World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Lamentations 3
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I am the man who has seen affliction by the of his . He has led me and caused me to walk , and not in . Surely he turns his hand against me again and again all day long. He has made my and my skin old. He has broken my bones. He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship. He has made me in dark places, as those who have been long . He has walled me about, so that I can't go out. He has made my chain heavy. Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my . He has walled up my ways with cut stone. He has made my crooked. He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding. He has turned away my path, and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate. He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys. I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long. He has filled me with bitterness. He has stuffed me with wormwood. He has also broken my teeth with gravel. He has covered me with . You have removed far away from peace. I forgot prosperity. I said, "My strength has , along with my from ." Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness. still remembers them, and is within me. This I recall to my ; therefore I have . It is because of loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his don't fail. They are new every morning. Great is your . " is my ," says . "Therefore I will in him." is good to those who wait for him, to the who seeks him. It is good that a man should and quietly wait for the of . It is good for a man that he bear the in his youth. Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him. Let him put his in , if it is so that there may be . Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him. Let him be filled full of . For will not cast off . For though he causes grief, yet he will have according to of his loving kindnesses. For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth, 35to turn away the right of a man before the of , to subvert a man in his cause, doesn't approve. Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when doesn't command it? Doesn't evil and good come out of the of ? Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his ? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to . Let's lift up our with our hands to in . "We have transgressed and have rebelled. You have not pardoned. "You have covered us with and pursued us. You have killed. You have not pitied. You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no can pass through. You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the middle of the peoples. "All our have opened their wide against us. Terror and have come on us, devastation and ." My eye runs down with streams of water, for the of the daughter of my people. My eye pours down and doesn't cease, without any intermission, until looks down, and sees from . My eye affects , because of all the daughters of my city. They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are without cause. They have my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me. Waters flowed over my head. I said, "I am ." I called on your name, , out of the lowest dungeon. You heard my voice: "Don't hide your ear from my sighing, and my cry." You came near in the day that I called on you. You said, "Don't be afraid." , you have pleaded the causes of . You have my life. , you have seen my wrong. Judge my cause. You have seen all their and all their plans against me. You have heard their , , and all their plans against me, of those that rose up against me, and their plots against me all day long. You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song. You will pay them back, , according to the work of their hands. You will give them hardness of , your to them. You will pursue them in , and destroy them from under of .
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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.