World English Bible · The united kingdom
Song of Songs 6
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Where has your beloved gone, you fairest among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you? My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flock in the gardens, and to gather lilies. I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies. You are beautiful, my love, as , lovely as , awesome as an army with banners. Turn away your eyes from me, for they have overcome me. Your hair is like a goats, that lie along the side of . Your teeth are like a ewes, which have come up from the washing, of which every one has twins; not one is bereaved among them. Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your . There are sixty queens, eighty , and virgins without number. My , my perfect one, is unique. She is her mother's only daughter. She is the favorite one of her who bore her. The daughters saw her, and called her . The queens and the saw her, and they praised her. Who is she who looks out as the morning, beautiful as the moon, clear as the sun, and awesome as an army with banners? I went down into the nut tree grove, to see the green plants of the valley, to see whether budded, and the pomegranates were in flower. Without realizing it, my set me with my royal people's chariots. Return, return, Shulammite! Return, return, that we may gaze at you. Lover Why do you to gaze at the Shulammite, as at the dance of ?
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.