King James Version · Under Assyria
Tobit 13
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1Then wrote a of rejoicing, and said, be that liveth for ever, and be . 2For he doth scourge, and hath mercy: he leadeth down to hell, and bringeth up again: neither is there any that can avoid his hand. 3 him before the , ye : for he hath scattered us among them. 4There declare his greatness, and extol him before all the living: for he is our , and he is the for ever. 5And he will scourge us for our , and will have mercy again, and will gather us out of all nations, among whom he hath scattered us. 6If ye turn to him with your , and with your whole , and deal uprightly before him, then will he turn unto you, and will not hide from you. Therefore see what he will do with you, and him with your whole , and of might, and extol the King. In the land of my do I him, and declare his might and majesty to a nation. O ye , turn and do justice before him: who can tell if he will accept you, and have mercy on you? 7I will extol my , and shall the King of , and shall rejoice in his greatness. 8Let all men speak, and let all him for his . 9O , the city, he will scourge thee for thy children’s works, and will have mercy again on the sons of . 10Give to , for he is good: and the King, that his may be builded in thee again with joy, and let him make joyful there in thee those that are , and love in thee for ever those that are miserable. 11Many nations shall come from far to the name of with gifts in their hands, even gifts to the King of ; all generations shall thee with great joy. 12 are all they which hate thee, and shall all be which love thee for ever. 13Rejoice and be glad for the children of the : for they shall be gathered together, and shall of the . 14O are they which love thee, for they shall rejoice in thy peace: are they which have been sorrowful for all thy scourges; for they shall rejoice for thee, when they have seen all thy , and shall be glad for ever. 15Let the great King. 16For shall be built up with sapphires and emeralds, and precious stone: thy walls and towers and battlements with pure gold. 17And the streets of shall be paved with beryl and carbuncle and stones of . 18And all her streets shall say, Alleluia; and they shall him, saying, be , which hath extolled it for ever.
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.