World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Zephaniah 1
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word which came to , the son of Cushi, the son of , the son of , the son of , in the days of , the son of Amon, king of Judah. I will utterly sweep away everything from the surface of the earth, . I will sweep away man and animal. I will sweep away the birds of , the fish of the sea, and the heaps of rubble with . I will man from the surface of the earth, . I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of . I will of from this place—the name of the idolatrous and pagan priests, those who the on the housetops, those who and by and also by , those who have turned back from following , and those who haven't sought nor inquired after him. Be silent at the of , for is at hand. For has prepared a . He has his guests. It will happen in that I will punish the princes, the king's sons, and all those who are clothed with foreign clothing. In that day, I will punish all those who leap over the threshold, who fill their master's house with and deceit. In that day, , there will be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, a from the second quarter, and a great crashing from the hills. , you inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the people of are undone! All those who were loaded with silver are . It will happen at that time, that I will search with lamps, and I will punish the men who are settled on their dregs, who say in their , " will not do good, neither will he do evil." Their wealth will become a plunder, and their houses a desolation. Yes, they will build houses, but won't inhabit them. They will plant vineyards, but won't drink their . of is near. It is near and hurries greatly, the voice of . The mighty man cries there bitterly. That day is a , a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and , a day of and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness, a day of the and alarm against the fortified cities and against the high battlements. I will bring such distress on men that they will walk like blind men because they have against . Their will be poured out like and their like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to them in , but the whole land will be devoured by the of his ; for he will make an end, yes, a terrible end, of all those who in the land.
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The world at this moment · Babylon and the exile, 612 BC to 539 BC ›
Babylon replaces Assyria, Jerusalem and its temple are destroyed in 586 BC, and the leadership of Judah lives in Mesopotamia without a king, a temple, or a country.
- Babylon
- Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilds the city on a scale meant to be seen from a distance: the Ishtar Gate in glazed blue brick, the processional way, the ziggurat, and gardens later counted among the wonders of the world. Babylonian tablets record rations issued to the captive king Jehoiachin of Judah by name, which is one of the tidier points of contact between the Bible and the archives.
- Egypt
- Briefly resurgent. Pharaoh Neco marches north, kills King Josiah at Megiddo, and installs and deposes kings in Jerusalem, until Babylon beats him decisively at Carchemish in 605 BC. Jeremiah spends his career saying that betting on Egypt is suicide, and is proved right.
- Judah
- Deported in stages, then destroyed. The temple is burned, the walls broken, and the leadership marched to Mesopotamia. What happens next is one of the strangest survivals in history: a people keeps its identity without land, king, or sanctuary, and comes out of it with its scriptures more central than before.
- Further afield
- An extraordinary century for ideas everywhere at once. Thales and the first Greek philosophers, Solon's reforms at Athens, the Buddha in India, Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Zoroaster in Persia all fall within a few generations of the exile.