitations of a , because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of and are fled; they are gone. And I will make heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant. Who is man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth and is burned up like a , that none passeth through? And saith, Because they have forsaken which I set before them, and have not , neither walked therein; But have walked after the imagination of their own , and after , which their fathers taught them: Therefore thus saith of hosts, the of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a after them, till I have consumed them. Thus saith of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may come: And let them make haste, and take up a for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters. For a voice of is heard out of , How are we spoiled! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out. Yet hear the word of , O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his , and teach your daughters , and every one her neighbour . For is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to the children from without, and the young men from the streets. Speak, Thus saith , Even the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather them. Thus saith , Let not man in his , neither let the mighty man in his might, let not the rich man in his riches: But let him that glorieth in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am which exercise , , and , in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith . Behold, the days come, saith , that I will punish all them which are with the ; , and Judah, and , and , and , and all that are in the utmost corners, that in : for all these nations are , and all the are in .
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