Empires and Exile
Assyria and Babylon as two streams, Judah’s band dropping into Babylon’s, and Persia’s green band carrying the exiles home. Start at the bottom left of pp. 72–73 and read toward Alexander’s red bar.
The numbered pins of this stretch, walked in order, are in the book (pp. 72–73). Here you can zoom and explore it freely.
Carried to Babylon, Brought Home Again
A king’s face fills the lower half of pp. 72–73, drawn right inside the stream of his own empire, with the number 43 beside it for the years he reigned. Adams has written two verses across him. One is Isaiah’s, calling Babylon “the glory of kingdoms”; the other is what Daniel said to him, Thou art this head of gold. Find Nebuchadnezzar before you find anything else, because nearly every line on this spread runs toward him or away from him.
The story starts in someone else’s hands, at the bottom left. ASSYRIA is a broad band of kings who ruled from Nineveh, the empire that had already carried away the ten tribes. Just above it runs a thin pink stream for Babylon, and in 680 that stream bends down into Assyria’s band and ends. Babylon has been conquered: Key 5 · A stream that ends in another is a conquest. That one bend explains why an Assyrian army could take King Manasseh to Babylon in fetters. Then, in 625, the color changes. A Babylonian general named Nabopolassar takes over the band, and in 610, Adams writes, he destroys Nineveh.
Now look a little above the middle of the spread for Judah’s band: Hezekiah, Manasseh with fifty-five years, “the longest Jewish reign,” good King Josiah, and then a few short blocks. Babylon comes against Jerusalem three times. In 606 young Daniel is taken with the first captives, and Adams writes “70 years captivity begins.” In 599 King Jehoiachin goes too, with the gold vessels of the Temple. In 588 the city is taken, the Temple burnt and Zedekiah blinded. Judah’s band stops, and thin lines drop from it into Babylon’s stream.
Babylon does not last either. At the top edge Adams prints the words on Belshazzar’s wall, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, Peres, while Cyrus and his army come into the city “through the bed of the river.” In 538 Babylon’s stream runs into the broad green band of Persia, the empire Adams draws under Key 2 · Nations are broad bands. Two years later Cyrus issues the decree to rebuild Jerusalem, and Zerubbabel leads 42,360 people home; Ezra follows in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, Nehemiah in the twentieth. From 606 to 536 is exactly seventy years, the number Jeremiah had given and Daniel was reading when the end drew near.
Judah never gets its kings back. When the band of the Jews starts again, its blocks carry the names of high priests, and at pillar 36 Adams writes End of the O.T. 397 B.C., with Socrates drinking the hemlock in the same column. At the right edge a red bar cuts down through every stream at once, Alexander of Macedon, and beside it Adams writes that Persia falls in 330.
Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther all live inside this spread, and many Bible readers lose their way here among empires with similar names. Adams hands you the order. Each empire is a band that rises and then ends in the next, just as Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar from the dream of the statue on p. 75. Under the stream of time, though, one thin line of names does not end at all: Josiah, Jeconiah, Salathiel, Zerubbabel, running on toward Bethlehem.
“For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.”Jeremiah 29:10 · KJV
Think it through
Keep your Bible open. There are no wrong answers here; the worksheet in the free Companion gives you room to write.
- Judah’s band drops into Babylon’s stream and seventy years later climbs back out. What does that picture say about how God kept his word through the exile?
- Adams writes two verses on Nebuchadnezzar’s face. Read Daniel 4: how does the king’s own story change the meaning of “Thou art this head of gold”?
- An Assyrian army carried Manasseh to Babylon. What does the bend at 680 show about who ruled Babylon in his day, and what did Manasseh do “when he was in affliction”?
- Isaiah named Cyrus long before his birth. Find CYRUS at the bottom of the spread: what does a pagan king doing God’s work tell you about who rules the streams?
- Every empire on the statue becomes a stream that ends. Which line on pp. 72–73 does not end, and why does it matter that Zerubbabel is on it?
- Adams prints two dates for Jerusalem’s fall, his own 588 and Hales’ 586, and names his source. Why might it help you that he shows both instead of choosing?
Follow the band of MEDIA, bottom of pp. 72–73, through “Cyaxares 40” and “Astyages 36” to 559. Which two keys tell you what happens there?
Show the answer
The band changes color for each Median king (Key 3 · A new color is a new ruler), and at 559 it runs into Cyrus’ stream and stops (Key 5 · A stream that ends in another is a conquest): Media becomes part of Persia.
Who Really Rules the Streams
Look at pp. 72–73 as a whole and the empires are the loudest thing on the page. Assyria’s broad band, Babylon with a king’s face in it, Persia’s green running for 229 years, Alexander’s red bar slicing down through all of them. Each looks permanent while you are inside it. Then each ends in the next, exactly as Adams draws Key 5 · A stream that ends in another is a conquest. Daniel, who lived through two of these empires, put it in one line: God “removeth kings, and setteth up kings.”
Scripture keeps showing that rule at work on this very spread. Isaiah named Cyrus long before his birth and called him the LORD’s shepherd, and when Adams reaches 536 he writes the decree Cyrus issued to rebuild Jerusalem. The king of the empire that had swallowed Babylon became the one who sent God’s people home, and Ezra records him saying that the LORD had charged him to build a house at Jerusalem.
The same rule reaches down to one man. Manasseh reigned fifty-five years, Adams’ longest Jewish reign, and was carried in fetters to Babylon by an Assyrian army, which the bend at 680 explains. Chronicles says that in his affliction he humbled himself and prayed, and God brought him back to Jerusalem. The God who moves empires also hears a king in chains.
Then there is the line that never becomes a stream at all. Under the stream of time, from Manasseh to Sadoc, runs the family of Matthew 1, and Zerubbabel, the governor who led the exiles home, is one of its names. Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that after all the kingdoms of the statue, God would set up a kingdom that would never be destroyed. On this spread you can see the empires end, one after another, while that thin line keeps going.
Read and reflect
“That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.”
Find CYRUS at the bottom of the spread: what does it mean to you that God called a foreign king “my shepherd”?
“And when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly … and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom.”
If God heard Manasseh after fifty-five years like his, whom have you stopped expecting God to hear?
“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people …”
Which line on pp. 72–73 points toward that kingdom, and how does knowing it change the way you look at the empires above it?
Quiz: ten questions
Pick an answer to see whether it is right and why. Each explanation names the page of the book.
Read the whole chart, stretch by stretch
This site lets you wander; the book walks you through. All seventeen stretches on full spreads at 75% of the real chart, numbered pins explained in order, Adams' Six Keys on every page and a study page for every stretch. Large format, full color.