King James Version · The united kingdom
Ecclesiastes 5
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Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of , and be more ready to hear, than to give the of fools: for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy , and let not thine be hasty to utter any thing before : for is in , and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. For a cometh through of business; and a fool’s voice is known by multitude of words. When thou vowest a unto , defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast . Better is it that thou shouldest not , than that thou shouldest and not pay. Suffer not thy to cause thy to ; neither say thou before , that it was an error: wherefore should be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands? For in of and many words there are also divers : but fear thou . If thou seest the of , and perverting of and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they. Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is by the field. He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also . When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes? The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. But those riches by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand. As he came forth of his mother’s , shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand. And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind? All his days also he eateth , and he hath much sorrow and with his sickness. Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which giveth him: for it is his . Every man also to whom hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him to eat thereof, and to take his , and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of . For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because answereth him in the joy of .
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.