World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Zephaniah 2
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Gather yourselves together, yes, gather together, you nation that has no , before the when the day passes as the , before the of comes on you, before comes on you. Seek , all you humble of the land, who have kept his ordinances. Seek . Seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden in . For will be forsaken, and a desolation. They will drive out at noonday, and will be rooted up. Woe to the inhabitants of the sea coast, the nation of the ! word is against you, , the land of the . I will destroy you until there is no inhabitant. The sea coast will be pastures, with cottages for and folds for flocks. The coast will be for of the house of Judah. They will find pasture. In the houses of , they will lie down in the evening, for , their , will visit them and restore them. I have heard the of and the insults of , with which they have reproached my people and magnified themselves against their border. Therefore, as I live, of Armies, the of Israel, surely will be as , and as , a possession of nettles and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation. of my people will plunder them, and the of my nation will them. This they will have for their pride, because they have reproached and magnified themselves against the people of of Armies. will be awesome to them, for he will famish all the gods of the land. Men will him, everyone from his place, even all the shores of the nations. You also, you will be killed by my . He will stretch out his hand against the north, destroy , and will make a desolation, as dry as . Herds will lie down in the middle of her, all kinds of animals. Both the pelican and the porcupine will lodge in its capitals. Their calls will echo through the windows. Desolation will be in the thresholds, for he has laid the cedar beams. This is the joyous city that lived carelessly, that said in her , "I am, and there is no one besides me." How she has become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in! Everyone who passes by her will hiss and shake their fists.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
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.