King James Version · Under Assyria
Judith 2
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1And in the eighteenth year, the two and twentieth day of the first month, there was talk in the house of king of the that he should, as he said, himself on all the earth. 2So he called unto him all his officers, and all his nobles, and communicated with them his secret , and concluded the afflicting of the whole earth out of his own . 3Then they decreed to destroy , that did not the of his . 4And when he had ended his , king of the called the chief captain of his army, which was next unto him, and said unto him. 5Thus saith the great king, of the whole earth, Behold, thou shalt go forth from my , and take with thee men that in their own strength, of footmen an hundred and twenty thousand; and the number of horses with their riders twelve thousand. 6And thou shalt go against all the west country, because they disobeyed my . 7And thou shalt declare unto that they prepare for me earth and water: for I will go forth in my against them and will cover the whole of the earth with the feet of mine army, and I will give them for a spoil unto them: 8So that their slain shall fill their valleys and brooks and the river shall be filled with their , till it overflow: 9And I will lead them to the utmost parts of all the earth. 10Thou therefore shalt go forth. and take beforehand for me all their coasts: and if they will yield themselves unto thee, thou shalt reserve them for me till the day of their punishment. 11But concerning them that rebel, let not thine eye spare them; but put them to the slaughter, and spoil them wheresoever thou goest. 12For as I live, and by the of my kingdom, whatsoever I have spoken, that will I do by mine hand. 13And take thou heed that thou transgress none of of thy , but accomplish them fully, as I have commanded thee, and defer not to do them. 14Then went forth from the of his , and called all the governors and captains, and the officers of the army of ; 15And he mustered the chosen men for the battle, as his had commanded him, unto an hundred and twenty thousand, and twelve thousand archers on horseback; 16And he ranged them, as a great army is ordered for the war. 17And he took camels and asses for their carriages, a very great number; and sheep and oxen and goats without number for their provision: 18And plenty of victual for every man of the army, and very much gold and silver out of the king’s house. 19Then he went forth and all his to go before king in the voyage, and to cover all the of the earth westward with their chariots, and horsemen, and their chosen footmen. 20A great number also sundry countries came with them like , and like the sand of the earth: for was without number. 21And they went forth of three days’ journey toward the plain of Bectileth, and pitched from Bectileth near the mountain which is at the left hand of the upper . 22Then he took all his army, his footmen, and horsemen and chariots, and went from thence into the hill country; 23And destroyed Phud and , and spoiled all the children of Rasses, and the , which were toward at the south of the land of the Chellians. 24Then he went over , and went through , and destroyed all the high cities that were upon the river Arbonai, till ye come to the sea. 25And he took the borders of , and killed all that resisted him, and came to the borders of , which were toward the south, over against . 26He compassed also all the children of Madian, and burned up their tabernacles, and spoiled their sheepcotes. 27Then he went down into the plain of in the time of wheat harvest, and burnt up all their fields, and destroyed their flocks and herds, also he spoiled their cities, and utterly wasted their countries, and smote all their young men with the edge of . 28Therefore the fear and dread of him fell upon all the inhabitants of the sea coasts, which were in and , and them that dwelt in Sur and Ocina, and all that dwelt in Jemnaan; and they that dwelt in and feared him greatly.
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 · Under Assyria, 745 BC to 612 BC ›
Assyria at full stretch, deporting whole populations as policy. The northern kingdom is destroyed in 722 BC and Judah survives as a tribute-paying vassal.
- Assyria
- The first empire to run mass deportation as ordinary administration: move the leadership somewhere else, settle strangers in their place, and the province stops being a nation. It worked. Samaria fell in 722 BC and the northern tribes did not come back. Assyria also advertised its cruelty deliberately, carving flayings and impalements on palace walls where envoys would see them, because terror is cheaper than garrisons.
- Judah
- Survives by paying. Hezekiah rebels, Sennacherib takes forty-six Judean towns and besieges Jerusalem in 701 BC, and the city holds. The Assyrian account boasts of shutting Hezekiah up like a bird in a cage and pointedly does not claim to have taken the city, which is one of the more interesting silences in ancient records.
- Egypt
- The splintered reed of a staff that Assyria's field commander mocks Judah for leaning on. It promises help and cannot deliver, and Isaiah spends decades saying so. Assyria eventually invades and sacks Thebes.
- Further afield
- Greece is in its archaic period, founding colonies from Spain to the Black Sea. Rome is under kings. Assyria's own libraries are collecting the literature of Mesopotamia, which is how Gilgamesh survived to be read again in the nineteenth century.