World English Bible · Under Assyria
Micah 1
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word that came to of Morasheth in the days of , , and , kings of Judah, which he saw concerning and . Hear, you peoples, all of you! Listen, O earth, and all that is therein. Let be against you, from his temple. For behold, comes out of his place, and will come down and tread on the of the earth. The mountains melt under him, and the valleys split apart like wax before the , like waters that are poured down a steep place. "All this is for the of , and for the of the . What is the of ? Isn't it ? And what are the of Judah? Aren't they ? Therefore I will make like a rubble heap of the field, like places for planting vineyards; and I will pour down its stones into the valley, and I will uncover its foundations. All her idols will be beaten to pieces, all her temple gifts will be burned with , and I will destroy all her ; for of the hire of a has she gathered them, and to the hire of a shall they return." For this I will and . I will go stripped and . I will howl like the jackals and mourn like the ostriches. For her wounds are incurable; for it has come even to Judah. It reaches to the of my people, even to . Don't tell it in . Don't weep at all. At Beth I have rolled myself in . Pass on, inhabitant of Shaphir, in and . The inhabitant of Zaanan won't come out. The of Beth Ezel will take from you his protection. For the inhabitant of Maroth waits anxiously for good, because evil has come down from to the of . Harness the chariot to the swift steed, inhabitant of . She was the beginning of to the daughter of ; for the of Israel were found in you. Therefore you will give a parting gift to Moresheth . The houses of will be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel. I will yet bring a conqueror to you, inhabitants of . The of Israel will come to . Shave your heads, and your hair for the children of your delight. Enlarge your baldness like the vulture, for they have gone into from you!
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. 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.