King James Version · The divided kingdom
2 Kings 8
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Then spake unto the woman, whose son he had restored to life, saying, Arise, and go thou and thine household, and sojourn wheresoever thou canst sojourn: for hath called for a ; and it shall also come upon the land seven years. And the woman arose, and did after the saying of the : and she went with her household, and sojourned in the land of the seven years. And it came to pass at the seven years’ end, that the woman returned out of the land of the : and she went forth to cry unto the king for her house and for her land. And the king talked with the the , saying, Tell me, I thee, all the great things that hath done. And it came to pass, as he was telling the king how he had restored a body to life, that, behold, the woman, whose son he had restored to life, cried to the king for her house and for her land. And said, My , O king, this is the woman, and this is her son, whom restored to life. And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed unto her a certain officer, saying, Restore all that was hers, and all the fruits of the field since the day that she left the land, even until now. And came to ; and Ben–hadad the king of was sick; and it was told him, saying, The is come hither. And the king said unto , Take a present in thine hand, and go, meet the , and enquire of by him, saying, Shall I recover of this disease? So went to meet him, and took a present with him, even of every good thing of , forty camels’ burden, and came and stood before him, and said, Thy son Ben–hadad king of hath sent me to thee, saying, Shall I recover of this disease? And said unto him, Go, say unto him, Thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit hath shewed me that he shall surely . And he settled his countenance stedfastly, until he was : and the wept. And said, Why weepeth my ? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the : their strong holds wilt thou set on , and their young men wilt thou with , and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child. And said, But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? And answered, hath shewed me that thou shalt be king over . So he departed from , and came to his master; who said to him, What said to thee? And he answered, He told me that thou shouldest surely recover. And it came to pass on the morrow, that he took a thick cloth, and dipped it in water, and spread it on , so that he : and reigned in his stead. And in the fifth year of the son of king of Israel, being then king of Judah, the son of king of Judah began to reign. Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned eight years in . And he walked in of the kings of Israel, as did the house of : for the daughter of was his wife: and he did evil in the sight of . Yet would not destroy Judah for his servant’s sake, as he promised him to give him alway a , and to his children. In his days revolted from under the hand of Judah, and made a king over themselves. So went over to Zair, and all the chariots with him: and he rose by night, and smote the which compassed him about, and the captains of the chariots: and the people fled into their tents. Yet revolted from under the hand of Judah unto this day. Then revolted at the same time. 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 slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in : and his son reigned in his stead. In the twelfth year of the son of king of Israel did the son of king of Judah begin to reign. Two and twenty years old was when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in . And his mother’s name was , the daughter of king of Israel. And he walked in of the house of , and did evil in the sight of , as did the house of : for he was the son in law of the house of . And he went with the son of to the war against king of in ; and wounded . And king went back to be healed in of the wounds which had given him at , when he fought against king of . And the son of king of Judah went down to see the son of in , because he was sick.
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.