World English Bible · The united kingdom
Proverbs 2
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My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my within you, so as to turn your ear to , and apply to ; yes, if you call out for discernment, and lift up your voice for ; if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden ; then you will understand the , and find the knowledge of . For gives . Out of his comes knowledge and . He lays up sound for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, that he may guard the of justice, and preserve of his . Then you will understand and justice, equity and every good path. For will enter into . Knowledge will be pleasant to your . Discretion will watch over you. will keep you, to you from of evil, from the men who speak perverse things, who forsake the of uprightness, to walk in the ways of , who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of evil, who are crooked in their ways, and wayward in their , to you from the strange woman, even from the who flatters with her words, who forsakes the friend of her youth, and forgets of her ; for her house leads down to , her to the departed spirits. None who go to her return again, neither do they attain to the of life. Therefore walk in of good men, and keep the of . For the upright will in the land. The perfect will in it. But will from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. 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.