King James Version · The divided kingdom
2 Chronicles 20
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It came to pass after this also, that the children of , and , and with them other beside , came against to battle. Then there came some that told , saying, There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side ; and, behold, they be in Hazazon–tamar, which is En–gedi. And feared, and set himself to seek , and proclaimed a throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of : even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek . And stood in of Judah and , in the , before the new court, And said, O of our fathers, art not thou in ? and rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? and in thine hand is there not and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? Art not thou our , who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the of thy friend for ever? And they dwelt therein, and have built thee a sanctuary therein for thy name, saying, If, when evil cometh upon us, as , , or pestilence, or , we stand before this house, and in thy , (for thy name is in this house,) and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help. And now, behold, and and mount , whom thou wouldest not let Israel invade, when they came out of the land of , but they turned from them, and destroyed them not; Behold, I say, how they reward us, to come to cast us out of thy possession, which thou hast given us to . O our , wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee. And all Judah stood before , with their little ones, their wives, and their children. Then upon the son of , the son of , the son of Jeiel, the son of , a of the sons of , came of in the midst of ; And he said, ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of , and thou king , Thus saith unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but ’s. 16To morrow go ye down against them: behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz; and ye shall find them at the end of the brook, before of Jeruel. Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the of with you, O Judah and : fear not, nor be dismayed; to morrow go out against them: for will be with you. And bowed his head with to the ground: and all Judah and the inhabitants of fell before , worshipping . And the , of the children of the , and of the children of the Korhites, stood up to of Israel with a loud voice on high. And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into of Tekoa: and as they went forth, stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of ; in your , so shall ye be established; his , so shall ye prosper. And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto , and that should the beauty of , as they went out before the army, and to say, ; for his mercy endureth for ever. And when they began to sing and to , set ambushments against , , and mount , which were come against Judah; and they were smitten. For and stood up against the inhabitants of mount , utterly to and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of , every one helped to destroy another. And when Judah came toward the watch tower in , they looked unto , and, behold, they were bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped. And when and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in abundance both riches with bodies, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away: and they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much. And on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the valley of Berachah; for there they : therefore the name of the same place was called, The valley of Berachah, unto this day. Then they returned, every man of Judah and , and in the forefront of them, to go again to with joy; for had made them to rejoice over their . And they came to with psalteries and harps and unto the . And was on all the kingdoms of those countries, when they had heard that fought against the of Israel. So the realm of was quiet: for his gave him rest round about. And reigned over Judah: he was thirty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and five years in . And his mother’s name was the daughter of Shilhi. And he walked in of his , and departed not from it, doing that which was right in the sight of . Howbeit the were not taken away: for as yet the people had not prepared their unto the of their fathers. Now the rest of the acts of , first and last, behold, they are written in the book of the son of , who is mentioned in the book of the kings of Israel. And after this did king of Judah join himself with king of Israel, who did very wickedly: And he joined himself with him to make ships to go to : and they made the ships in –geber. Then the son of Dodavah of prophesied against , saying, Because thou hast joined thyself with , hath broken thy works. And the ships were broken, that they were not able to go 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 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.