1 Kings 4:21–34

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.