World English Bible · The united kingdom
Ecclesiastes 8
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Who is like man? And who knows the of a thing? A man's makes shine, and the hardness of is changed. I say, "Keep the king's command!" because of the to . Don't be hasty to go out of his . Don't persist in an evil thing, for he does whatever pleases him, for the king's word is supreme. Who can say to him, "What are you doing?" Whoever keeps the shall not come to harm, and his will know the time and procedure. For there is a time and procedure for every purpose, although the misery of man is heavy on him. For he doesn't know that which will be; for who can tell him how it will be? There is no man who has over to contain ; neither does he have over the day of . There is no discharge in war; neither shall wickedness those who practice it. All this I have seen, and applied my to every work that is done under the sun. There is a time in which one man has over another to his hurt. So I saw buried. Indeed they came also from . They went and were forgotten in the city where they did this. This also is . Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a commits crimes a hundred times, and lives long, yet surely I know that it will be better with those who , who are reverent before him. But it shall not be well with , neither shall he lengthen days like a shadow, because he doesn't . There is a which is done on the earth, that there are men to whom it happens according to the work of . Again, there are men to whom it happens according to the work of . I said that this also is . Then I commended mirth, because a man has no better thing under the sun than to eat, to drink, and to be joyful: for that will accompany him in his labor all the days of his life which has given him under the sun. When I applied to know , and to see the business that is done on the earth (even though eyes see no sleep day or night), then I saw all the work of , that man can't find out the work that is done under the sun, because however much a man labors to seek it out, yet he won't find it. Yes even though a man thinks he can comprehend it, he won't be able to find it.
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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.