World English Bible · The united kingdom
Song of Songs 1
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1The Song of songs, which is . Let him kiss me with the kisses of his ; for your love is better than . Your oils have a pleasing fragrance. Your name is oil poured out, therefore the virgins love you. Take me away with you. Let's hurry. The king has brought me into his rooms. Friends We will be glad and rejoice in you. We will your love more than ! Beloved They are right to love you. I am dark, but lovely, you daughters of , like Kedar's tents, like curtains. Don't stare at me because I am dark, because the sun has scorched me. My mother's sons were angry with me. They made me keeper of the vineyards. I haven't kept my own . Tell me, you whom loves, where you graze your flock, where you rest them at noon; for why should I be as one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions? If you don't know, most beautiful among women, follow the tracks of the sheep. Graze your young goats beside the ' tents. I have compared you, my love, to a steed in chariots. Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, your neck with strings of jewels. We will make you earrings of gold, with studs of silver. While the king sat at his table, my perfume spread its fragrance. My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh, that lies between my breasts. My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms from the vineyards of . Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are like . Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, yes, pleasant; and our couch is verdant. The beams of our house are cedars. Our rafters are firs.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. 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.