1 Kings 9–10

CHAPTER 9

Yahweh Appears to Solomon

^1aNow it happened when Solomon had completed building the house of Yahweh, and ^bthe king’s house, and ^call ¹that Solomon desired to do,

²that ^aYahweh appeared to Solomon a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon.

³And Yahweh said to him, “^aI have heard your prayer and your supplication, which you have made before Me; I have set apart as holy this house which you have built ^bby putting My name there forever, and ^cMy eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.

⁴“As for you, ^aif you will walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you and will keep My statutes and My judgments,

⁵then ^aI will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, just as I ¹promised to your father David, saying, ‘You shall not have a man cut off from the throne of Israel.’

⁶“^aBut if you or your sons indeed turn away from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statutes which I have given before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them,

^7athen I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them, and ^bthe house which I have set apart as holy for My name, I will ¹cast out of My presence. So ^cIsrael will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

⁸“And this house will become ^1aa heap of ruins; everyone who passes by will feel desolate and hiss and say, ‘^bWhy has Yahweh done thus to this land and to this house?’

⁹“And they will say, ‘^aBecause they forsook Yahweh their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and took hold of other gods and worshiped them and served them, therefore Yahweh has brought all this calamity on them.’”

Cities Given to Hiram

^10aNow it happened that ^bat the end of twenty years in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of Yahweh and the king’s house

¹¹(Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold according to all his desire), that King Solomon then gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee.

¹²So Hiram came out from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him, and they were not right in his eyes.

¹³And he said, “What are these cities which you have given me, my brother?” So ¹they were called the land of ^2aCabul to this day.

^14aAnd Hiram sent to the king ¹120 talents of gold.

Solomon Builds Cities and Ships

¹⁵Now this is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon ^araised up to build the house of Yahweh, his own house, the ^1bMillo, the wall of Jerusalem, ^cHazor, ^dMegiddo, and ^eGezer.

¹⁶For Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it with fire, and killed the ^aCanaanites who lived in the city, and had ^bgiven it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.

¹⁷So Solomon rebuilt Gezer and the lower ^aBeth-horon

¹⁸and ^aBaalath and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land of Judah,

¹⁹and all the storage cities which Solomon had, and ^athe cities for ¹his chariots, and the cities for ^2bhis horsemen, and ^3call that Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land ⁴under his rule.

²⁰As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, who were not of the sons of Israel,

^21anamely, their sons who were left after them in the land ^bwhom the sons of Israel were unable to devote to destruction, from ^cthem Solomon raised up ^dforced laborers to this day.

²²But Solomon ^adid not make slaves of the sons of Israel; for they were men of war, his servants, his princes, his captains, his chariot commanders, and his horsemen.

²³These were the ^1achief deputies who were over Solomon’s work, 550, ^bwho had dominion over the people doing the work.

²⁴As soon as ^aPharaoh’s daughter came up from the city of David to her house which Solomon had built for her, ^bthen he built the Millo.

²⁵And ^athree times in a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar which he built to Yahweh, burning incense with them on the altar which was before Yahweh. So he finished the house.

²⁶King Solomon also made a ^afleet of ships in ^bEzion-geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the ¹Red Sea, in the land of Edom.

^27aAnd Hiram sent his servants with the fleet of ships, sailors who knew the sea, along with the servants of Solomon.

²⁸And they went to ^aOphir and took from there 420 talents of gold and brought it to King Solomon.

CHAPTER 10

The Queen of Sheba

^1aNow the ^bqueen of ^cSheba heard the report about Solomon concerning the name of Yahweh. So she came ^dto test him with riddles.

²She came to Jerusalem with a very glorious retinue, with camels ^acarrying spices and very much gold and precious stones. And she came to Solomon and spoke to him about all that was in her heart.

³And Solomon declared to her the answer to all her matters; there was not a matter which was hidden from the king which he did not declare to her.

⁴Then the queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built,

⁵the food of his table, the seating of his servants, the disposition of his attendants and their attire, his cupbearers, and ¹his stairway by which he went up to the house of Yahweh, so that there was no more spirit in her.

⁶Then she said to the king, “The word is true which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom.

⁷“Nevertheless I did not believe those words, until I came and my eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not declared to me. You exceed, in wisdom and prosperity, the report which I heard.

⁸“How ^ablessed are your men, how blessed are these your servants who stand before you continually and hear your wisdom.

⁹“^aBlessed be Yahweh your God who delighted in you, to set you on the throne of Israel; ^bbecause Yahweh loved Israel forever, therefore He made you king, ^cto do justice and righteousness.”

^10aThen she gave the king ¹120 talents of gold and a very great amount of spices and precious stones. Never again did such abundance of spices come in as that which the queen of Sheba gave King Solomon.

^11aAlso, the ships of Hiram, which carried gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir a very great number of almug trees and precious stones.

^12aAnd the king made of the almug trees supports for the house of Yahweh and for the king’s house, also lyres and harps for the singers; such almug trees have not come in again nor have they been seen to this day.

¹³Thus King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire which she asked, besides what he gave her according to ¹his royal bounty. Then she turned and went to her own land, she and her servants.

Solomon’s Riches and Wisdom

^14aNow the weight of gold which came to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold,

¹⁵besides that from the traders and the ¹wares of the merchants and all the kings of the ^aArabs and the governors of the country.

^16aAnd King Solomon made 200 large shields of beaten gold, ¹using 600 shekels of gold on each large shield.

¹⁷And he made ^a300 shields of beaten gold, ¹using ²three minas of gold on each shield, and ^bthe king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.

¹⁸Moreover, the king made a great throne of ^aivory and overlaid it with refined gold.

¹⁹There were six steps to the throne and a round top to the throne at its rear, and ¹arms ²on each side of the seat, and two lions standing beside the ³arms.

²⁰Twelve lions were also standing there on the six steps on the one side and on the other; nothing like it was made for all the other kingdoms.

²¹Now all King Solomon’s drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. None was of silver; it was not considered ¹valuable in the days of Solomon.

²²For ^athe king had at sea the ships of Tarshish with the ships of Hiram; once every three years the ships of Tarshish came carrying gold and silver, ivory and apes and peacocks.

^23aSo King Solomon became greater than all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom.

²⁴And all the earth was seeking the presence of Solomon, ^ato hear his wisdom which God had put in his heart.

^25aAnd they brought every man his present, articles of silver and gold, garments, weapons, spices, horses, and mules, a set amount year by year.

^26aAnd Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen. And he had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen and ¹stationed them in the ^bchariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem.

^27aThe king also made silver as plentiful as stones in Jerusalem, and he made cedars as plentiful as sycamore trees that are in the ¹Shephelah.

^28aSolomon’s import of horses was from Egypt and Kue; the king’s merchants procured them from Kue for a price.

²⁹And a chariot ¹was imported from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver, and a horse for 150; and ²by the same means they exported them ^ato all the kings of the Hittites and to the kings of Aram.