King James Version · The united kingdom
Proverbs 23
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When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat. Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own . Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves ; they fly away as an eagle toward . Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither thou his dainty meats: For as he thinketh in , so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but is not with thee. 8The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words. Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the of thy words. Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of : For their redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee. Apply thine unto , and thine ears to the words of knowledge. Withhold not from the child: for if thou beatest him with the , he shall not . Thou shalt beat him with the , and shalt his from hell. My son, if thine be , shall rejoice, even mine. Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy speak right things. Let not thine envy : but be thou in the all the day long. For surely there is an end; and thine shall not . Hear thou, my son, and be , and guide thine in . Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of : For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to : and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. unto thy that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old. Buy the truth, and sell it not; also , and , and . of shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a child shall have joy of him. Thy and thy mother shall be glad, and she that thee shall rejoice. My son, give me thine , and let thine eyes observe my ways. For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men. Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the ; they that go to seek mixed . Look not thou upon the when it is red, when it giveth his colour in , when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a , and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine shall utter perverse things. Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
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.