King James Version · The united kingdom
1 Samuel 25
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And ; and all the were gathered together, and him, and in his house at . And arose, and went down to of . And there was a man in , whose possessions were in ; and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in . Now the name of the man was ; and the name of his wife : and she was a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance: but the man was churlish and evil in his doings; and he was of the house of Caleb. And heard in that did shear his sheep. And sent out ten young men, and said unto the young men, Get you up to , and go to , and greet him in my name: And thus shall ye say to him that liveth in prosperity, Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast. And now I have heard that thou hast shearers: now thy which were with us, we hurt them not, neither was there ought missing unto them, all the while they were in . Ask thy young men, and they will shew thee. Wherefore let the young men find in thine eyes: for we come in a good day: give, I thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and to thy son . And when ’s young men came, they spake to according to all those words in the name of , and ceased. And answered ’s servants, and said, Who is ? and who is the son of ? there be many servants now a days that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be? So ’s young men turned their way, and went again, and came and told him all those sayings. And said unto his men, Gird ye on every man his . And they girded on every man his ; and also girded on his : and there went up after about four hundred men; and two hundred abode by the stuff. But one of the young men told , ’s wife, saying, Behold, sent out of to salute our master; and he railed on them. But the men were very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we any thing, as long as we were conversant with them, when we were in the fields: They were a wall unto us both by night and day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. Now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do; for evil is determined against our master, and against all his household: for he is such a son of Belial, that a man cannot speak to him. Then made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of , and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and an hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses. And she said unto her servants, Go on before me; behold, I come after you. But she told not her husband . And it was so, as she rode on the ass, that she came down by the covert of the hill, and, behold, and his men came down against her; and she met them. Now had said, Surely in have I kept all that this fellow hath in , so that nothing was missed of all that pertained unto him: and he hath requited me evil for good. So and more also do unto the of , if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning any that pisseth against the wall. And when saw , she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before on her , and bowed herself to the ground, And fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my , upon me let this be: and let thine handmaid, I thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid. Let not my , I thee, regard this man of Belial, even : for as his name is, so is he; is his name, and folly is with him: but I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my , whom thou didst send. Now therefore, my , as liveth, and as thy liveth, seeing hath withholden thee from coming to shed , and from avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine , and they that seek evil to my , be as . And now this which thine handmaid hath brought unto my , let it even be given unto the young men that follow my . I thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid: for will certainly make my a sure house; because my fighteth the battles of , and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days. Yet a man is to pursue thee, and to seek thy : but the of my shall be bound in the bundle of life with thy ; and the of thine , them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of a sling. And it shall come to pass, when shall have done to my according to all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel; That this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of unto my , either that thou hast shed causeless, or that my hath himself: but when shall have dealt well with my , then remember thine handmaid. And said to , be of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me: And be thy , and be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed , and from avenging myself with mine own hand. For in very deed, as of Israel liveth, which hath kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there had not been left unto by the morning any that pisseth against the wall. So received of her hand that which she had brought him, and said unto her, Go up in peace to thine house; see, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person. And came to ; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and ’s was merry within him, for he was very drunken: wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning . But it came to pass in the morning, when the was gone out of , and his wife had told him these things, that within him, and he became as a stone. And it came to pass about ten days after, that smote , that he . And when heard that was , he said, be , that hath pleaded the cause of my from the hand of , and hath kept his servant from evil: for hath returned the wickedness of upon his own head. And sent and communed with , to take her to him to wife. And when the servants of were come to to , they spake unto her, saying, sent us unto thee, to take thee to him to wife. And she arose, and bowed herself on her to the earth, and said, Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my . And hasted, and arose, and rode upon an ass, with five damsels of hers that went after her; and she went after the of , and became his wife. also took Ahinoam of ; and they were also both of them his wives. But had given his daughter, ’s wife, to Phalti the son of , which was of Gallim.
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.