World English Bible · The united kingdom
1 Chronicles 18
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After this, defeated the and subdued them, and took and its towns out of the hand of the . He defeated ; and the became servants to and brought tribute. defeated king of , toward , as he went to establish his by the river . took from him one thousand chariots, seven thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen; and hamstrung all the chariot horses, but reserved of them enough for one hundred chariots. When of came to help king of , struck twenty-two thousand men of . Then put garrisons in of ; and became servants to and brought tribute. gave victory to wherever he went. took the shields of gold that were on the servants of , and brought them to . From Tibhath and from Cun, cities of , took very much bronze, with which made the bronze sea, the pillars, and the vessels of bronze. When king of heard that had struck of king of , he sent his son to King to greet him and to him, because he had fought against and struck him (for had wars with ); and he had with him all kinds of vessels of gold and silver and bronze. King also dedicated these to , with the silver and the gold that he from all the nations: from , from , from , from the , and from . Moreover the son of struck eighteen thousand of the in the Valley of Salt. He put garrisons in ; and all the became servants to . gave victory to wherever he went. reigned over all Israel; and he executed justice and for all his people. the son of was over the army; Jehoshaphat the son of was recorder; the son of and Abimelech the son of were priests; Shavsha was ; and the son of was over the and the ; and the sons of were chief officials the king.
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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.