King James Version · The united kingdom
2 Samuel 20
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
And there happened to be there a man of Belial, whose name was , the son of , a : and he blew a , and said, We have no part in , neither have we in the son of : every man to his tents, O Israel. So every man of Israel went up from after , and followed the son of : but the men of Judah clave unto their king, from Jordan even to . And came to his house at ; and the king took the ten women his , whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in ward, and fed them, but went not in unto them. So they were shut up unto the day of their , living in widowhood. Then said the king to , Assemble me the men of Judah within three days, and be thou here present. So went to assemble the men of Judah: but he tarried longer than the which he had appointed him. And said to , Now shall the son of do us more harm than did : take thou thy ’s servants, and pursue after him, lest he get him fenced cities, and escape us. And there went out after him ’s men, and the , and the , and all the : and they went out of , to pursue after the son of . When they were at the great stone which is in , went before them. And ’s garment that he had put on was girded unto him, and upon it a girdle with a fastened upon his loins in the sheath thereof; and as he went forth it fell out. And said to , Art thou in health, my brother? And took by the beard with to kiss him. But took no heed to that was in ’s hand: so he smote him therewith in the fifth rib, and shed out his bowels to the ground, and struck him not again; and he . So and his brother pursued after the son of . And one of ’s men stood by him, and said, He that favoureth , and he that is for , let him go after . And wallowed in in the midst of the highway. And when the man saw that all the people stood still, he removed out of the highway into the field, and cast a cloth upon him, when he saw that every one that came by him stood still. When he was removed out of the highway, all the people went on after , to pursue after the son of . And he went through all the tribes of Israel unto , and to Beth–maachah, and all the Berites: and they were gathered together, and went also after him. And they came and besieged him in of Beth–maachah, and they cast up a bank against the city, and it stood in the trench: and all the people that were with battered the wall, to throw it down. Then cried a woman out of the city, Hear, hear; say, I you, unto , Come near hither, that I may speak with thee. And when he was come near unto her, the woman said, Art thou ? And he answered, I am he. Then she said unto him, Hear the words of thine handmaid. And he answered, I do hear. Then she spake, saying, They were wont to speak in old time, saying, They shall surely ask at : and so they ended the matter. I am one of them that are peaceable and in Israel: thou seekest to destroy a city and a mother in Israel: why wilt thou swallow up the of ? And answered and said, Far be it, far be it from me, that I should swallow up or destroy. The matter is not so: but a man of mount , the son of by name, hath lifted up his hand against the king, even against : him only, and I will depart from the city. And the woman said unto , Behold, his head shall be thrown to thee over the wall. Then the woman went unto all the people in her . And they the head of the son of , and cast it out to . And he blew a , and they retired from the city, every man to his tent. And returned to unto the king. Now was over of Israel: and the son of was over the and over the : And was over the tribute: and the son of was recorder: And Sheva was : and and were the priests: And also the Jairite was a chief ruler about .
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.