King James Version · The divided kingdom
1 Kings 17
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And the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of , said unto , As of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be nor these years, but according to my word. And unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. So he went and did according unto the word of : for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and in the morning, and bread and in the evening; and he drank of the brook. And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no in the land. And unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to , which belongeth to Zidon, and there: behold, I have commanded a woman there to sustain thee. So he arose and went to . And when he came to the , behold, the woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I thee, a little water in a , that I may drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. And she said, As thy liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and . And said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that sendeth upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of : and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of , which he spake by . And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him. And she said unto , What have I to do with thee, O thou ? art thou come unto me to call my to remembrance, and to my son? And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her , and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto , and said, O my , hast thou also brought evil upon the with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son? And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto , and said, O my , I thee, let this child’s come into him again. And heard the voice of ; and the of the child came into him again, and he revived. And took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and him unto his mother: and said, See, thy son liveth. And the woman said to , Now by this I know that thou art a , and that the word of in thy is truth.
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 divided kingdom, 931 BC to 745 BC ›
Israel in the north and Judah in the south, often at odds, with Aram of Damascus as the immediate threat and Assyria growing in the distance.
- Aram of Damascus
- The immediate enemy for most of two centuries, close enough to raid every campaigning season and strong enough to take territory. Most of the wars in Kings that read like national emergencies are border wars with Damascus.
- Assyria
- Growing steadily in the distance. Shalmaneser III fights a coalition at Qarqar in 853 BC and his own inscription lists King Ahab of Israel among his opponents with two thousand chariots, the earliest Assyrian mention of an Israelite king. A later monument shows Jehu bowing and paying tribute. Assyria is not yet the destroyer, but it is already taking notes.
- Egypt
- Divided and unreliable, capable of the occasional raid, such as Shishak stripping the temple in Rehoboam's fifth year, but no longer an empire that governs the Levant.
- Further afield
- The Greeks adopt the alphabet, hold the first Olympiad by tradition in 776 BC, and begin to compose the Homeric poems. Rome is founded by tradition in 753 BC, a village of huts at this point. This is the century in which the classical world begins.