World English Bible · The divided kingdom
2 Kings 16
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In the seventeenth year of the son of , the son of king of Judah began to reign. was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in . He didn't do that which was right in his eyes, like his . But he walked in of the kings of Israel, and even made his son to pass through the , according to the of the nations whom cast out from before the . He and in the , on the hills, and . Then king of and son of king of Israel came up to to wage war. They besieged , but could not overcome him. At that time king of recovered Elath to , and drove the from Elath; and came to Elath, and lived there to this day. So sent to king of , saying, "I am and your son. Come up and me out of the hand of the king of and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who rise up against me." took the silver and gold that was found in house, and in the of the king's house, and sent it for a present to the king of . The king of listened to him; and the king of went up against and took it, and carried its people to , and killed . King went to to meet king of , and saw the that was at ; and King sent to the priest a drawing of the and plans to build it. the priest built an . According to all that King had sent from , so the priest made it for the coming of King from . When the king had come from , the king saw the ; and the king came near to the , and offered on it. He burned his burnt offering and his , poured his drink , and sprinkled of his on the . The bronze , which was before , he brought from the front of the house, from between his and house, and put it on the north side of his . King commanded the priest, saying, "On the great burn the morning burnt offering, the evening , the king's burnt offering and his , with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their , and their drink ; and sprinkle on it all of the burnt offering, and all of the ; but the bronze will be for me to inquire by." the priest did so, according to all that King commanded. King the panels of the bases, and removed the basin from off them, and took down the sea from off the bronze oxen that were under it, and put it on a pavement of stone. He removed the covered way for the that they had built in the house, and the king's outer entrance to house, because of the king of . Now the rest of the acts of which he did, aren't they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in city; and his son reigned in his place.
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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.