1 Kings 9:10–23

Solomon’s Other Activities

9:10–28pp—2Ch 8:1–18

¹⁰At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon built these two buildings—the temple of the Lord and the royal palace—¹¹King Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and juniper and gold^m he wanted. ¹²But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. ¹³“What kind of towns are these you have given me, my brother?” he asked. And he called them the Land of Kabul,^dn a name they have to this day. ¹⁴Now Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents^e of gold.^o

¹⁵Here is the account of the forced labor King Solomon conscripted^p to build the Lord’s temple, his own palace, the terraces,^fq the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor,^r Megiddo and Gezer.^{s 16}(Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire. He killed its Canaanite inhabitants and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter,^t Solomon’s wife. ¹⁷And Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) He built up Lower Beth Horon,^{u 18}Baalath,^v and Tadmor^g in the desert, within his land, ¹⁹as well as all his store cities^w and the towns for his chariots^x and for his horses^h—whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled.

²⁰There were still people left from the Amorites, Hittites,^y Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites^z (these peoples were not Israelites). ²¹Solomon conscripted the descendants^a of all these peoples remaining in the land—whom the Israelites could not exterminate^ib—to serve as slave labor,^c as it is to this day. ²²But Solomon did not make slaves^d of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers. ²³They were also the chief officials^e in charge of Solomon’s projects—550 officials supervising those who did the work.