King James Version · The divided kingdom
2 Kings 3
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Now the son of began to reign over Israel in the eighteenth year of king of Judah, and reigned twelve years. And he wrought evil in the sight of ; but not like his , and like his mother: for he the of that his had made. Nevertheless he cleaved unto the of the son of , which made Israel to ; he departed not therefrom. And king of was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool. But it came to pass, when was , that the king of rebelled against the king of Israel. And king went out of the same time, and numbered all Israel. And he went and sent to the king of Judah, saying, The king of hath rebelled against me: wilt thou go with me against to battle? And he said, I will go up: I am as thou art, my people as thy people, and my horses as thy horses. And he said, Which way shall we go up? And he answered, through of . So the king of Israel went, and the king of Judah, and the king of : and they fetched a compass of seven days’ journey: and there was no water for the host, and for the cattle that followed them. And the king of Israel said, Alas! that hath called these three kings together, to them into the hand of ! But said, Is there not here a of , that we may enquire of by him? And one of the king of Israel’s servants answered and said, Here is the son of Shaphat, which poured water on the hands of . And said, The word of is with him. So the king of Israel and and the king of went down to him. And said unto the king of Israel, What have I to do with thee? get thee to of thy , and to of thy mother. And the king of Israel said unto him, Nay: for hath called these three kings together, to them into the hand of . And said, As of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the of the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee, nor see thee. But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of came upon him. 16And he said, Thus saith , Make this valley full of ditches. For thus saith , Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see ; yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye, and your cattle, and your . And this is but a thing in the sight of : he will the also into your hand. And ye shall smite every fenced city, and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop all wells of water, and mar every good piece of land with stones. And it came to pass in the morning, when the meat was offered, that, behold, there came water by of , and the country was filled with water. And when all the heard that the kings were come up to fight against them, they gathered all that were able to put on armour, and upward, and stood in the border. 22And they rose up early in the morning, and the sun shone upon the water, and the saw the water on the other side as red as : And they said, This is : the kings are surely slain, and they have smitten one another: now therefore, , to the spoil. And when they came to the camp of Israel, the rose up and smote the , so that they fled before them: but they went forward smiting the , even in their country. And they beat down the cities, and on every good piece of land cast every man his stone, and filled it; and they stopped all the wells of water, and felled all the good trees: only in –haraseth left they the stones thereof; howbeit the slingers went about it, and smote it. And when the king of saw that the battle was too sore for him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew , to break through even unto the king of : but they could not. Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.
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.