Influence of Phoenicians
The Phoenicians created an original civilization in the Area of the Mediterranean and they influenced many people from around the area. The Hebrew civilization was one of these. The Bible writers testify concerning the existence of the strong relations between the Hebrews and Phoenicians.
Let’s see who the Phoenicians were and where they lived?
The Semites from Syria, Palestine and Lebanon were divided from around the second millennium BC into numerous tribes with different names. They had been grouped all around city-states, had been ruled by one king, but they had been only one people with the same religion, customs, and traditions. The Phoenicians were those from among the Canaanites who were living on the coasts of the sea in city-states, but they were not different in traditions, religion or language, from the other Semites from the region.
The name, “Phoenician” is localized in Egyptian inscriptions from the middle of the third millennium BC in the form “fenehu.” The old Greeks have called the Phoenicians, who were living on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, phoinikes and this name must be tied to the adjective phoenix (or, red purple). On the other hand, the Phoenicians were called in Homer’s Odyssey, Faiakej Feiaci1 and in other passages from The Iliad and Odyssey, zidonians2. In the Akkadenian texts the word kinakhkhu means “red-purple” and the name “Canaanites” from Assyro-Babylonian language K n’ n was created from this word red-purple kinakhkhu.3
The Bible calls the Phoenicians either Zidonians, after the name of their famous city Sidon (Judges 10:12 – “The Zidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Maonites, did oppress you; and ye cried to me, and I delivered you out of their hand”; Ezekiel 32:30 first part – “There be the princes of north, all of them and all the Zidonians”), or The children of the east (Judges 6:3 – “And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up and the Amalekites and the children of the east”).
Phoenicia was bordered on the south by Mount Carmel, on the North by the Gulf Issus, on the East, by the mountain range of Lebanon, and on the West by the Mediterranean Sea.
From the North to the South were Phoenician city- states, found by them:
1.Syria: – inland– Charchemish, Arslan Yash, Ebla, Aleppo, Hamath, Qadesh, Damascus; – on the coast – Ugarit (Ras Shamra), Aradus (Ruad), Antaradus, Marathus (Amrit); Simyra, Sin.
2. Lebanon: Tripoli, Gebal (Byblos, now Jebail), Beryt (Beirut), Sydon (Sidon), Tsyr (Tyre, now Sur), Sarepta.
3. Israel/Palestine: – inland – Hazor, Megiddo, Bethshan, Gezer, Shechem, Jericho, Jerusalem, Hebron, Beer-Sheba; – on the coast – Akko (Acr, near Carmel Mount), Dor, Joppa (Jaffa), Ashkelon, Gaza, Ezion-Geber (near Red Sea).4
The Trade
The Phoenicians were forced, because of the absence of arable land, from their country, to make a livelihood from other resources than agriculture. Their land could be cultivated only in the North, in the neighborhood of the city, Akko. In the rest of Phoenicia the Mountains are found very close to the shore of the sea, thus they had to search for a living in trade, fishing and handicrafts.
The Phoenicians, with their natural resources, could not live from agriculture or become an exporting country with agricultural products. What they possessed in great abundance was only cedar wood, from the large forests around Mount Lebanon. And this is why the Phoenicians were much more trade orientated. K. Marx mentioned about the Phoenicians that they “were a people of merchants through excellence”.5 The aptitude of the Phoenicians to trade was proverbial in The Ancient World, thus the name “Canaanites” came to mean merchant. They went from one Port to another taking part of their ship’s load and exchanging it for some produce from the natives of another region, and then selling the produce in another region for a profit, and so on.
The Phoenician sites were at the crossroads of the most important trade routes, which made connection between the lands of The Orient and the Basin of the Aegean Sea, Africa and Arabia. The first commercial sites were Byblos, Tyre and Sidon. The Phoenician’s trade was achieved on the land and on the sea. Caravans of merchants were starting from Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Arabia and Egypt and were ending up in the cities of the Phoenician shore.
The principal products traded by the Phoenicians were dried fruits, wine, and expensive tissues, cedar wood, myrrh and incense brought from Arabia, purple dye, gem stones etc. They became very well known not only because of their remarkable aptitude in trade, but because of their ability to use the cedar wood, abundant in Mount Lebanon.
Tyre – An Important City
The Old Testament relates that a big quantity of these cedars were used for the raising of God’s Temple in the time of Solomon (1King 5:6 first part – “Now therefore command thou that they hew me cedar trees out of Lebanon; and my servants shall be with thy servants:”). In fact, it was the most evident contribution of the Phoenicians to consolidate the economy of the Hebrew people. Solomon’s time constitutes the height of the development of their economy. His brilliant reign reminds us in some ways of the epoch of Louis XIV• of France. In that time, it established close relations between the Hebrew and Phoenician peoples. We can say that this started from King David’s time and it came to its height in Solomon’s time.
King David subdued some Aramaic states from Syria, which were controlling the Caravan Routes, including Damascus and made an alliance with Hiram, Tyre’s king. This alliance strengthened both nations in the struggle against the Philistines, both on the land and on the sea and contributed to the extension of trade between Tyre and Israel.
King David’s son, Solomon followed the same politics of his father. He strengthened the relations with Hiram. Solomon obtained from Tyre architects and craftsmen, who worked in the building of the principal city-states of Palestine – especially Jerusalem.6
It seems that the Phoenician City, Tyre played a distinct role in the building of the Temple in Solomon’s time. Tyre was the commercial center and many times the Hebrew people kept up commercial relations with this city. This is what caused the Hebrews to assimilate not only the techniques of trade, but also the customs and pagan traditions of inhabitants of this city. With the conquest of the city by Alexander the Great and the transformation of the city into a Greek fortress, Tyre lost its prosperity. We can find some biblical prophecies concerning Tyre. But to understand them better let us see a short history of Tyre starting with the reign of Hiram.
A Short History Of Tyre
Hiram I (who lived from about 969-936 BC) (1Kings 5:1 first part – “Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants unto Solomon”) unfolded a great commercial and warlike politic. He undertook a campaign against Cyprus and founded there a Phoenician colony. With His politic of conquest, Hiram made Tyre to flower as a city, for it became large and rich. The city’s territory was widened through artificial means, in the west, where Hiram raised a new quarter and arranged a market for public meetings and fairs. Having a good position on the island, Tyre was strongly fortified and transformed to a great fortress for their numerous seagoing boats and ships. During the 9th century BC, the Phoenician State continued to develop. King Itobaal (Ethbaal) (918-910 BC) founded the city Avzu in Lybya. Now Tyre was in possession of the whole Phoenician shore, with the most important cities: Beryt, Byblos and Sidon. This king gave his daughter, Jezebel to Ahab in marriage. Once he became king, Ahab spread the Phoenician influence to the religion of the Ten Northern Tribes. (1King 16:30-32 – “And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him… he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria”)
The growth of the Assyrian power and their invasion of all the neighboring regions subdued Tyre also for awhile. The annals of the city of Tyre show that they had a lot of kings in this period. The Assyrian king Sennacherib (705-681 BC), also mentioned in the Bible, coped with a coalition of city-states from Syria and Phoenicia among them – Tyre with their King, Elulaeus (Luli in the Assyrian annals). Forced by the Assyrians, the Phoenician’s cities federated against Tyre and besieged this city with a big fleet for five years. Tyre resisted the attack, although the King of Tyre ran away in Cyprus, however they ended up paying the tribute and were subdued by Assyria. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy in Isaiah 23:1-17.
After the collapse of the Assyrian Empire and its annihilation by the Median army (612 BC), Babylon and their king, Nebuchadnezzar fought against the Phoenician cities and surrounded Tyre which they besieged for 13 years (586-573). The city Tyre was subdued by the Babylonians and King Ethbaal was replaced with another king. In this way Ezekiel 26:1-21 was fulfilled. The Persians of Cyrus destroyed the Babylonian Empire, but the Phoenician cities seemed to maintain their autonomy. The authority of the Persian kings on Tyre stopped with the conquest of Alexander the Great. Tyre did not want to be subdued by Alexander the Great, but after a siege of seven months Tyre was conquered in 332 BC. The city was then rebuilt as a Greek fortress, and the Greek language was spoken everywhere. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy in Ezekiel 27:1-36 concerning the collapse of Tyre.
The Riches Of Phoenicia – Tyre
Description from Ezekiel 27 gives us also sufficient information concerning the great prosperity caused by the trade from the City-State Tyre.
We said that with the reign of Hiram (about 969-936 BC) the City-State Tyre became large and rich. How did Tyre become so prosperous? We will say that because the inhabitants learned to trade so well in their large and secure fortress. I shall add that Phoenica was rich in natural resources, which the inhabitants knew how to exploit and give them real importance.
Let us see what these resources were and, in what measure the influence of the City-State, Tyre increased over the Hebrew people because of them. We can say firstly, the Phoenicians possess abilities how to work the cedar.
1) Cedar from Lebanon
The mountains and foothills of Lebanon were covered with forests of oak and pine trees, but the cedars grew in abundance, which was the main natural resource of Phoenicia. The perfume spread by cedar made Mount Lebanon to be called the mount of fragrance.
“The Cedar of Lebanon, Cedrus Libani, is an evergreen of the family Pinaceae. This coniferous plant was first found in Lebanon, on the Mount Lebanon range at Sannine, Barrouk, and the Eastern and Western mountain chains.
“Cedrus Libani possesses an imposing trunk that may attain a height of 120 feet and a diameter of 9 feet. Such a trunk is often branching and having a dense crown with an inclined dark green head of characteristic flat growth in adult trees.
“The bark of the Cedar of Lebanon is dark gray and exudes a gum of balsam, which makes the smell so fragrant that to walk in a grove of cedars is an utmost delight.
The wood is astonishingly decay resistant and it is never eaten by insect larvae. It is of a beautiful red tone, solid, and free from knots.
“The terminal shoots are erect or slightly inclined. The tree blossoms in September or October, which is peculiar to the genus Cedrus among the conifers. It bears cones that require three years to mature. The cone is initially tiny and pale green. The second year it reaches its full size that ranges between 3-4.5 inches in height and has a characteristic violet, purple color. In the third season it turns into a rich brown and scatters its seeds, which are minute, considering the size of the tree. The cones are born upright on the upper side of the branches.
“The cedar of Lebanon is a plant of cold, high mountainous regions. It flourishes and easily regenerates its forests where the average rainfall ranges between 800 to 900 mm. The average temperatures that occur in the land of the cedar are as follows: as low as -4.5 to 5.4 C on the coldest month i.e. January, and as high as 21.8 to 34.3 C in the warmest month i.e. August.
“Growing cedars from seeds or seedlings is an incredibly easy task provided that favorable conditions for growth are available. These conditions can be limited to two: water and soil nutrients. Cedars favor rich soils with high organic matter; so poor soils must be enriched simply by adding livestock manure and ploughing it into the soil. This procedure can be repeated every year. Water on the other hand is the second critical growth factor, if limited, growth will halt and dryness would occur leading to the death of branches or the whole tree. “
Cedar is mentioned 75 times in the Bible, and all are in the Old Testament, distributed among 18 books. Some of these statements are: “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon” (Psalms 92:12), “The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted.” (Psalms 104:16), “As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river’s side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters.” (Numbers 24:6) etc.
“Throughout history, cedar wood, and such byproducts as cedar oil, have proven to be worth far more money than living trees, however beautiful they were. The superb qualities of the cedar wood are beautiful color, hardness, exquisite fragrance, resistance to insects, humidity and temperature, caused the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks and many others to use it extensively.”
The abundance of cedar wood, which was very good for building, gave the possibility of the Phoenician merchants to export to Egypt and Mesopotamia large quantities, especially the wood for buildings and for ships.
The Hebrew people used cedar also. In 2 Samuel 5:11 it is written that: “And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to King David and cedar trees, and carpenters and masons: and they built David an house.”
Solomon was aware of the importance of collaboration with Hiram for the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, which God had commissioned. In this way, Solomon made a league with Hiram (1King 5:12 – “And the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him: and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and they two made a league together”). Using the information from 1King 5:2, 5-10, Hiram gave to Solomon the wood of cedar and wood of fir how much he wanted (verse 10: “So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees according to all his desire”). When was rebuilt the Temple, at the order given by the Persian king, Cyrus, the Hebrew people asked help of the inhabitants of Tyre. “They gave money also unto the masons, and to the carpenters; and meat, and drink, and oil, unto them of Zidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus king of Persia” Ezra 3:7. They received the Cedar wood from Lebanon and craftsmen skilled in the art of building.
“Today, the Lebanon Mountains are almost empty, ground down by soil erosion. The groves of cedar are found only at the edge of Beka valley, at Bsharri and on the mount Barouk. I could see the trees broken and perforated… There says that extremist Moslems used it directly as a target to train themselves for battle. The Beka valley continues to be used as a training ground for armed groups who are fighting against Israel, or against other enemy states who don’t agree with their political views.”7
2) Purple
The Phoenicians also became famous for their discovery of purple. History says that the inhabitants of the City-State Tyre would have been these who discovered the colour of purple. The purple was extracted in almost all Phoenician cities. The Phoenicians were the first ones who began to extract purple and to dye wool and linen with it.
The purple was a natural colour which came from a small shell (murex), distributed on the coasts of Syria and Lebanon, but which the Phoenicians made to vanish in that region because of their extensive use. This small shell includes three tinctorial species, from which two are the most common: murex trunculus and murex brandaris.
When the flesh, which is inside the shell, dies and rots, it secretes a yellow liquid. This juice applied on a white cloth, when dried, produces the color, violet. When the cloth is exposed much more to the sun, the color becomes more intense. The color doesn’t fade or disappear over time. Through mixing, using an intensive or diluted color of this small shell, gives different shades: rose, light or dark violet.
At Tyre and Sidon one can still see the traces of this dye-house. At Sidon, especially, in the south of city, there is a hill made up of the remnants of these shells from ancient times. Each shell was broken open because in this way its purple-giving flesh could be exposed. This flesh of the shells was deposited in recipients or in basins, a kind of place of putrefaction, where it was decomposed and liquefied. There were found at Tyre and Sidon, in the place where the murex shells were processed, the traces of stone basins. The experiments made by people from today proved that, whenever they decompose, the pulps of murex give off a strong smell of garlic. This is why these dye-houses were placed outside the cities, on windswept hills.
Of course, the production of purple was one of the sources of wealth for the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon, because the purple was sold for an expensive price.8
The use of purple by the Hebrew people is mentioned also. Among other colors, used for the tent in Moses’ time and also for the clothing of the priests, was purple (Exodus 36:35 first part – “and he made an avail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen”; Exodus 38:18 – “And the hanging for the gate of the court was needlework, and fine twined linen…”; Exodus 39: 13 etc.). The same color could be found at the Temple raised by Solomon (2Chronicles 3: 14 – “And he made the veil of the blue and purple, and crimson, and fine linen and wrought cherubims thereon”).
Navigation
The Phoenicians were considered as the best builders of ships. As early as the period of the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians were having a special form of ship, which they called “the ship of Byblos”. We shouldn’t leave out that the name “Phoenicians” came from the word “fenehu” which means “the builder of ships”.9
The Tharshish ship, namely these for long voyages (for trade, most likely), were having one row of oarsmen and one or two masts, the second being smaller than the first. Solomon adopted this kind of ship. The references from 1 King 10:22 first part (“For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram:”); 1 King 9:26 (“And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom”) certified this fact.
With the help of these ships for long voyages Hiram together with the shippers of Solomon made the voyages to bring “gold, silver, ivory, and apes and peacocks” (1King 10:22 last part). A first voyage, undertook by Hiram together with the shippers of Solomon, was to Tharshish (1King 10:22). Here Tharshish cannot be Tartessos from Spain because firstly, peacocks are birds, which are found in India in the First Millenium BC, around 973-933 when Solomon was reigning. The peacocks were not found in Spain. It is true that apes were in the south of Spain in that period and there were apes at Gibraltar, but they cannot constitute the object of export. Ivory also cannot be found in Spain, but only in Berberia, in Central Africa and in India. And most of all a return voyage to Spain would not take three years. Gold cannot be found in Tarshish from Spain for there is no evidence that they exported this precious metal.
What confirms this information from 1 King 10:22? From the beginning we must affirm that neither King Hiram of Tyre nor King Solomon would have been so naive as to write and show the exact place from where they were importing so many expensive wares. Even the historian, Strabo told us how the Phoenicians were keeping very strictly the secret of their trade expeditions and their exploratory destinations. Much more, a Phoenician ship followed by a Greek ship, which wanted to know the place where she would stop and buy or sell wares, preferred to shipwreck than for the Greeks to discover their destination.10
The other far-off voyages of the Phoenicians of Hiram, together with the shippers of King Solomon – 1Kings 9:26-28: “And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shire of the Rea Sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon.”
A talent, in the Hebrew language qiqar, was having about 36 kg, so 420 talents should represent about 15120 kg gold, namely 15 tons of gold.
“And Hiram sent him by the hands of his servants ships, and servants that had knowledge of the sea; and they went with the servants of Solomon to Ophir, and took thence four hundred and fifty talents of gold, and brought them to King Solomon.” (2 Chronicles 8:18) But 450 talents of gold represent about 16200 kg gold. About Ophir 2Chronicles 9:10 says: “And the servants also of Hiram, and the servants of Solomon, which brought gold from Ophir, brought algum trees and precious stones.” It seems that the transportation of gold from Ophir was very important and lasted from King David’s time because he says that he prepared for the building of the Temple in Jerusalem “Even three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver, to overlay the walls of the houses withal.” (1 Chronicles 29:4) That means about 108000 kg gold – one hundred and eight tons of gold.
Another king from Judah tried to go with his ships to Ophir to bring gold from there: “Jehoshaphat made ships of Tharshish to go to Ophir for gold, but they went not; for the ships were broken at Ezion-geber. Then said Ahaziah the son of Ahab unto Jehoshaphat, Let my servants go with thy servants in ships. But Jehoshaphat would not.” (1 King 22:48-49)
In fact, the elephants which gave the ivory, redwood, apes and peacocks and most of all the gold could not be brought, in that period, from South Africa. The Egyptian mines of gold from Nubia, modern Sudan, were not so rich and we know from the Greek Historian, Agatarchide, that there were terrible conditions under which they extracted a little gold – not sufficient for the kind of quantities mentioned in the Phoenician chronicles.11
The other people brought gold from Ophir, before Solomon and Hiram. The Egyptians brought a lot of gold, spices and ivory from a country, which they called Punt and which was set on the shores of the Indian Ocean. They were able to go there through the Red Sea. The Egyptian Queen, Hatchepsut made a great expedition to Punt for the first time at the beginning of XVI-century BC and the bas-reliefs of a large temple from Deir-el-Bahri are showing us the expedition to Punt.
Hatshepsut was the first woman Pharaoh of Egypt, who reigned in 1503-1483 BC and till 1458 together with Thutmose III, in name only. She was the daughter of Thutmose I, the king who made the decree to kill every Hebrew man-child (Exodus 1:16). The only child that we know of who survived was Moses. He grew up with his mother until he was twelve years old and then,” He was taken to the royal palace, to the daughter of Pharaoh, and he became her son”.
Of course, Pharaoh’s leading men trained Moses to rule Egypt. They were very well trained in techniques of war and in the leadership of Egypt. It is probable that Moses knew about the existence of this mysterious country, very rich in gold. So, the Hebrew people, through Moses, probably knew about the existence of this secret country. This knowledge was probably transmitted through generation to generation in a secret manner.
Most of the scholars believe that this country, with much contact to India, is the south-east coast of Africa, Mozambique’s region today, where the monsoon falls, the wind which is blows alternatively six months from India to Africa and then six months from Africa to India. So, commercial relations with India were established quite easily– a country where peacocks are native.
If Ophir represents a country rich in gold, Africa would be the only possibility, which is now still very rich in gold mines, like in South Africa. So, the bringing of big quantities of gold from this region is very plausible.
The people of South Africa, in the 10th-Century BC didn’t know bronze and iron. Gracefulness of tin, which was brought by the Phoenicians from Spain and the Islands of Great Britain, the copper was very hard, becoming bronze. In the 10th-century BC, iron was starting to spread to the whole Mediterranean, although Ancient Egypt did not use it up to the time of the Roman Empire’s, because of a ban that had been made on this metal.12 We can believe that the inhabitants from Ancient Ophir paid with much gold for the iron and copper received because they did not know gold’s value.
At the border of Rhodesia and Mozambique today there is found a vast gold field. In this region, the forms of steatite for the shaping of gold, silver and lead were discovered. And these forms of steatite had the form of a cross or a letter H, the same, which the Phoenicians were using for their ingots.13
It is probable that the gold extracted from these mines arrived with ships from the Indian Ocean bound for the port of Sophalat. We must observe that the name of Sophala, an important port in Mozambique, seems to be an alternative word for the term Ophir. The final consonant “l” is equivalent with the final “r” from the term Ophir, and the consonant S from the beginning of word Sophala can be added to non-certify a radical Ophal, which makes it equal, Ophir. It is known that in the Semites and Egyptians’ language an S incipient is a modality to form an accusative. So, Sophala being another form of Ophir is very plausible.14
Concerning the manner of how the Phoenicians bought the gold and how they made the commercial exchanges with the other countries, we can read in Herodotus’ book about the trade of Carthaginians:
“There is a country in Libya, and a nation, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which they are wont to visit, where they no sooner arrive but forthwith they unlade their wares, and, having disposed them after an orderly fashion along the beach, leave them, and, returning aboard their ships, raise a great smoke. The natives, when they see the smoke, come down to the shore, and, laying out to view so much gold as they think the worth of the wares, withdraw to a distance. The Carthaginians upon this come ashore and look. If they think the gold enough, they take it and go their way; but if it does not seem to them sufficient, they go aboard ship once more, and wait patiently. Then the others approach and add to their gold, till the Carthaginians are content. Neither party deals unfairly by the other: for they themselves never touch the gold till it comes up to the worth of their goods, nor do the natives ever carry off the goods till the gold is taken away. ”15
“…the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold” and “it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon” 1Kings 10:14-21. He “made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycamore trees that are in the vale, for abundance.” (1 King 10:27)
Handicrafts
Solomon used also Phoenician handicrafts at the raising of the Temple in Jerusalem. And these handicrafts became very famous. Among the artisans was Hiram from Tyre, a craftsman in the processing of copper and bronze. As we said, gracefulness of tin, the copper obtains a hardness, becoming bronze. (1 King 7:13-14) All the works made by Hiram at the request of Solomon are found in 1 King 7:15-45. Phoenician craftsmen also made the carved stones. (1 King 5:17-18 – “And the king commanded, and they brought great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones, to lay the foundation of the house. And Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders did hew them, and the stonesquarers: so they prepared timber and stones to build the house”). These stones were carved in careers from Tyre and Byblos and nothing was made in Jerusalem – 1 King 6:7 – “And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building”; 1 Chronicles 22:2 – “And David commanded to gather together the strangers that were in the land of Israel; and he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God.”)
“Of surpassing beauty and unrivaled splendor was the palatial building which Solomon and his associates erected for God and His worship. Garnished with precious stones, surrounded by spacious courts with magnificent approaches, and lined with carved cedar and burnished gold, the temple structure, with its broidered hangings and rich furnishings, was a fit emblem of the living church of God on earth, which through the ages has been building in accordance with the divine pattern, with materials that have been likened to “gold, silver, precious stones,” “polished after the similitude of a palace.” 1 Corinthians 3:12; Psalm 144:12. Of this spiritual temple Christ is “the chief Cornerstone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” Ephesians 2:20.”16
We identified the relations established between the Phoenician people and the Hebrews concerning trade, navigation and handicrafts, which proved very important for the bettering of the Hebrew economy, but not the same thing can say concerning spiritual life. The second part of this article will detail this.
Lavinia Stanculeasa, Romania
Student at History and Classic Languages University
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1. Homer, Odyssey, VI, 156 and VI 267.
2. Homer, Iliad, XXIII,743.
3. Constantin Daniel, Phoenician civilization, Bucharest, 1979, p. 14-15.
4. Ibidem, p. 11.
5. K. Marx, Captalul, (Romanian title) vol. I, ed. II, Bucharest, 1948, p. 147.
• “Louis XIV was the king of France between 1653-1715. He was called “The King-Sun” for all he had done for France. The emblem of France was the sun and the motto was written on it nec pluribus impar. He had the most brilliant reign… He led France in the best period of her history till then.” Note, Universal modern History, Craiova University, 2003.
6. I.P. Frantev, I.M. Diakonov, G.F. Iliin, S.V. Kiseliov,
V.V. Struve, Universal History, vol. I, Scientist Publishing House, Bucharest, 1959, p. 490.
7. Hans-Christian Huf, Sphinx, the mysteries of history, vol. 3-4, The publishing house “Saeculum”, Bucharest, 2000, p. 264. Original title Sphinx. Geheimnisse der Geschichte, 3, Von Ramses II. bis zum Ersten Kaiser von China; 4, Von Richard Löwenherz bis Casanova, Gustav Lübbe Verlag GmbH, Bergisch Gladbach., 1998-1999.
8. Constantin Daniel, op.cit., p. 129.
9. I.P. Frantev, I.M. Diakonov, G.F. Iliin, S.V. Kiseliov, V.V. Struve,
10. Strabo, XVII, 1, 19.
11. Constantin Daniel, Civilization of Ancient Egypt, Bucharest, 1979,
12. Constantin Daniel, La prohibition du fér dans l’Egypte ancienne, in “Studia et Acta Orientalia” VII (1968), p. 3-21.
13. G. Linde and E. Brettschneider, Before the coming of white man, (Romanian title Inainte de venirea omului alb), trad. rom. Bucharest, 1967, p. 266.
14. Constantin Daniel, Phoenician civilization, Publishing house Sport-Universe, Bucharest, 1979, p. 101.
15. Herodotus, History, IV, 196.
16. Ellen G. White, Prophets, and Kings p.36