King James Version · The divided kingdom
2 Chronicles 15
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And of came upon the son of Oded: And he went out to meet , and said unto him, Hear ye me, , and all Judah and ; is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true , and without a teaching priest, and without law. But when they in their trouble did turn unto of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them. And in those times there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the countries. And nation was destroyed of nation, and city of city: for did vex them with all adversity. Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded. And when heard these words, and the of Oded the , he took courage, and the idols out of all the land of Judah and , and out of the cities which he had taken from mount , and renewed the of , that was before the porch of . And he gathered all Judah and , and the strangers with them out of and , and out of : for they fell to him out of Israel in abundance, when they saw that his was with him. So they gathered themselves together at in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of . And they offered unto the same time, of the spoil which they had brought, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. And they entered into a to seek of their fathers with all their and with all their ; That whosoever would not seek of Israel should be put to , whether small or great, whether man or woman. And they sware unto with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with , and with cornets. And all Judah rejoiced at the : for they had with all their , and sought him with their whole ; and he was found of them: and gave them rest round about. And also concerning Maachah the mother of the king, he removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove: and cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook . But the were not taken away out of Israel: nevertheless of was perfect all his days. And he brought into the house of the things that his had dedicated, and that he himself had dedicated, silver, and gold, and vessels. And there was no more war unto the five and thirtieth year of the reign of .
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 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.