Discovery Box1 Kings 9:10-23
Context9:10 After twenty years, during which Solomon built the Lord’s temple and the royal palace, 1 9:11 King Solomon gave King Hiram of Tyre 2 twenty cities in the region of Galilee, because Hiram had supplied Solomon with cedars, evergreens, and all the gold he wanted. 9:12 When Hiram went out from Tyre to inspect the cities Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. 3 9:13 Hiram asked, 4 “Why did you give me these cities, my friend 5 ?” He called that area the region of Cabul, a name which it has retained to this day. 6 9:14 Hiram had sent to the king one hundred twenty talents 7 of gold.
9:15 Here are the details concerning the work crews 8 King Solomon conscripted 9 to build the Lord’s temple, his palace, the terrace, the wall of Jerusalem, 10 and the cities of 11 Hazor, 12 Megiddo, 13 and Gezer. 9:16 (Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had attacked and captured Gezer. He burned it and killed the Canaanites who lived in the city. He gave it as a wedding present to his daughter, who had married Solomon.) 9:17 Solomon built up Gezer, lower Beth Horon, 9:18 Baalath, Tadmor in the wilderness, 14 9:19 all the storage cities that belonged to him, 15 and the cities where chariots and horses were kept. 16 He built whatever he wanted in Jerusalem, Lebanon, and throughout his entire kingdom. 17 9:20 Now several non-Israelite peoples were left in the land after the conquest of Joshua, including the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 18 9:21 Their descendants remained in the land (the Israelites were unable to wipe them out completely). Solomon conscripted them for his work crews, and they continue in that role to this very day. 19 9:22 Solomon did not assign Israelites to these work crews; 20 the Israelites served as his soldiers, attendants, officers, charioteers, and commanders of his chariot forces. 21 9:23 These men were also in charge of Solomon’s work projects; there were a total of 550 men who supervised the workers. 22
[9:10] 1 tn Heb “the two houses, the house of the
[9:11] 2 map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.
[9:12] 3 tn Heb “they were not agreeable in his eyes.”
[9:13] 4 tn Heb “and he said.”
[9:13] 5 tn Heb “my brother.” Kings allied through a parity treaty would sometimes address each other as “my brother.” See 1 Kgs 20:32-33.
[9:13] 6 tn Heb “he called them the land of Cabul to this day.” The significance of the name is unclear, though it appears to be disparaging. The name may be derived from a root, attested in Akkadian and Arabic, meaning “bound” or “restricted.” Some propose a wordplay, pointing out that the name “Cabul” sounds like a Hebrew phrase meaning, “like not,” or “as good as nothing.”
[9:14] 5 tn The Hebrew term כִּכָּר (kikkar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or to a standard unit of weight, generally regarded as a talent. Since the accepted weight for a talent of metal is about 75 pounds, this would have amounted to about 9,000 pounds of gold (cf. NCV, NLT); CEV “five tons”; TEV “4,000 kilogrammes.”
[9:15] 6 sn The work crews. This Hebrew word מַס (mas) refers to a group of laborers conscripted for royal or public service.
[9:15] 8 map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
[9:15] 9 tn The words “the cities of” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
[9:15] 10 map For location see Map1 D2; Map2 D3; Map3 A2; Map4 C1.
[9:15] 11 map For location see Map1 D4; Map2 C1; Map4 C2; Map5 F2; Map7 B1.
[9:18] 7 tn The Hebrew text has “in the wilderness, in the land.”
[9:19] 8 tn Heb “to Solomon.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.
[9:19] 9 tn Heb “the cities of the chariots and the cities of the horses.”
[9:19] 10 tn Heb “and the desire of Solomon which he desired to build in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land of his kingdom.”
[9:20] 9 tn Heb “all the people who were left from the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not from the sons of Israel.”
[9:21] 10 tn Heb “their sons who were left after them in the land, whom the sons of Israel were unable to wipe out, and Solomon raised them up for a crew of labor to this day.”
[9:22] 11 sn These work crews. The work crews referred to here must be different than the temporary crews described in 5:13-16.
[9:22] 12 tn Heb “officers of his chariots and his horses.”
[9:23] 12 tn Heb “these [were] the officials of the governors who were over the work belonging to Solomon, five hundred fifty, the ones ruling over the people, the ones doing the work.”
