King James Version · The united kingdom
Psalms 74
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Maschil of . O , why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thine smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? Remember thy , which thou hast purchased of old; the of thine , which thou hast ; this mount , wherein thou hast dwelt. Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all that hath done wickedly in . Thine roar in the midst of thy congregations; they set up their ensigns for signs. A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees. But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers. They have cast into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the of thy name to the ground. They said in their , Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all the of in the land. We see not our signs: there is no more any : neither is there among us any that knoweth how long. O , how long shall the adversary ? shall blaspheme thy name for ever? Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy ? pluck it out of thy . For is my King of old, working in the midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting . Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood: thou driedst up mighty rivers. The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter. Remember this, that hath reproached, O , and that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name. O not the of thy turtledove unto of : forget not of thy for ever. Have respect unto : for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of . O let not the oppressed return : let and needy thy name. Arise, O , plead thine own cause: remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee daily. Forget not the voice of thine : the tumult of those that rise up against thee increaseth continually.
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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