King James Version · The united kingdom

Psalms 3

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, when he fled from his son. , how are they increased that trouble me! many are they that rise up against me. Many there be which say of , There is no help for him in . . But thou, O , art a shield for me; my , and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto with my voice, and he heard me out of his hill. . I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for sustained me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about. Arise, O ; me, O my : for thou hast smitten all mine upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. belongeth unto : thy is upon thy people. .

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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