World English Bible · The united kingdom
Psalms 47
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. A Psalm by the sons of . Oh clap your hands, all you nations. Shout to with the voice of triumph! For is awesome. He is a great King over all the earth. He subdues nations under us, and peoples under our feet. He chooses our for us, the of whom he loved. . has gone up with a shout, with the sound of a . Sing to ! Sing ! Sing to our King! Sing ! For is the King of all the earth. Sing with understanding. reigns over the nations. sits on his . The princes of the peoples are gathered together, the people of the of . For the shields of the earth belong to . He is greatly exalted!
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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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