King James Version · The united kingdom
Psalms 58
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To the , Al–taschith, Michtam of . Do ye indeed speak , O ? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men? Yea, in ye work wickedness; ye weigh the of your hands in the earth. are estranged from the : they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a : they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; Which will not to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely. Break their teeth, O , in their : break out the great teeth of the young lions, O . Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces. As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun. Before your pots can feel the , he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his . shall rejoice when he seeth the : he shall wash his feet in of . So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for : verily he is a that judgeth in the earth.
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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