World English Bible · The united kingdom
2 Chronicles 2
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Now decided to build a house for name, and a house for . counted out seventy thousand men to bear burdens, eighty thousand men who were stone cutters in the mountains, and three thousand six hundred to oversee them. sent to Huram the king of , saying, "As you dealt with , and sent him cedars to build him a house in which to , so deal with me. Behold, I am about to build a house for the name of my , to dedicate it to him, to burn before him of sweet spices, for the continual show bread, and for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the , on the new moons, and on the set feasts of our . This is an to Israel. "The house which I am building will be great, for our is greater than all gods. But who is able to build him a house, since and the can't contain him? Who am I then, that I should build him a house, except to before him? "Now therefore send me a man skillful to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, in iron, and in purple, crimson, and blue, and who knows how to engrave engravings, to be with the skillful men who are with me in Judah and in , whom provided. "Send me also cedar trees, cypress trees, and algum trees out of , for I know that your servants know how to cut timber in . Behold, my servants will be with your servants, even to prepare me timber in abundance; for the house which I am about to build will be great and wonderful. Behold, I will give to your servants, the cutters who cut timber, twenty thousand cors of beaten wheat, twenty thousand baths of barley, twenty thousand baths of , and twenty thousand baths of oil." Then Huram the king of answered in writing, which he sent to , "Because loves his people, he has made you king over them." Huram continued, " be , the of Israel, who made and earth, who has given to the king a son, endowed with discretion and understanding, who would build a house for and a house for . Now I have sent a skillful man, endowed with understanding, Huram-abi, the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan; and his was a man of . He is skillful to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, in iron, in stone, in timber, in purple, in blue, in fine linen, and in crimson, also to engrave any kind of engraving and to devise any device, that there may be a place appointed to him with your skillful men, and with the skillful men of my your . "Now therefore, the wheat, the barley, the oil, and the which my has spoken of, let him send to his servants; and we will cut wood out of , as much as you need. We will bring it to you in rafts by sea to ; then you shall carry it up to ." counted all the who were in the land of Israel, after the census with which his had counted them; and they found one hundred fifty-three thousand six hundred. He set seventy thousand of them to bear burdens, eighty thousand who were stone cutters in the mountains, and three thousand six hundred overseers to assign the people their work.
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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.