King James Version · The united kingdom
Psalms 72
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A Psalm for . Give the king thy judgments, O , and thy unto the king’s son. He shall judge thy people with , and thy with . The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by . He shall judge of the people, he shall the children of , and shall break in pieces the oppressor. They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon , throughout all generations. He shall come down like upon the mown grass: as that water the earth. In his days shall flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that in shall bow before him; and his shall lick . The kings of and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of and shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall him. For he shall when he crieth; also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare and needy, and shall the of . He shall their from deceit and : and precious shall their be in his sight. And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of : also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised. There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like : and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth. His name shall for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be in him: all nations shall call him . be , the of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And be his name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his ; , and . The prayers of the son of are ended.
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.
All of Psalms
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