World English Bible · The united kingdom

Psalms 6

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; on stringed instruments, upon the eight-stringed lyre. A Psalm by . , don't rebuke me in your , neither me in your . Have mercy on me, , for I am faint. , heal me, for my bones are troubled. is also in great anguish. But you, —how long? Return, . , and me for your ' sake. For in there is no memory of you. In , who shall give you thanks? I am weary with my groaning. Every night I flood my bed. I drench my couch with my tears. My eye wastes away because of grief. It grows old because of all my . Depart from me, all you workers of , for has heard the voice of my weeping. has heard my . accepts my . May all be and dismayed. They shall , they shall be disgraced suddenly.

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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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