King James Version · The united kingdom
Psalms 141
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. , I cry unto thee: make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee. Let my be set forth before thee as ; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening . Set a watch, O , before my ; keep the door of my . Incline not to any evil thing, to practise works with men that work : and let me not eat of their dainties. Let smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my also shall be in their calamities. When their judges are overthrown in stony places, they shall hear my words; for they are sweet. Our bones are scattered at the ’s , as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth. But mine eyes are unto thee, O : in thee is my ; leave not destitute. Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me, and the gins of the workers of . Let fall into their own nets, whilst that I withal escape.
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.
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