King James Version · The united kingdom
Psalms 2
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Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the take together, against , and against his , saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in shall laugh: shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his , and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my hill of . I will declare the : hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine , and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a ; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a ’s . Be now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye from , when his is kindled but a little. are all they that put their in him.
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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