King James Version · The united kingdom
1 Kings 3
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And made affinity with king of , and took ’s daughter, and brought her into , until he had made an end of building his own house, and the , and the wall of round about. Only the people in , because there was no house built unto the name of , until those days. And loved , walking in the of his : only he and burnt in . And the king went to to there; for that was the great : a thousand burnt offerings did offer upon that . In appeared to in a by night: and said, Ask what I shall give thee. And said, Thou hast shewed unto thy servant great mercy, according as he walked before thee in truth, and in , and in uprightness of with thee; and thou hast kept for him this great kindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit on his , as it is this day. And now, O my , thou hast made thy servant king instead of : and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. Give therefore thy servant an understanding to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people? And the speech pleased , that had asked this thing. And said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine ; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern ; Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a and an understanding ; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and : so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days. And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep and my , as thy did walk, then I will lengthen thy days. And awoke; and, behold, it was a . And he came to , and stood before the of , and offered up burnt offerings, and offered , and made a feast to all his servants. Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him. 17And the one woman said, O my , I and this woman in one house; and I was of a child with her in the house. 18And it came to pass the third day after that I was , that this woman was also: and we were together; there was no with us in the house, we two in the house. 19And this woman’s child in the night; because she overlaid it. And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her , and laid her child in my . And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was : but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear. 22And the other woman said, Nay; but the living is my son, and is thy son. And this said, No; but is thy son, and the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king. 23Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is : and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is , and my son is the living. 24And the king said, Bring me a . And they brought a before the king. And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other. Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my , give her the living child, and in no it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. 27Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no it: she is the mother thereof. And all Israel heard of the which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the of was in him, to do .
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.