The Kingdom of David and Solomon

2 Samuel 8 – 1 Kings 4 · c. 1010–930 BC

Borders are generalized: an Iron Age frontier was a zone of tribute rather than a line, and a firm one here would claim a precision nobody has. David is the one who conquered — 2 Samuel 8 has him subduing Philistia, Moab, Zobah, Aram-Damascus and Edom — and Solomon inherited that realm rather than winning it; the third tint marks the northern reach Solomon did add, Hamath-zobah and Tadmor in the wilderness (2 Chronicles 8:3-4) and dominion as far as Tiphsah on the Euphrates (1 Kings 4:24). The map shows the kingdom at its greatest extent and so at one moment only: 1 Kings 11 has Edom under Hadad and Damascus under Rezon breaking away again before Solomon died. Philistia and Phoenicia are named by their cities, there being no room at this scale to write either across the strip of coast it held, and Judah is named in the key for the same reason. Tyre lies outside every tint because Hiram was an ally rather than a subject. The battle years are counted back through the regnal chronology rather than given in the text, so all of them are approximate. Gilboa, where Saul and Jonathan fell (1 Samuel 31), is a year before this plate’s span and is marked because it is how David came to the throne. Helam is placed east of the Jordan on the usual proposal, and the Valley of Salt in the Arabah south of the Salt Sea, the commoner of the two suggestions, the other being the valley near Beersheba. Baal-perazim and the valley of Rephaim are too close to Jerusalem to mark separately at this scale, and no battlefield is known for the war with Zobah. Solomon’s reign records no battle at all.

How these maps are made