King James Version · The united kingdom
2 Chronicles 5
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Thus all the work that made for the was finished: and brought in all the things that his had dedicated; and the silver, and the gold, and all the instruments, put he among the of the house of . Then assembled the , and all the heads of the tribes, the chief of the fathers of the , unto , to bring up the of out of , which is . Wherefore all the men of Israel assembled themselves unto the king in the feast which was in the seventh month. And all the came; and the took up the ark. And they brought up the ark, and the of , and all the vessels that were in the , these did the priests and the bring up. Also king , and all of Israel that were assembled unto him before the ark, sheep and oxen, which could not be told nor numbered for multitude. And the priests brought in the of unto his place, to the oracle of the house, into the most place, even under the of the cherubims: For the cherubims spread forth their over the place of the ark, and the cherubims covered the ark and the staves thereof above. And they drew out the staves of the ark, that the ends of the staves were seen from the ark before the oracle; but they were not seen without. And there it is unto this day. There was nothing in the ark the two tables which put therein at , when made a with the , when they came out of . And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the place: (for all the priests that were present were , and did not then wait by course: Also the which were the singers, all of them of , of , of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the , and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with :) It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking ; and when they lifted up their voice with the and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised , saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the ; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for had filled the house 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 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.