King James Version · Under Assyria
Judith 4
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1Now the , that dwelt in , heard all that the chief captain of king of the had done to the nations, and after what manner he had spoiled all their temples, and brought them to nought. 2Therefore they were exceedingly afraid of him, and were troubled for , and for of their : 3For they were newly returned from , and all the people of were lately gathered together: and the vessels, and the , and the house, were after the profanation. 4Therefore they sent into all the coasts of , and the villages and to Bethoron, and Belmen, and , and to Choba, and Esora, and to the valley of : 5And themselves beforehand of all the tops of the high mountains, and fortified the villages that were in them, and laid up victuals for the provision of war: for their fields were of late reaped. 6Also the , which was in those days in , wrote to them that dwelt in , and Betomestham, which is over against Esdraelon toward the open country, near to Dothaim, 7Charging them to keep the passages of the hill country: for by them there was an entrance into , and it was easy to stop them that would come up, because the passage was straight, for two men at the most. 8And the did as the had commanded them, with the ancients of all the people of Israel, which dwelt at . 9Then every man of Israel cried to with great fervency, and with great vehemency did they humble their : 10Both they, and their wives and their children, and their cattle, and every and hireling, and their servants bought with money, put upon their loins. 11Thus every man and women, and the little children, and the inhabitants of , fell before , and cast upon their heads, and spread out their before : also they put about the , 12And cried to the of Israel all with one consent earnestly, that he would not give their children for a prey, and their wives for a spoil, and the cities of their to , and to profanation and , and for the nations to rejoice at. 13So heard their prayers, and looked upon their afflictions: for the people many days in all and before of Almighty. 14And the , and all the priests that stood before , and they which ministered unto , had their loins girt with , and offered the daily burnt offerings, with the and free gifts of the people, 15And had on their mitres, and cried unto with all their , that he would look upon all the graciously.
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.