1 Kings 5:1

Solomon Gathers Building Materials for the Temple

5:1 (5:15) ¹  King Hiram of Tyre ²  sent messengers ³  to Solomon when he heard that he had been anointed king in his father’s place. (Hiram had always been an ally of David.)

1 Kings 5:8-12

5:8 Hiram then sent this message to Solomon: “I received ⁴  the message you sent to me. I will give you all the cedars and evergreens you need. ⁵  5:9 My servants will bring the timber down from Lebanon to the sea. I will send it by sea in raft-like bundles to the place you designate. ⁶  There I will separate the logs ⁷  and you can carry them away. In exchange you will supply the food I need for my royal court.” ⁸ 

5:10 So Hiram supplied the cedars and evergreens Solomon needed, ⁹  5:11 and Solomon supplied Hiram annually with 20,000 cors ¹⁰  of wheat as provision for his royal court, ¹¹  as well as 20,000 baths ¹²  of pure ¹³  olive oil. ¹⁴  5:12 So the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as he had promised him. And Hiram and Solomon were at peace and made a treaty. ¹⁵ 

[5:1]  ¹ sn The verse numbers in the English Bible differ from those in the Hebrew text (BHS) here; 5:1-18 in the English Bible corresponds to 5:15-32 in the Hebrew text. See the note at 4:21.

[5:1]  ² map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[5:1]  ³ tn Heb “his servants.”

[5:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “heard.”

[5:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “I will satisfy all your desire with respect to cedar wood and with respect to the wood of evergreens.”

[5:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “I will place them [on? as?] rafts in the sea to the place where you designate to me.” This may mean he would send them by raft, or that he would tie them in raft-like bundles, and have ships tow them down to an Israelite port.

[5:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “smash them,” i.e., untie the bundles.

[5:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “as for you, you will satisfy my desire by giving food for my house.”

[5:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “and Hiram gave to Solomon cedar wood and the wood of evergreens, all his desire.”

[5:11]  ¹⁰ sn As a unit of dry measure a cor was roughly equivalent to six bushels.

[5:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “his house.”

[5:11]  ¹² tc The Hebrew text has “twenty cors,” but the ancient Greek version and the parallel text in 2 Chr 2:10 read “twenty thousand baths.”

[5:11]  ¹³ tn Or “pressed.”

[5:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and Solomon supplied Hiram with twenty thousand cors of wheat…pure olive oil. So Solomon would give to Hiram year by year.”

[5:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “a covenant,” referring to a formal peace treaty or alliance.