World English Bible · Under Assyria
Micah 7
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Misery is mine! Indeed, I am like one who gathers the summer fruits, as of the . There is no cluster of grapes to eat. to eat the early fig. The godly man has out of the earth, and there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for ; every man hunts his brother with a net. Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe. The powerful man dictates the evil of his . Thus they conspire together. The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion. Don't in a neighbor. Don't put confidence in a friend. With the woman lying in your embrace, be careful of the words of your ! For the son dishonors , the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's are the men of his own house. But as for me, I will look to . I will wait for the of my . My will hear me. Don't rejoice against me, my enemy. When I fall, I will arise. When I sit , will be a to me. I will bear the of , because I have against him, until he pleads my case and executes for me. He will bring me out to . I will see his . Then my enemy will see it, and will cover her who said to me, "Where is your ?" My eyes will see her. Now she will be trodden down like the mire of the streets. A day to build your walls! In that day, he will extend your boundary. In that day they will come to you from and the cities of , and from even to , and from sea to sea, and mountain to mountain. Yet the land will be desolate because of those who therein, for the fruit of their doings. your people with your , the your heritage, who by themselves in a forest. Let them feed in the middle of fertile pasture land, in and , as in the days of old. "As in the days of your coming out of the land of , I will show them marvelous things." will see and be of all their might. They will lay their hand on their . Their ears will be deaf. They will lick like a . Like crawling things of the earth, they will come trembling out of their dens. They will come with fear to our , and will be afraid because of you. Who is a like you, who pardons , and passes over the of of his heritage? He doesn't retain his , because he delights in . He will again have on us. He will tread our under foot. You will cast all their into the depths of the sea. You will give truth to , and mercy to , as you have to our fathers from the days of old.
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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.