World English Bible · The united kingdom
1 Kings 4
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King was king over all Israel. These were the princes whom he had: the son of , the priest; and , the sons of Shisha, ; the son of , the recorder; the son of was over the army; and were priests; the son of was over the officers; the son of was chief minister, the king's friend; was over the household; and the son of Abda was over the men subject to forced labor. had twelve officers over all Israel, who provided food for the king and his household. Each man had to make provision for a month in the year. These are their names: Ben Hur, in the hill country of ; Ben Deker, in Makaz, in Shaalbim, , and Beth ; Ben , in Arubboth ( and all the land of belonged to him); Ben , in all the height of (he had Taphath, daughter, as wife); the son of , in and , and all which is beside , beneath , from to , as far as beyond Jokmeam; Ben , in (the towns of Jair the son of Manasseh, which are in , belonged to him; and the region of , which is in , sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars, belonged to him); the son of , in ; , in (he also took Basemath the daughter of as wife); the son of , in Asher and Bealoth; the son of Paruah, in ; the son of Ela, in ; the son of , in the land of , the country of king of the and of king of ; and he was the only officer who was in the land. Judah and Israel were numerous as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking and making merry. ruled over all the kingdoms from to the land of the , and to the border of . They brought tribute and all the days of his life. 22 provision for one day was thirty cors of , sixty measures of meal, ten head of fat cattle, twenty head of cattle out of the pastures, and one hundred sheep, in addition to deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened fowl. For he had over all on this side of , from Tiphsah even to , over all the kings on this side of ; and he had peace on all sides around him. Judah and Israel lived safely, every man under his and under his fig tree, from Dan even to , all the days of . had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen. 27Those officers provided food for King , and for all who came to King table, every man in his month. They let nothing be lacking. They also brought barley and straw for the horses and swift steeds to the place where the officers were, each man according to his duty. gave abundant , understanding, and breadth of like the sand that is on the seashore. excelled the of all the children of the east and all the of . For he was wiser than all men—wiser than the Ezrahite, , Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all the nations all around. 32He spoke three thousand , and his songs numbered one thousand five. He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in even to the that grows out of the wall; he also spoke of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and of fish. People of all nations came to hear the of , sent by all kings of the earth who had heard of his .
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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.