World English Bible · The united kingdom
1 Samuel 11
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Then the came up and encamped against ; and all the men of said to , "Make a with us, and we will you." the said to them, "On this condition I will make it with you, that all your right eyes be gouged out. I will make this dishonor all Israel." 3The of said to him, "Give us seven days, that we may send to all the borders of Israel; and then, if there is no one to us, we will come out to you." Then the came to of , and spoke these words in the ears of the people, then all the people lifted up their voice and wept. Behold, came following the oxen out of the field; and said, "What ails the people that they weep?" They told him the words of the men of . came mightily on when he heard those words, and his burned hot. He took a of oxen and cut them in pieces, then sent them throughout all the borders of Israel by the hand of , saying, "Whoever doesn't come out after and after , so shall it be done to his oxen." The dread of fell on the people, and they came out as one man. He counted them in ; and the were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand. They said to the who came, "Tell the men of , 'Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you will be rescued.'" The came and told the men of ; and they were glad. Therefore the men of said, "Tomorrow we will come out to you, and you shall do with us all that seems good to you." On the next day, put the people in three companies; and they came into the middle of the camp in the morning watch, and struck until the heat of the day. Those who remained were scattered, so that no two of them were left together. The people said to , "Who is he who said, 'Shall reign over us?' Bring those men, that we may put them to !" said, "No man shall be put to today; for today has rescued Israel." Then said to the people, "Come! Let's go to , and renew there." All the people went to ; and there they made king before in . There they offered of before ; and there and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.
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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.