Snake Featherston
Banned
Primarily because if I engaged in necromancy (necromancy of a scale extending to 2008: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=95960) on that scale I think the clash of my own style would be too jarring and because my knowledge of Jewish history has been fleshed out more by a lot more reading since then:
By the shores of Babylon we sat and wept
and remembered the Hill of Omri,
there on the poplars we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked for songs of joy,
they said "Sing us a song of the Hill of Omri."
How can we sing the songs of HaShem in a foreign land?
If I forget thee, O Samaria, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
may my right hand forget its skill,
if I do not consider Samaria
my highest joy.
Remember HaShem what Edom said,
the day Samaria fell,
"Raze it, Raze it," they cried,
"Raze it to its foundations."
O Virgin daughter Babylon, how happy shall he be who takes your little ones, and dashes them against the stones.
Jerusalem, 3206 Anno Mundi/Years of Sargon II, Emperor of Asshur, Nineveh, Sumer, and Akkad:
"Fight Assyria, the prophets said. Our God would be with us. Just sacrifice the right things, do this, do that, do the other thing and all would end well. Well, we did all that. And what has happened, eh, Gamaliel?"
"My Lord the King, we are besieged."
"Besieged, yes. That accursed group of prophets made us promises, led us into a war we cannot win, and what do the sons of Ephraim do? Shit, that's what they do. Like cowards the children of Israel watch!"
King Hezekiah, breathing harshly with anger, growled again when a messenger ran in. "My Lord the King, the Assyrians have broken through!"
Hezekiah had thought that he, child of a spartan and harsh kingdom not fully settled would not be trapped so easily. God had by all standards delivered his ancestor, King Jehosaphat, from a grievous thing. But then he had defied the Lords of Asshur on the advice of his prophets, who had warned him to eschew alliances. Hope of seeing a great miracle had led him to a decision his nobles and military captains had damned as foolishness. Then the great armies of Assyria swept down like the wolf upon the fold and now his armies were no more.
It had been three years of a siege, now. And now it was all over.
In the year 3206 of the Hebrew Calendar, the Kingdom of Judah had ceased to exist, its population fleeing northward into the more densely populated and richer Kingdom of Israel. For Israel, the fall of the Negev and the routes to Egypt posed an even greater threat to its sovereignty and existence, and so the King of Samaria had extended a much greater subservience to the Great King of Assyria.
Israel now confronted a world even more filled with dangers than the one where it faced states without and the endless hostile raids of its poorer southern neighbor. For Israel was now alone of the Hebrew Kingdoms, an oasis of YHVH in an island of strange Gods and strange Ways, a stranger in a strange land.....
By the shores of Babylon we sat and wept
and remembered the Hill of Omri,
there on the poplars we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked for songs of joy,
they said "Sing us a song of the Hill of Omri."
How can we sing the songs of HaShem in a foreign land?
If I forget thee, O Samaria, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
may my right hand forget its skill,
if I do not consider Samaria
my highest joy.
Remember HaShem what Edom said,
the day Samaria fell,
"Raze it, Raze it," they cried,
"Raze it to its foundations."
O Virgin daughter Babylon, how happy shall he be who takes your little ones, and dashes them against the stones.
Jerusalem, 3206 Anno Mundi/Years of Sargon II, Emperor of Asshur, Nineveh, Sumer, and Akkad:
"Fight Assyria, the prophets said. Our God would be with us. Just sacrifice the right things, do this, do that, do the other thing and all would end well. Well, we did all that. And what has happened, eh, Gamaliel?"
"My Lord the King, we are besieged."
"Besieged, yes. That accursed group of prophets made us promises, led us into a war we cannot win, and what do the sons of Ephraim do? Shit, that's what they do. Like cowards the children of Israel watch!"
King Hezekiah, breathing harshly with anger, growled again when a messenger ran in. "My Lord the King, the Assyrians have broken through!"
Hezekiah had thought that he, child of a spartan and harsh kingdom not fully settled would not be trapped so easily. God had by all standards delivered his ancestor, King Jehosaphat, from a grievous thing. But then he had defied the Lords of Asshur on the advice of his prophets, who had warned him to eschew alliances. Hope of seeing a great miracle had led him to a decision his nobles and military captains had damned as foolishness. Then the great armies of Assyria swept down like the wolf upon the fold and now his armies were no more.
It had been three years of a siege, now. And now it was all over.
In the year 3206 of the Hebrew Calendar, the Kingdom of Judah had ceased to exist, its population fleeing northward into the more densely populated and richer Kingdom of Israel. For Israel, the fall of the Negev and the routes to Egypt posed an even greater threat to its sovereignty and existence, and so the King of Samaria had extended a much greater subservience to the Great King of Assyria.
Israel now confronted a world even more filled with dangers than the one where it faced states without and the endless hostile raids of its poorer southern neighbor. For Israel was now alone of the Hebrew Kingdoms, an oasis of YHVH in an island of strange Gods and strange Ways, a stranger in a strange land.....