King James Version · The united kingdom
Psalms 75
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To the , Al–taschith, A Psalm or Song of . Unto thee, O , do we , unto thee do we : for that thy name is near thy wondrous works declare. When I shall receive I will judge uprightly. The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. . I said unto the fools, Deal not foolishly: and to , Lift not up : Lift not up your on high: speak not with a stiff neck. For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another. For in the hand of there is a , and the is red; it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them. But I will declare for ever; I will sing to the of . All the of also will I ; but the of shall be exalted.
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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