King James Version · The united kingdom
1 Samuel 30
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And it came to pass, when and his men were come to on the third day, that had invaded the south, and , and smitten , and burned it with ; And had taken the women , that were therein: they slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away, and went on their way. So and his men came to the city, and, behold, it was burned with ; and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, were taken . Then and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more to weep. And ’s two wives were taken , Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and the wife of the . And was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but encouraged himself in his . And said to the priest, ’s son, I thee, bring me hither the . And brought thither the to . And enquired at , saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all. So went, he and the six hundred men that were with him, and came to the brook , where those that were left behind stayed. But pursued, he and four hundred men: for two hundred abode behind, which were so faint that they could not go over the brook . And they found an in the field, and brought him to , and gave him bread, and he did eat; and they made him drink water; And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs, and two clusters of raisins: and when he had eaten, his came again to him: for he had eaten , nor drunk any water, three days and three nights. And said unto him, To whom belongest thou? and whence art thou? And he said, I am a young man of , servant to an ; and my master left me, because three days agone I fell sick. We made an invasion upon the south of the , and upon the coast which belongeth to Judah, and upon the south of Caleb; and we burned with . And said to him, Canst thou bring me down to this company? And he said, unto me by , that thou wilt neither kill me, nor me into the hands of my master, and I will bring thee down to this company. And when he had brought him down, behold, they were spread abroad upon all the earth, eating and drinking, and dancing, because of all the great spoil that they had taken out of the land of the , and out of the land of Judah. And smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day: and there escaped not a man of them, four hundred young men, which rode upon camels, and fled. And recovered all that had : and rescued his two wives. And there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil, nor any thing that they had taken to them: recovered all. And took all the flocks and the herds, which they drave before those other cattle, and said, This is ’s spoil. And came to the two hundred men, which were so faint that they could not follow , whom they had made also to at the brook : and they went forth to meet , and to meet the people that were with him: and when came near to the people, he saluted them. Then answered all men and men of Belial, of those that went with , and said, Because they went not with us, we will not give them ought of the spoil that we have recovered, to every man his wife and his children, that they may lead them away, and depart. Then said , Ye shall not do so, my brethren, with that which hath given us, who hath preserved us, and the company that came against us into our hand. For who will unto you in this matter? but as his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike. 25And it was so from that day forward, that he made it a and an for Israel unto this day. And when came to , he sent of the spoil unto the of Judah, even to his friends, saying, Behold a present for you of the spoil of the of ; To them which were in Beth–el, and to them which were in south , and to them which were in , And to them which were in , and to them which were in Siphmoth, and to them which were in , And to them which were in Rachal, and to them which were in the cities of the Jerahmeelites, and to them which were in the cities of the , And to them which were in , and to them which were in Chor–ashan, and to them which were in Athach, And to them which were in , and to all the places where himself and his men were wont to haunt.
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.