World English Bible · The divided kingdom
2 Chronicles 11
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When had come to , he assembled the house of Judah and , one hundred eighty thousand chosen men who were warriors, to fight against Israel, to bring again to . But word came to the , saying, "Speak to the son of , king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and , saying, ' says, "You shall not go up, nor fight against your brothers! Every man return to his house; for this thing is of me."'" So they listened to words, and returned from going against Jeroboam. lived in , and built cities for defense in Judah. He built , Etam, Tekoa, , , , , , , Adoraim, , , , , and , which are fortified cities in Judah and in . He fortified the strongholds and put captains in them with stores of food, oil and . He put shields and spears in every city, and made them exceedingly strong. Judah and belonged to him. 13The priests and the who were in all Israel stood with him out of all their territory. For the left their pasture lands and their possessions, and came to Judah and ; for Jeroboam and his sons cast them off, that they should not execute the priest's office to . He himself appointed priests for the , for the male goat and calf idols which he had made. After them, out of all the tribes of Israel, those who set their to seek , the of Israel, came to to to , the of their fathers. So they strengthened of Judah and made the son of strong for three years, for they walked three years in of and . took a wife for himself, Mahalath the daughter of and of the daughter of Eliab the son of . 19She bore him sons: , , and Zaham. After her, he took the granddaughter of ; and she bore him , Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith. loved the granddaughter of above all his wives and his ; for he took eighteen wives and sixty , and became of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters. appointed the son of to be chief, the prince among his brothers, for he intended to make him king. He dealt wisely, and dispersed some of his sons throughout all the lands of Judah and , to every fortified city. He gave them food in abundance; and he sought many wives for them.
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The world at this moment · The divided kingdom, 931 BC to 745 BC ›
Israel in the north and Judah in the south, often at odds, with Aram of Damascus as the immediate threat and Assyria growing in the distance.
- Aram of Damascus
- The immediate enemy for most of two centuries, close enough to raid every campaigning season and strong enough to take territory. Most of the wars in Kings that read like national emergencies are border wars with Damascus.
- Assyria
- Growing steadily in the distance. Shalmaneser III fights a coalition at Qarqar in 853 BC and his own inscription lists King Ahab of Israel among his opponents with two thousand chariots, the earliest Assyrian mention of an Israelite king. A later monument shows Jehu bowing and paying tribute. Assyria is not yet the destroyer, but it is already taking notes.
- Egypt
- Divided and unreliable, capable of the occasional raid, such as Shishak stripping the temple in Rehoboam's fifth year, but no longer an empire that governs the Levant.
- Further afield
- The Greeks adopt the alphabet, hold the first Olympiad by tradition in 776 BC, and begin to compose the Homeric poems. Rome is founded by tradition in 753 BC, a village of huts at this point. This is the century in which the classical world begins.