King James Version · The divided kingdom
2 Chronicles 19
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And the king of Judah returned to his house in peace to . And the son of the went out to meet him, and said to king , Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate ? therefore is upon thee from before . Nevertheless there are good things found in thee, in that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, and hast prepared thine to seek . And dwelt at : and he went out again through the people from Beer–sheba to mount , and brought them back unto of their fathers. And he set judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city, And said to the judges, Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for , who is with you in the . Wherefore now let the be upon you; take heed and do it: for there is no with our , nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts. Moreover in did set of the , and of the priests, and of the chief of the fathers of Israel, for the of , and for controversies, when they returned to . And he charged them, saying, Thus shall ye do in the , faithfully, and with a perfect . And what cause soever shall come to you of your brethren that in their cities, between and , between law and , and judgments, ye shall even warn them that they trespass not against , and so come upon you, and upon your brethren: this do, and ye shall not trespass. And, behold, the is over you in all matters of ; and the son of , the ruler of the house of Judah, for all the king’s matters: also the shall be officers before you. Deal courageously, and shall be with the good.
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.