King James Version · Under the Greeks
Wisdom of Solomon 5
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1Then shall man stand in great boldness before the of such as have afflicted him, and made no account of his labours. 2When they see it, they shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the strangeness of his , so far beyond all that they looked for. 3And they repenting and groaning for anguish of shall say within themselves, This was he, whom we had sometimes in derision, and a of : 4We fools accounted his life madness, and his end to be without : 5How is he numbered among the children of , and his lot is among ! 6Therefore have we erred from of truth, and of hath not shined unto us, and the sun of rose not upon us. 7We wearied ourselves in of wickedness and : yea, we have gone through deserts, where there lay no way: but as for of , we have not known it. 8What hath pride profited us? or what good hath riches with our vaunting brought us? 9All those things are passed away like a shadow, and as a post that hasted by; 10And as a ship that passeth over the waves of the water, which when it is gone by, the trace thereof cannot be found, neither the pathway of the keel in the waves; 11Or as when a bird hath flown through the air, there is no token of her way to be found, but air being beaten with the stroke of her and parted with the noise and motion of them, is passed through, and therein afterwards no sign where she went is to be found; 12Or like as when an arrow is shot at a mark, it parteth the air, which immediately cometh together again, so that a man cannot know where it went through: 13Even so we in like manner, as soon as we were born, began to draw to our end, and had no sign of virtue to shew; but were consumed in our own wickedness. 14For the of the Godly is like that is blown away with the wind; like a thin froth that is driven away with the storm; like as the smoke which is dispersed here and there with a tempest, and passeth away as the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day. 15But live for evermore; their reward also is with , and the care of them is with . 16Therefore shall they receive a kingdom, and a beautiful from ’s hand: for with his shall he cover them, and with his arm shall he protect them. 17He shall take to him his for complete armour, and make the creature his weapon for the of his . 18He shall put on as a breastplate, and true instead of an helmet. 19He shall take for an invincible shield. 20His severe shall he sharpen for a , and the world shall fight with him against the unwise. 21Then shall the right aiming thunderbolts go abroad; and from the clouds, as from a well drawn bow, shall they fly to the mark. 22And hailstones full of shall be cast as out of a stone bow, and the water of the sea shall rage against them, and the floods shall cruelly drown them. 23Yea, a mighty wind shall stand up against them, and like a storm shall blow them away: thus shall lay waste the whole earth, and ill dealing shall overthrow the of the mighty.
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 · Under the Greeks, 332 BC to 63 BC ›
Alexander's conquest and the kingdoms of his successors. Greek language and custom press in everywhere, and the crisis under Antiochus IV provokes the Maccabean revolt.
- The successors
- Alexander dies at thirty-two and his generals carve up the empire. Judea sits on the border between the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Syria, and is fought over by both for a century and a half, which is the ordinary condition of the corridor.
- Hellenism
- Not just conquest but a culture: the gymnasium, the theatre, Greek names, Greek dress, Greek as the language of anyone with ambitions. Some Jews embraced it, some resisted it, and the argument between them is the real subject of the Maccabean books. In Alexandria the Hebrew scriptures are translated into Greek, producing the Septuagint, which is the Bible most New Testament writers quote.
- The crisis
- Antiochus IV bans the practice of Judaism, plunders the temple, and sets up a pagan altar in it in 167 BC. The revolt under the Maccabees wins, the temple is rededicated in 164 BC, which is the origin of Hanukkah, and Judea has about eighty years of independence under the Hasmoneans before Rome arrives.
- Further afield
- Rome fights Carthage three times and ends up master of the Mediterranean. Euclid writes the Elements and Archimedes does his work at Syracuse. In China the Qin unify the country in 221 BC and the Han follow, opening what becomes the Silk Road.