Home › Journeys › Kingdoms & Exile
Kingdoms & Exile
Samaria → Assyria · Jerusalem → Babylon
Both kingdoms came to one end: carried off into foreign lands for turning from the LORD. Assyria took the northern tribes from Samaria in 722 BC, Babylon took Judah and burned Jerusalem in 586, and seventy years later a Persian decree opened the road home.
Who walked it
- Hoshea
- Zedekiah
- Nebuchadnezzar II
- Jeremiah
- Ezekiel
- Cyrus
The road
Samaria → Nineveh · 7 stops
- Samaria
- Damascus
- Hamath
- Aleppo
- Carchemish
- The Habor, river of Gozan
- Nineveh
Jerusalem → Babylon · 7 stops
Moments on the road
-
Riblah
The judgment of Zedekiah · 2 Kings 25
Jerusalem’s last king fled by night and was overtaken in the plains of Jericho. They brought him here, to the king of Babylon’s war camp, where his sons were killed before his eyes and then his eyes were put out. It was the last thing he ever saw.
-
Carried to Assyria
The northern kingdom falls · 2 Kings 17
A century and a half before Judah fell, Israel fell first. Assyria took Samaria and carried the northern tribes away to Halah and the Habor, the river of Gozan. They did not come back.
-
By the Rivers of Babylon
The exiles’ song · Psalm 137
By the canals of Babylon the exiles sat down and wept when they remembered Zion, and hung their lyres on the poplars. And it was here, among the captives by the Chebar canal, that the heavens opened and Ezekiel saw visions of God.
-
The Long Road Home
The decree of Cyrus · Ezra 1
Seventy years on, a Persian king put it in writing: whoever is among the LORD’s people, let him go up to Jerusalem and rebuild. The same road that had carried them away in chains carried their children home. We were like those who dream.
At a glance
- Span
- North fell 722 BC, south 586 BC
- Tracks
- Two exile roads, Assyria and Babylon
- Distance
- About 900 miles by the Fertile Crescent
- Duration
- Seventy years until Cyrus’ decree
- Scripture
- 2 Kings 17 to 25; Ezra 1
The story
The northern kingdom fell first. In 722 BC Assyria captured Samaria and carried the ten tribes away to Halah and the Habor, the river of Gozan, and they did not return. Judah lasted longer, but in 586 BC Babylon broke through the walls of Jerusalem, burned the temple of the LORD, and marched the people east across the Fertile Crescent to the rivers of Babylon.
The cost fell on kings and common people alike. Zedekiah, Judah’s last king, was overtaken near Jericho and made to watch his sons killed before he was blinded and led away in chains. By the canals of Babylon the exiles sat and wept when they remembered Zion, and there Ezekiel and other prophets kept telling them the LORD had not forgotten His people or His covenant.
The exile was the deepest wound in Israel’s history, and also its turning point. When Persia overthrew Babylon, Cyrus put out a decree that any of the LORD’s people might go up to Jerusalem and rebuild His house, and a remnant came home like those who dream. Matthew would later count the generations of Jesus from Abraham to David, from David to the exile in Babylon, and from the exile to the Christ.