King James Version · The united kingdom
1 Samuel 5
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And the took the , and brought it from Eben–ezer unto . When the took the , they brought it into the house of , and set it by . And when they of arose early on the morrow, behold, was fallen upon to the earth before the . And they took , and set him in his place again. And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, was fallen upon to the ground before the ; and the head of and both the palms of his hands were upon the threshold; only the stump of was left to him. Therefore neither the priests of , nor any that come into ’s house, tread on the threshold of in unto this day. But the hand of was heavy upon them of , and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even and the coasts thereof. And when the men of saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the of Israel shall not with us: for his hand is sore upon us, and upon our . They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the unto them, and said, What shall we do with the ark of the of Israel? And they answered, Let the ark of the of Israel be carried about unto . And they carried the ark of the of Israel about thither. And it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of was against the city with a very great : and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts. Therefore they sent the to . And it came to pass, as the came to , that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought about the ark of the of Israel to us, to us and our people. So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the , and said, Send away the ark of the of Israel, and let it go again to his own place, that it us not, and our people: for there was a deadly throughout all the city; the hand of was very heavy there. And the men that not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to .
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.