World English Bible · The united kingdom
2 Samuel 21
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There was a in the days of for three years, year after year; and sought . said, "It is for , and for his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to ." The king called the Gibeonites and said to them (now the Gibeonites were not of the , but of of the , and the had to them; and sought to kill them in his for the and Judah); and said to the Gibeonites, "What should I do for you? And with what should I make atonement, that you may ?" The Gibeonites said to him, "It is no matter of silver or gold between us and or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to in Israel." He said, "I will do for you whatever you say." They said to the king, "The man who consumed us and who plotted against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Israel, let seven men of his sons be to us, and we will hang them up to in of , the chosen of ." The king said, "I will give them." But the king spared the son of the son of , because of that was between them, between and the son of . But the king took the two sons of the daughter of , whom she bore to , Armoni and ; and the five sons of the daughter of , whom she bore to Adriel the son of the Meholathite. He them into the hands of the Gibeonites; and they hanged them on the mountain before , and all seven of them fell together. They were put to in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest. the daughter of took and spread it for herself on , of harvest until water poured on them from . She allowed neither the birds of to rest on them by day, nor the animals of the field by night. was told what the daughter of , the of , had done. So went and took the bones of and the bones of his son from the men of , who had stolen them from the street of , where the had hanged them in the day that the killed in Gilboa; 13and he brought up from there the bones of and the bones of his son. They also gathered the bones of those who were hanged. They buried the bones of and his son in the country of in Zela, in the of his ; and they performed all that the king commanded. After that, answered for the land. The had war again with Israel; and went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the . grew faint; and Ishbibenob, who was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear was three hundred of bronze in weight, he being armed with a new , thought he would kill . But the son of helped him, and struck the and killed him. Then the men of to him, saying, "Don't go out with us to battle any more, so that you don't quench the lamp of Israel." After this, there was again war with the at Gob. Then the killed Saph, who was of the sons of the giant. There was again war with the at Gob, and the son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed the brother, the of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. There was again war at , where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on every hand and six toes on every foot, twenty-four in number, and he also was born to the giant. When he defied Israel, the son of , brother, killed him. These four were born to the giant in ; and they fell by the hand of and by the hand of his servants.
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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.