King James Version · The united kingdom
1 Chronicles 10
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Now the fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the , and fell down slain in . And the followed hard after , and after his sons; and the slew , and , and Malchi–shua, the sons of . And the battle went sore against , and the archers hit him, and he was wounded of the archers. Then said to his armourbearer, Draw thy , and thrust me through therewith; lest these come and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. So took a , and fell upon it. 5And when his armourbearer saw that was , he fell likewise on , and . So , and his three sons, and all his house together. And when all the men of Israel that were in the valley saw that they fled, and that and his sons were , then they forsook their cities, and fled: and the came and dwelt in them. And it came to pass on the morrow, when the came to strip the slain, that they found and his sons fallen in . And when they had stripped him, they took his head, and his armour, and sent into the land of the round about, to carry tidings unto their idols, and to the people. And they put his armour in the house of their gods, and fastened his head in of . And when all heard all that the had done to , They arose, all the valiant men, and took away the body of , and the bodies of his sons, and brought them to , and buried their bones under the oak in , and seven days. So for his which he committed against , even against the word of , which he kept not, and also for asking of one that had a familiar , to enquire of it; And enquired not of : therefore he slew him, and turned unto the son of .
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The united kingdom, 1050 BC to 931 BC ›
Saul, David, and Solomon. A rare window when both Egypt and Mesopotamia are weak, which is how a small kingdom in the corridor between them could briefly become a regional power.
- The power vacuum
- This is the whole political explanation for the united kingdom. Egypt is fragmented, Assyria is recovering but still local, the Hittites are gone, and nobody is in a position to object to a strong state in the corridor. It lasts about a century, and Israel's golden age fits exactly inside it.
- Phoenicia
- Tyre under Hiram is the commercial power of the coast, and supplies the cedar, the craftsmen, and the shipping for Solomon's building programme. The alliance is trade, not charity: Israel had grain and a land route, Tyre had timber and ships.
- Egypt
- Weak enough that a pharaoh gives a daughter in marriage to an Israelite king, which is the opposite of Egyptian practice in stronger centuries. Late in the era it recovers under a new house, and Shishak will invade within five years of Solomon's death.
- Further afield
- Greece is still in its dark age but beginning to recover, and will adopt the Phoenician alphabet within a century or two. Carthage is founded by settlers from Tyre by tradition in 814 BC. In the Americas the Olmec centre shifts to La Venta.