World English Bible · Under Assyria
Micah 4
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But in the , it will happen that the mountain of temple will be established on the top of the mountains, and it will be exalted above the hills; and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will go and say, "Come! Let's go up to the mountain of , and to the house of the of ; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his ." For will go out of , and word from ; and he will judge between many peoples, and will decide concerning strong nations afar off. They will beat their into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up against nation, neither will they learn war any more. But every man will sit under his and under his fig tree. No one will make them afraid, for of Armies has spoken. Indeed all the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of our and ever. "In that day," , "I will assemble that which is lame, and I will gather that which is driven away, and that which I have afflicted; and I will make that which was lame a , and that which was cast far off a strong nation: and will reign over them on Mount from then on, even ." You, tower of the flock, the hill of the daughter of , to you it will come. Yes, the former will come, of the daughter of . Now why do you cry out aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your , that pains have taken hold of you as of a woman in travail? Be in pain, and labor to give birth, daughter of , like a woman in travail; for now you will go out of the city, and will in the field, and will come even to . There you will be rescued. There will you from the hand of your . Now many nations have assembled against you, that say, "Let her be defiled, and let our eye gloat over ." But they don't know the of , neither do they understand his ; for he has gathered them like the sheaves to the . Arise and thresh, daughter of , for I will make your iron, and I will make your hoofs bronze. You will beat in pieces many peoples. I will devote their gain to , and their substance to of the whole earth.
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.