King James Version · Under Assyria
Micah 1
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The word of that came to the Morasthite in the days of , , and , kings of Judah, which he saw concerning and . Hear, all ye people; , O earth, and all that therein is: and let be against you, from his temple. For, behold, cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the of the earth. And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the , and as the waters that are poured down a steep place. For the of is all this, and for the of the . What is the of ? is it not ? and what are the of Judah? are they not ? Therefore I will make as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a : and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof. And all the graven thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with the , and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate: for she gathered it of the hire of an , and they shall return to the hire of an . Therefore I will and howl, I will go stripped and : I will make a like the dragons, and as the owls. For her wound is incurable; for it is come unto Judah; he is come unto the of my people, even to . Declare ye it not at , weep ye not at all: in the house of Aphrah roll thyself in . Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, having thy : the inhabitant of Zaanan came not forth in the of Beth–ezel; he shall receive of you his standing. For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good: but evil came down from unto the of . O thou inhabitant of , bind the chariot to the swift beast: she is the beginning of the to the daughter of : for the of Israel were found in thee. Therefore shalt thou give presents to Moresheth–gath: the houses of shall be a lie to the kings of Israel. Yet will I bring an unto thee, O inhabitant of : he shall come unto the of Israel. Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into from thee.
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.