Today, we begin 1st Kings, Chapter 5.
For the Complete Jewish Bible, click HERE.
For the King James Version, click HERE.
“Shlomo ruled over all the kingdoms from the [Euphrates] River through the land of the P’lishtim to the border of Egypt; they paid tribute and served Shlomo as long as he lived.”-1 Kings 5:1
Alrighty, verse 1 is significant because it describes the largest spread of land that Israel ever fully controlled.
To give you some context to that statement, consider that the modern state of Israel has only been in existence for about 78 years, ever since it was resurrected from the dead in 1948.
This is roughly the same amount of time that David and then Solomon ruled over Israel as a unified and sovereign nation.
So we can see that the golden age of Israel was very brief indeed.
One thing that does need to be made clear is that there are certain verses we should not take literally.
For instance, the last verse of Chapter 4 says that the people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore.
Obviously, that ain’t true in a specific mathematical sense.
So the statement about Solomon reigning over every kingdom from the Euphrates River southward to Egypt should also be understood as hyperbole.
Ya feeling me here?
The Euphrates River starts in what today is modern-day Turkey and then continues until it empties out into the Persian Gulf.
We’re talking about a river over 1700 miles in length!
So there’s no way in hell Solomon literally ruled every kingdom south of the Euphrates River.
It just ain’t possible.
The use of exaggerated statements is something that exists in all languages.
Keep in mind that we do the same thing in everyday speech.
Sometimes we use big, general statements to talk about a large number of people or things.
Other times, we speak in broad terms because there is no need to be exact.
The Bible works the same way.
We also speak from our own location, culture, and the subject we are discussing.
The writers of Scripture did too.
That means we need to be careful not to treat statements like the one at the end of chapter 4 and the beginning of chapter 5 as rigid, absolute declarations.
Instead, we should read them the way people naturally communicate, with the context in mind.
I hope you’re feeling me here, homies.
So what takeaway can we extract from this?
Simple, homie.
Read the Bible like a Hebrew book, not some Western science textbook.
The writers of Scripture spoke like real people, using figures of speech, broad statements, and everyday language just like we do.
If we ignore that fact, we’ll end up creating a bunch of retarded theological problems that don’t actually exist.
Context doesn’t weaken God’s Word.
It helps us understand it the way God intended.
Done.
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