The neighbours pressed. The empires swallowed. Egypt first, then Assyria out of the north, then Babylon, then Persia — each one arriving from beyond the horizon, each one bigger than the last, and each one closing a chapter of the story. Assyria ends the northern kingdom. Babylon ends the southern one. Persia sends the survivors home.

A summary of the peoples who opposed Israel, and when each of them came against her.

Set them side by side and a pattern shows itself. The enemy of the moment changes — Philistines, then Syrians, then Assyria, then Babylon — but the timing does not. Pressure comes when the covenant is being ignored, and relief comes when the people turn back. The nations are real nations with their own ambitions; they are also, in the writer’s hands, a measure of where Israel stood with God.

This map shows you who they were and where they sat. What they carried away is a different picture — the two deportations, and the one return — and it is on Israel Goes into Exile. The north went and did not come back. The south went, and did.