World English Bible · The united kingdom
2 Samuel 4
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When son heard that was in , his hands became feeble, and all the were troubled. son had two men who were captains of raiding bands. The name of one was and the name of the other , the sons of the Beerothite, of the children of (for also is considered a part of ; and the Beerothites fled to Gittaim, and have lived as there until today). Now , son, had a son who was lame in his feet. He was five years old when the news came about and out of ; and his nurse picked him up and fled. As she hurried to flee, he fell and became lame. His name was . The sons of the Beerothite, and , went out and came at about the heat of the day to the house of as he took his rest at noon. They came there into the middle of the house as though they would have fetched wheat, and they struck him in the body; and and his brother escaped. Now when they came into the house as he lay on his bed in his bedroom, they struck him, killed him, beheaded him, and took his head, and went by of the all night. They brought the head of to to , and said to the king, "Behold, the head of , the son of , your enemy, who sought your life! has my the king today of and of his ." answered and his brother, the sons of the Beerothite, and said to them, "As lives, who has out of all adversity, when someone told me, 'Behold, is ,' thinking that he brought , I seized him and killed him in , which was the reward I gave him for his news. How much more, when men have slain a person in his own house on his bed, should I not now require his from your hand, and rid the earth of you?" commanded his young men, and they killed them, their hands and their feet, and hanged them up beside the pool in . But they took the head of and buried it in in .
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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.