121 | Temple construction and dedication (1 Kings 5-8)

Picture the ancient Near East around 966 BCE. It's a complicated neighborhood. Egypt sits to the south—still powerful, still impressive, though their empire-building days are behind them. Up north, the Phoenician cities along the coast, places like Tyre, basically own the Mediterranean trade routes. They're the shipping magnates of the ancient world. And scattered across the interior, you've got various Canaanite peoples and Aramean kingdoms jockeying for position. Right in the middle of all this sits Israel under King Solomon, who's just inherited a unified kingdom from his father David.Source:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7LH5IBJ54gAKIYtwTo4llR-864YYylm/view?usp=sharing