King James Version · The divided kingdom
2 Kings 7
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Then said, Hear ye the word of ; Thus saith , To morrow about this time shall a measure of be sold for a , and two measures of barley for a , in the of . Then a on whose hand the king leaned answered the , and said, Behold, if would make windows in , might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. And there were four men at the entering in of the : and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we ? If we say, We will enter into the city, then the is in the city, and we shall there: and if we sit still here, we also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of : if they us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but . And they rose up in the twilight, to go unto the camp of : and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of , behold, there was no man there. For had made the host of to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the , and the kings of the , to come upon us. Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. And when these came to the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried thence silver, and gold, and raiment, and went and hid it; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also, and went and hid it. Then they said one to another, We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning , some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king’s household. So they came and called unto the porter of the city: and they told them, saying, We came to the camp of , and, behold, there was no man there, neither voice of man, but horses tied, and asses tied, and the tents as they were. 11And he called the porters; and they told it to the king’s house within. And the king arose in the night, and said unto his servants, I will now shew you what have done to us. They know that we be hungry; therefore are they gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, When they come out of the city, we shall catch them alive, and get into the city. And one of his servants answered and said, Let some take, I thee, five of the horses that , which are left in the city, (behold, they are as all of Israel that are left in it: behold, I say, they are even as all of the that are consumed:) and let us send and see. 14They took therefore two chariot horses; and the king sent after the host of , saying, Go and see. And they went after them unto Jordan: and, lo, all was full of garments and vessels, which had cast away in their haste. And the returned, and told the king. And the people went out, and spoiled the tents of . So a measure of was sold for a , and two measures of barley for a , according to the word of . And the king appointed on whose hand he leaned to have the charge of the : and the people trode upon him in the , and he , as the had said, who spake when the king came down to him. And it came to pass as the had spoken to the king, saying, Two measures of barley for a , and a measure of for a , shall be to morrow about this time in the of : And that answered the , and said, Now, behold, if should make windows in , might such a thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. And so it fell out unto him: for the people trode upon him in the , and he .
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.