King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Lamentations 1
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How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a ! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her . Judah is gone into because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits. The ways of do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness. Her are the chief, her prosper; for hath afflicted her for of her : her children are gone into before . And from the daughter of all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer. remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of , and none did help her: the saw her, and did mock at her . hath grievously ; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her : yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O , behold my affliction: for hath magnified himself. hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy . All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the : see, O , and consider; for I am become vile. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith hath afflicted me in the day of his . From above hath he sent into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate and faint all the day. The of my is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, hath me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up. hath trodden under foot all my in the midst of me: he hath called an against me to crush my young men: hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress. For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve is far from me: my children are desolate, because prevailed. spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: hath commanded concerning , that his should be round about him: is as a menstruous woman among them. is ; for I have rebelled against his : hear, I you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into . I called for my lovers, but they deceived me: my priests and mine gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought their meat to relieve their . Behold, O ; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad bereaveth, at home there is as . They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me. Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my : for my sighs are many, and is faint.
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.