1 Kings 4

Chapter 4

Solomon’s Officials

¹Now King Solomon was king over all Israel.

²These were his officials: Azariah the son of Zadok was ^athe priest;

³Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha were secretaries; ^aJehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the recorder;

⁴and ^aBenaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the army; and Zadok and ^bAbiathar were priests;

⁵and Azariah the son of Nathan was over ^athe deputies; and Zabud the son of Nathan, a priest, was the king’s friend;

⁶and Ahishar was over the household; and Adoniram the son of Abda was over the men subject to forced labor.

⁷Solomon had twelve deputies over all Israel, who ¹provided for the king and his household; each man had to ²provide for a month in the year.

⁸These are their names: Ben-hur, in the ^ahill country of Ephraim;

⁹Ben-deker in Makaz and ^aShaalbim and ^bBeth-shemesh and Elonbeth-hanan;

¹⁰Ben-hesed, in Arubboth (^aSocoh was his and all the land of ^bHepher);

¹¹Ben-abinadab, in all ¹the ^aheight of Dor (Taphath the daughter of Solomon was his wife);

¹²Baana the son of Ahilud, in ^aTaanach and Megiddo, and all ^bBeth-shean which is beside ^cZarethan below Jezreel, from Beth-shean to ^dAbel-meholah as far as the other side of ^eJokmeam;

¹³Ben-geber, in ^aRamoth-gilead (^bthe towns of Jair, the son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead were his: ^cthe region of Argob, which is in Bashan, sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars were his);

¹⁴Ahinadab the son of Iddo, in ^aMahanaim;

^15aAhimaaz, in Naphtali (he also married Basemath the daughter of Solomon);

¹⁶Baana the son of ^aHushai, in Asher and ¹Bealoth;

¹⁷Jehoshaphat the son of Paruah, in Issachar;

^18aShimei the son of Ela, in Benjamin;

¹⁹Geber the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, ^athe country of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan; and he was the only deputy who was in the land.

Solomon’s Power, Wealth and Wisdom

^20aJudah and Israel were as numerous as the sand that is on the ¹seashore in abundance; they were eating and drinking and rejoicing.

^211aNow Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms ^bfrom the ²River to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt; ^cthey brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

²²Solomon’s ¹provision for one day was thirty ²kors of fine flour and sixty kors of meal,

²³ten fat oxen, twenty ¹pasture-fed oxen, a hundred sheep besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened fowl.

²⁴For he had dominion over everything ¹west of the ²River, from Tiphsah even to ^aGaza, ^bover all the kings west of the River; and ^che had peace on all sides around about him.

^25aSo Judah and Israel lived in safety, every man under his vine and his fig tree, ^bfrom Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.

^26aSolomon had ¹40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 horsemen.

²⁷Those deputies ¹provided for King Solomon and all who came to King Solomon’s table, each in his month; they left nothing lacking.

²⁸They also brought barley and straw for the horses and ^aswift steeds to the place where it should be, each according to his charge.

²⁹Now ^aGod gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment and breadth of ¹mind, ^blike the sand that is on the seashore.

³⁰Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all ^athe sons of the east and ^ball the wisdom of Egypt.

³¹For ^ahe was wiser than all men, than ^bEthan the Ezrahite, Heman, ^cCalcol and ¹Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his ²fame was known in all the surrounding nations.

^32aHe also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005.

³³He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that grows on the wall; he spoke also of animals and birds and creeping things and fish.

³⁴¹Men ^acame from all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom.