Originally Posted by J-D

'Glory' has more than one meaning. If one measures glory by the conferring of praise, then Rome had glory, since it accumulated much praise. On the other hand, if one measures glory by praiseworthy achievement, then whether Rome was glorious depends on which achievements one thinks merit praise. I presume what steve was saying is that the Jews did not have such a record of great achievement as one might think from the Bible. I think the Bible does exaggerate the military and political power of the ancient Jews, but not everybody would think that military and political power merits praise, even if the Biblical writers regarded it as glorious.