King James Version · The united kingdom
Psalms 79
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A Psalm of . O , the heathen are come into thine ; thy temple have they defiled; they have laid on heaps. bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the , of thy unto the of the earth. Their have they shed like water round about ; and there was none to bury them. We are become a to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us. How long, ? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall thy burn like ? Pour out thy upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name. For they have devoured , and laid waste his . O remember not against us former : let thy speedily prevent us: for we are brought very low. Help us, O of our , for the of thy name: and us, and purge away our , for thy name’s sake. Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their ? let him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenging of of thy servants which is shed. Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy preserve thou those that are appointed to ; And render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their their , wherewith they have reproached thee, O . So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever: we will shew forth thy .
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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