King James Version · The divided kingdom
2 Kings 12
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In the seventh year of began to reign; and forty years reigned he in . And his mother’s name was Zibiah of Beer–sheba. And did that which was right in the sight of all his days wherein the priest instructed him. But the were not taken away: the people still and burnt in the . And said to the priests, All the money of the dedicated things that is brought into the , even the money of every one that passeth the account, the money that every man is set at, and all the money that cometh into any man’s to bring into the , Let the priests take it to them, every man of his acquaintance: and let them repair the breaches of the house, wheresoever any breach shall be found. But it was so, that in the three and twentieth year of king the priests had not repaired the breaches of the house. Then king called for the priest, and the other priests, and said unto them, Why repair ye not the breaches of the house? now therefore receive no more money of your acquaintance, but it for the breaches of the house. 8And the priests consented to receive no more money of the people, neither to repair the breaches of the house. But the priest took a chest, and bored a hole in the lid of it, and set it beside the , on the right side as one cometh into the : and the priests that kept the door put therein all the money that was brought into the . And it was so, when they saw that there was much money in the chest, that the king’s and the came up, and they put up in bags, and told the money that was found in the . And they gave the money, being told, into the hands of them that did the work, that had the oversight of the : and they laid it out to the carpenters and builders, that wrought upon the , And to masons, and hewers of stone, and to buy timber and hewed stone to repair the breaches of the , and for all that was laid out for the house to repair it. Howbeit there were not made for the bowls of silver, snuffers, basons, , any vessels of gold, or vessels of silver, of the money that was brought into the : 14But they gave that to the workmen, and repaired therewith the . Moreover they not with the men, into whose hand they the money to be bestowed on workmen: for they dealt faithfully. The trespass money and money was not brought into the : it was the priests’. Then king of went up, and fought against , and took it: and set to go up to . And king of Judah took all the hallowed things that , and , and , his fathers, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own hallowed things, and all the gold that was found in the of the , and in the king’s house, and sent it to king of : and he went away from . And the rest of the acts of , and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And his servants arose, and made a conspiracy, and slew in the house of , which goeth down to Silla. For Jozachar the son of Shimeath, and the son of , his servants, smote him, and he ; and they with his fathers in : and his son reigned in his stead.
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.