King James Version · The united kingdom
1 Kings 4
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So king was king over all Israel. And these were the princes which he had; the son of the priest, and , the sons of Shisha, ; the son of , the recorder. And the son of was over the host: and and were the priests: And the son of was over the officers: and the son of was principal officer, and the king’s friend: And was over the household: and the son of Abda was over the tribute. And had twelve officers over all Israel, which provided victuals for the king and his household: each man his month in a year made provision. And these are their names: The son of Hur, in mount : The son of Dekar, in Makaz, and in Shaalbim, and , and –beth–hanan: The son of , in Aruboth; to him pertained Sochoh, and all the land of : The son of , in all the region of ; which had Taphath the daughter of to wife: the son of ; to him pertained and , and all , which is by Zartanah beneath , from to , even unto the place that is beyond : The son of , in ; to him pertained the towns of Jair the son of Manasseh, which are in ; to him also pertained the region of , which is in , threescore great cities with walls and brasen bars: the son of had : was in ; he also took Basmath the daughter of to wife: the son of was in Asher and in Aloth: the son of Paruah, in : the son of , in : the son of was in the country of , in the country of king of the , and of king of ; and he was the only officer which was in the land. Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry. And reigned over all kingdoms from the river unto the land of the , and unto the border of : they brought presents, and all the days of his life. 22And ’s provision for one day was thirty measures of , and threescore measures of meal, Ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and fallowdeer, and fatted fowl. For he had over all the region on this side the river, from Tiphsah even to Azzah, over all the kings on this side the river: and he had peace on all sides round about him. And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beer–sheba, all the days of . And had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen. 27And those officers provided victual for king , and for all that came unto king ’s table, every man in his month: they lacked nothing. Barley also and straw for the horses and dromedaries brought they unto the place where the officers were, every man according to his charge. And gave and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of , even as the sand that is on the sea shore. And ’s excelled the of all the children of the east country, and all the of . For he was wiser than all men; than the Ezrahite, and , and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in all nations round about. 32And he spake three thousand : and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in even unto the that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of , and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came of all people to hear the of , from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his .
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.