King James Version · The divided kingdom
2 Kings 13
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In the three and twentieth year of the son of king of Judah the son of began to reign over Israel in , and reigned seventeen years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of , and followed the of the son of , which made Israel to ; he departed not therefrom. And the of was kindled against Israel, and he them into the hand of king of , and into the hand of Ben–hadad the son of , all their days. And besought , and hearkened unto him: for he saw the of Israel, because the king of oppressed them. (And gave Israel a , so that they went out from under the hand of : and the dwelt in their tents, as beforetime. Nevertheless they departed not from the of the house of , who made Israel , but walked therein: and there remained the grove also in .) Neither did he leave of the people to but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of had destroyed them, and had made them like by . Now the rest of the acts of , and all that he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? And slept with his fathers; and they in : and his son reigned in his stead. 10In and seventh year of king of Judah began the son of to reign over Israel in , and reigned sixteen years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of ; he departed not from all the of the son of , who made Israel : but he walked therein. And the rest of the acts of , and all that he did, and his might wherewith he fought against king of Judah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? And slept with his fathers; and sat upon his : and was buried in with the kings of Israel. Now was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he . And the king of Israel came down unto him, and wept over , and said, O , , the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. 15And said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it: and put his hands upon the king’s hands. And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened it. Then said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of ’s , and the arrow of from : for thou shalt smite in , till thou have consumed them. And he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice, and stayed. And the was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite but thrice. And , and they . And the bands of the invaded the land at the coming in of the year. And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the of : and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of , he revived, and stood up on his feet. But king of oppressed Israel all the days of . And was unto them, and had on them, and had respect unto them, because of his with , , and , and would not destroy them, neither cast he them from his as yet. So king of ; and Ben–hadad his son reigned in his stead. And the son of took again out of the hand of Ben–hadad the son of the cities, which he had taken out of the hand of his by war. Three times did beat him, and recovered the cities of Israel.
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.