Discovery Box1 Kings 5:7-12
Context5:7 When Hiram heard Solomon’s message, he was very happy. He said, “The Lord is worthy of praise today because he 1 has given David a wise son to rule over this great nation.” 5:8 Hiram then sent this message to Solomon: “I received 2 the message you sent to me. I will give you all the cedars and evergreens you need. 3 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. 4 There I will separate the logs 5 and you can carry them away. In exchange you will supply the food I need for my royal court.” 6
5:10 So Hiram supplied the cedars and evergreens Solomon needed, 7 5:11 and Solomon supplied Hiram annually with 20,000 cors 8 of wheat as provision for his royal court, 9 as well as 20,000 baths 10 of pure 11 olive oil. 12 5:12 So the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as he had promised him. And Hiram and Solomon were at peace and made a treaty. 13
[5:7] 1 tn Or “Blessed be the
[5:8] 3 tn Heb “I will satisfy all your desire with respect to cedar wood and with respect to the wood of evergreens.”
[5:9] 3 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] 4 tn Heb “smash them,” i.e., untie the bundles.
[5:9] 5 tn Heb “as for you, you will satisfy my desire by giving food for my house.”
[5:10] 4 tn Heb “and Hiram gave to Solomon cedar wood and the wood of evergreens, all his desire.”
[5:11] 5 sn As a unit of dry measure a cor was roughly equivalent to six bushels.
[5:11] 7 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] 9 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] 6 tn Heb “a covenant,” referring to a formal peace treaty or alliance.
