1 Kings 4–5

Solomon’s Wisdom: Political Administration

4King Solomon was king over all Israel. ²Now these are the officials who were his: Azariah the son of Zadok was the priest. ³Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha, were the secretaries; Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the recorder. ⁴Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the army, and Zadok and Abiathar were priests. ⁵Azariah the son of Nathan was over the governors, and Zabud the son of Nathan was a priest, an advisor to the king. ⁶Ahishar was over the palace, and Adoniram the son of Abda was over the forced labor. ⁷Solomon had twelve governors over all Israel, and they sustained the king and his palace, each one was to sustain for each month of the year.^{a 8}These are their names: Ben-Hur was in the hill country of Ephraim. ⁹Ben-Deker was in Makaz and in Shaalbim and in Beth-Shemesh and Elon of Beth-Hanan. ¹⁰Ben-Hesed was in the Arubbot; Socoh and all the land of Hepher were his. ¹¹Ben-Abinadab was in all of Naphat of Dor; Taphath the daughter of Solomon was his wife. ¹²Baanah the son of Ahilud was in Taanach and Megiddo and all Beth-Shean which is beside Zarethan below Jezreel, of Beth-Shean up to Abel-Meholah up to the other side of Jokmeam. ¹³Ben-Geber was in Ramoth-Gilead; the villages of Jair, the son of Manasseh which are in the Gilead were his, and the region of Argob which is in the Bashan, sixty great cities, with walls having crossbars of bronze, were his. ¹⁴Ahinadab the son of Iddo was in Mahanaim. ¹⁵Ahimaaz was in Naphtali; he moreover also had taken Basemath the daughter of Solomon as wife. ¹⁶Baanah the son of Hushai was in Asher and Bealoth. ¹⁷Jehoshaphat the son of Paruah was in Issachar. ¹⁸Shimei the son of Ela was in Benjamin. ¹⁹Geber the son of Uri was in the land of Gilead, the land of Sihon, the king of the Amorites, and of Og, the king of Bashan; one governor which was over the land. ²⁰Judah and Israel were as many as the sand which is on the seashore in abundance, eating and drinking and rejoicing!

Solomon’s Wisdom: Prosperity

^21b Now Solomon was ruling over all the kingdoms from the River^c to the land of the Philistines, and up to the border of Egypt, who were bringing tribute and were serving Solomon all the days of his life. ²²The food of Solomon for one day was thirty dry measures of choice meal and sixty dry measures of flour; ²³ten stall-fed oxen and twenty pasture-fed oxen and a hundred sheep, besides deer and buck gazelles and roebucks and well-fed fowls. ²⁴For he was ruling over all the west of the River^d from Tiphsah up to Gaza, over all the kings west of the River;^e and he had peace from every side all around. ²⁵Judah and Israel lived in security, each man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan as far as Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.

²⁶Now Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his war chariots and twelve thousand horsemen. ²⁷These governors sustained King Solomon and all who came near to the table of King Solomon, each in his month; they did not omit anything. ²⁸The barley and the straw for the horses and for packhorses they brought to the place where they were, each according to his share.

Solomon’s Wisdom: Literature, Zoology, Biology, Dendrology

²⁹God gave wisdom to Solomon and very great discernment, as well as breadth of understanding,^f as the sand which is on the edge of the seashore. ³⁰The wisdom of Solomon was greater than the wisdom of all the people^g of the east and more than all the wisdom of Egypt. ³¹He was wiser than all the men: Ethan the Ezrahite; Heman, Calcol, and Darda the children of Mahol; and he was very well known.^{h 32}He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs were one thousand and five. ³³He spoke concerning the trees, from the cedar which is in Lebanon up to the hyssop which grows on the wall; he also spoke concerning the animals, concerning the birds, concerning the creeping things, and concerning the fish. ³⁴They came from all the nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon; from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom.

Solomon’s Wisdom: Architecture

5Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that they had anointed him as king in place of his father, for Hiram had always been a friend for David. ²Then Solomon sent to Hiram, saying, ³“You knew David my father, that he was not able to build a house for the name of Yahweh his God, in view of the warfare^a which surrounded him, until Yahweh placed them^b under the soles of his feet. ⁴But now Yahweh my God has given me rest all around me. There is no adversary, and there is no bad occurrence. ⁵Here I am, intending to build a house for the name of Yahweh my God, as Yahweh promised to my father David, saying, ‘Your son, whom I will set in your place on your throne, shall build the house for my name.’ ⁶So then, command that they may cut cedars for me from Lebanon, and let my servants be with your servants. The wage of your servants I will give to you according to all that you say, for you know that there is no one among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians.” ⁷When Hiram heard the words of Solomon, he rejoiced greatly, and he said, “Blessed be Yahweh this day, who has given to David a wise son over this great people.” ⁸Hiram sent to Solomon, saying, “I have heard what you have sent to me; I will do all of your desire concerning the timber of cedars and concerning the timber of cypresses. ⁹My servants will bring them down from Lebanon to the sea, and I will make them into rafts in the sea to float to the place which you indicated to me. Then I shall break them up there, and you may carry them further, and you shall meet my needs^c by giving food for my house.” ¹⁰So Hiram was giving to Solomon the cedar timbers and the cypress timbers, everything he needed.^{d 11}Then Solomon gave to Hiram twenty thousand dry measures of wheat as food for his household, and twenty dry measures of specially prepared olive oil;^e thus Solomon gave to Hiram year by year. ¹²Yahweh gave wisdom to Solomon as he promised to him, and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made^f a covenant.

¹³Then King Solomon conscripted a forced labor from all Israel, and the forced labor numbered thirty thousand men. ¹⁴He sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand every month;^g the work groups were a month in Lebanon and two months at home; now Adoniram was over the forced labor. ¹⁵Solomon had seventy thousand common laborers^h and eighty thousand stone craftsmen in the hill country. ¹⁶Besides the chiefs of the officers Solomon had, there were three thousand three hundred having charge over the people who were doing the work. ¹⁷When the king commanded, they quarried great stones and precious stones to lay the foundation of the house with hewn stones. ¹⁸So Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the Gebalites hewed stones, and they prepared the timber and the stone to build the house.