King James Version · The united kingdom
2 Samuel 11
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And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that sent , and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed , and besieged . But tarried still at . And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. And sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bath–sheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of the ? And sent , and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house. And the woman conceived, and sent and told , and said, I am with child. And sent to , saying, Send me the . And sent to . And when was come unto him, demanded of him how did, and how the people did, and how the war prospered. And said to , Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet. And departed out of the king’s house, and there followed him a mess of meat from the king. But slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his , and went not down to his house. 10And when they had told , saying, went not down unto his house, said unto , Camest thou not from thy journey? why then didst thou not go down unto thine house? And said unto , The ark, and Israel, and Judah, in tents; and my , and the servants of my , are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into mine house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? as thou livest, and as thy liveth, I will not do this thing. And said to , Tarry here to day also, and to morrow I will let thee depart. So abode in that day, and the morrow. And when had called him, he did eat and drink before him; and he made him drunk: and at even he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his , but went not down to his house. And it came to pass in the morning, that wrote a letter to , and sent it by the hand of . And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set ye in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and . And it came to pass, when observed the city, that he assigned unto a place where he knew that valiant men were. And the men of the city went out, and fought with : and there fell some of the people of the servants of ; and the also. 18Then sent and told all the things concerning the war; 19And charged , saying, When thou hast made an end of telling the matters of the war unto the king, 20And if so be that the king’s arise, and he say unto thee, Wherefore approached ye so nigh unto the city when ye did fight? knew ye not that they would shoot from the wall? Who smote Abimelech the son of ? did not a woman cast a piece of a millstone upon him from the wall, that he in Thebez? why went ye nigh the wall? then say thou, Thy servant the is also. 22So went, and came and shewed all that had sent him for. 23And said unto , Surely the men prevailed against us, and came out unto us into the field, and we were upon them even unto the entering of the . 24And the shooters shot from off the wall upon thy servants; and some of the king’s servants be , and thy servant the is also. Then said unto , Thus shalt thou say unto , Let not this thing displease thee, for devoureth one as well as another: make thy battle more strong against the city, and overthrow it: and encourage thou him. And when the wife of heard that her husband was , she mourned for her husband. And when the was past, sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and him a son. But the thing that had done displeased .
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 united kingdom, 1050 BC to 931 BC ›
Saul, David, and Solomon. A rare window when both Egypt and Mesopotamia are weak, which is how a small kingdom in the corridor between them could briefly become a regional power.
- The power vacuum
- This is the whole political explanation for the united kingdom. Egypt is fragmented, Assyria is recovering but still local, the Hittites are gone, and nobody is in a position to object to a strong state in the corridor. It lasts about a century, and Israel's golden age fits exactly inside it.
- Phoenicia
- Tyre under Hiram is the commercial power of the coast, and supplies the cedar, the craftsmen, and the shipping for Solomon's building programme. The alliance is trade, not charity: Israel had grain and a land route, Tyre had timber and ships.
- Egypt
- Weak enough that a pharaoh gives a daughter in marriage to an Israelite king, which is the opposite of Egyptian practice in stronger centuries. Late in the era it recovers under a new house, and Shishak will invade within five years of Solomon's death.
- Further afield
- Greece is still in its dark age but beginning to recover, and will adopt the Phoenician alphabet within a century or two. Carthage is founded by settlers from Tyre by tradition in 814 BC. In the Americas the Olmec centre shifts to La Venta.