King James Version · The united kingdom

Psalms 43

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Judge me, O , and plead my cause against an ungodly nation: O me from the deceitful and unjust man. For thou art the of my strength: why dost thou cast me off? why go I because of the of ? O send out thy and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy hill, and to thy tabernacles. Then will I go unto the of , unto my exceeding joy: yea, upon the harp will I thee, O my . Why art thou cast down, O ? and why art thou disquieted within me? in : for I shall yet him, who is the health of my countenance, and my .

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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