King James Version · The united kingdom
Psalms 81
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To the upon , A Psalm of . Sing aloud unto our strength: make a joyful noise unto the of . Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery. Blow up the in the , in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day. 4For this was a for Israel, and a law of the of . This he ordained in for a , when he went out through the land of : where I heard a language that I understood not. I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were from the pots. Thou calledst in trouble, and I thee; I answered thee in the secret place of thunder: I proved thee at the waters of . . Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt unto me; There shall no strange be in thee; neither shalt thou any strange . I am thy , which brought thee out of the land of : open thy wide, and I will fill it. But my people would not to my voice; and Israel would none of me. So I gave them up unto their own ’ : and they walked in their own counsels. Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued their , and turned my hand against their . The haters of should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have for ever. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of should I have satisfied thee.
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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