As I mentioned yesterday, by the time of the 2nd book of Samuel, Egypt had emerged once again as a superpower.
What’s interesting is that despite warring with Libya, Egypt’s Pharaoh allowed a talented Libyan leader to scale the ranks in the Egyptian army during David’s time.
By Solomon’s time, this Libyan became a general…
And then later took the throne as Pharaoh!
His name was Shoshenk, also called Shishak.
He’s mentioned in the books of 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles.
So what does a nation do once it has regained its power?
It wants to seek more power, of course!
The first thing this Libyan Pharaoh did was unite Upper and Lower Egypt into one country with one government.
After that, Egypt looked north to Canaan, a land they once controlled before Jacob went to Egypt to be with his son Joseph.
Shoshenk (also called Shishak), first focused on Phonecia because they were traders and sailors who could help Egypt sell goods far and wide.
At the same time, Shishak tried to set up forts in Judah to expand Egypt’s power, but he wasn’t very successful, at least not during the time of David and Solomon.
The next time we meet, we’re gonna take a look at Phonecia’s situation because they also played an influential role during David’s era.
The takeaway today is something I already said but bears repeating.
No nation exists in an isolated vacuum.
If you wanna understand why nations in Scripture acted the way they did, you need to grasp the political dynamics that affected them.
The same goes for nations in our modern age.
It was the same back then…
And it’s the same today.
Everything must be understood in context.
Ya, feel me?
Later homies.
P.S. In this post, I talked about how a Libyan dude rose to become Pharaoh. But did you know the Pharaoh during Joseph’s time was also NOT an Egyptian? I’m serious. He was a Semite (a son of Shem).
This common ethnicity with the Hebrews was also why Joseph was able to rise to power in Egypt.
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