World English Bible · The united kingdom
2 Chronicles 3
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
Then began to build house at on Mount Moriah, where appeared to his , which he prepared in the place that had appointed, on the of the . He began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign. Now these are the foundations which laid for the building of house: the length by after the first measure was sixty , and the width twenty . The porch that was in front, its length, across the width of the house, was twenty , and the height one hundred twenty; and he overlaid it within with pure gold. He made the larger room with a ceiling of cypress wood, which he overlaid with fine gold, and ornamented it with palm trees and chains. He decorated the house with precious stones for beauty. The gold was gold from Parvaim. He also overlaid the house, the beams, the thresholds, its walls, and its doors with gold, and engraved on the walls. He made the most place. Its length, according to the width of the house, was twenty , and its width twenty ; and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred . The weight of the nails was fifty of gold. He overlaid the upper rooms with gold. In the most place he made two by carving, and they overlaid them with gold. 11The of the were twenty long: the of the one was five , reaching to the wall of the house; and the other was five , reaching to the of the other . 12The of the other was five , reaching to the wall of the house; and the other was five , joining to the of the other . The of these spread themselves out twenty . They stood on their feet, and their faces were toward the house. He made of blue, purple, crimson, and fine linen, and ornamented it with . Also he made before the house two pillars thirty-five high, and the capital that was on the top of each of them was five . He made chains in the inner sanctuary, and put them on the tops of the pillars; and he made one hundred pomegranates, and put them on the chains. He set up the pillars before , one on and the other on the left; and called the name of that on , and the name of that on the left .
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
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.