King James Version · The united kingdom
1 Samuel 27
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And said in , I shall now one day by the hand of : there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the ; and shall despair of me, to seek me any more in any coast of Israel: so shall I escape out of his hand. And arose, and he passed over with the six hundred men that were with him unto , the son of Maoch, king of . And dwelt with at , he and his men, every man with his household, even with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and the Carmelitess, ’s wife. And it was told that was fled to : and he sought no more again for him. And said unto , If I have now found in thine eyes, let them give me a place in some town in the country, that I may there: for why should thy servant in the royal city with thee? Then gave him that day: wherefore pertaineth unto the kings of Judah unto this day. And the time that dwelt in the country of the was a full year and four months. And and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and : for those nations were of old the inhabitants of the land, as thou goest to , even unto the land of . And smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and the apparel, and returned, and came to . And said, Whither have ye made a road to day? And said, Against the south of Judah, and against the south of the Jerahmeelites, and against the south of the . And neither man nor woman alive, to bring tidings to , saying, Lest they should tell on us, saying, So did , and so will be his manner all the while he dwelleth in the country of the . And , saying, He hath made his people Israel utterly to abhor him; therefore he shall be my servant for ever.
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.