{"id":398,"date":"2021-01-11T18:08:50","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T22:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/?p=398"},"modified":"2026-02-02T21:39:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T01:39:14","slug":"the-kingdoms-of-saul-david-and-solomon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/2021\/01\/11\/the-kingdoms-of-saul-david-and-solomon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kingdoms of Saul, David, and Solomon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When Israel first settled in Canaan, they operated as a coalition of twelve tribes with no single ruler, though from time to time local leaders would rise up as needed to face certain threats (Judges 2-16). Beginning with Saul, however, the twelve tribes of Israel united under a single king in order to be more like the nations around them (1 Samuel 8). Saul was effective in fighting Israel&#8217;s nearby enemies, such as the Philistines and the Ammonites (1 Samuel 11; 13-14). Over time, however, Saul proved unfaithful to the Lord (1 Samuel 15), so the Lord chose a young man named David to replace him (1 Samuel 16). Initially David reigned over only his native tribe of Judah (2 Samuel 2-4), but eventually all the Israelites tribes united under his rule (2 Samuel 5:1-5; 1 Chronicles 11:1-3). For the remainder of his reign David fought war after war with the nations surrounding Israel, and he expanded Israel&#8217;s kingdom as far north as Zobah and as far south as the Red Sea (2 Samuel 8-10; 1 Chronicles 18-19). Though David&#8217;s son Absalom attempted to set himself up as king and David&#8217;s son Adonijah attempted to make himself David&#8217;s successor, David passed on the kingship to Solomon, his son by Bathsheba (2 Samuel 15-19; 1 Kings 1). Solomon proved to be an able leader as well, annexing the nation of Hamath and expanding Israel&#8217;s territory to the great Euphrates River (2 Chronicles 8). Solomon&#8217;s dominion over this vast territory gave him control over the very strategic and lucrative land routes that passed through the region, making him very wealthy and powerful (1 Kings 10; 2 Chronicles 9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"645\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/KingdomsOfSaulDavidSolomon-1-645x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4018\" srcset=\"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/KingdomsOfSaulDavidSolomon-1-645x1024.jpg 645w, https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/KingdomsOfSaulDavidSolomon-1-189x300.jpg 189w, https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/KingdomsOfSaulDavidSolomon-1-768x1219.jpg 768w, https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/KingdomsOfSaulDavidSolomon-1-968x1536.jpg 968w, https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/KingdomsOfSaulDavidSolomon-1-1291x2048.jpg 1291w, https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/KingdomsOfSaulDavidSolomon-1-1568x2488.jpg 1568w, https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/KingdomsOfSaulDavidSolomon-1-scaled.jpg 1613w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 645px) 100vw, 645px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/images\/hi-res\/KingdomsOfSaulDavidSolomon_high.jpg\">download hi-res file<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"photolauncher\" style=\"display:none;\" mapbasename=\"KingdomsOfSaulDavidSolomon\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Israel first settled in Canaan, they operated as a coalition of twelve tribes with no single ruler, though from time to time local leaders would rise up as needed to face certain threats (Judges 2-16). Beginning with Saul, however, the twelve tribes of Israel united under a single king in order to be more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,15,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david","category-oldtestament","category-unitedmonarchyperiod","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbsXLW-6q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4019,"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions\/4019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblemapper.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}