King James Version · The united kingdom

Psalms 60

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To the upon –eduth, Michtam of , to teach; when he strove with –naharaim and with –zobah, when returned, and smote of in the valley of salt twelve thousand. O , thou hast cast us off, thou hast scattered us, thou hast been displeased; O turn thyself to us again. Thou hast made the earth to tremble; thou hast broken it: heal the breaches thereof; for it shaketh. Thou hast shewed thy people hard things: thou hast made us to drink the of astonishment. Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. . That thy beloved may be ; with thy , and hear me. hath spoken in his ; I will rejoice, I will divide , and mete out the valley of . is mine, and is mine; also is the strength of mine head; Judah is my lawgiver; is my washpot; over will I cast out my shoe: , triumph thou because of me. Who will bring me into the strong city? who will lead me into ? Wilt not thou, O , which hadst cast us off? and thou, O , which didst not go out with our armies? Give us help from trouble: for is the help of man. Through we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our .

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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Psalms 60 | Read the Bible | EKLI