King James Version · Under Assyria
Micah 4
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But it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us 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 shall go forth of , and the word of from . And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for of hosts hath spoken it. For all people will walk every one in the name of his , and we will walk in the name of our . In that day, saith , will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted; And I will make her that halted a , and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and shall reign over them in mount from henceforth, even for ever. And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of , unto thee shall it come, even the first ; shall come to the daughter of . Now why dost thou cry out aloud? is there no king in thee? is thy counsellor ? for pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail. Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of , like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt in the field, and thou shalt go even to ; there shalt thou be ; there shall thee from the hand of thine . Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon . But they know not the of , neither understand they his : for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor. Arise and thresh, O daughter of : for I will make thine iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will their gain unto , and their substance unto of the whole earth.
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.