The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Kings 09
1 When Solomon had finished the building of Yahweh’s house, the king’s house,
and all Solomon’s desire which he was
pleased to do,
2 Yahweh appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared to him at
Gibeon.
3 Yahweh said to him, “I have heard
your prayer and your supplication that
you have made before me. I have made
this house holy, which you have built, to
put my name there forever; and my eyes
and my heart shall be there perpetually.
4 As for you, if you will walk before me
as David your father walked, in integrity of
heart and in uprightness, to do according
to all that I have commanded you, and will
keep my statutes and my ordinances,
5 then I will establish the throne of your
kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised
to David your father, saying, ‘There shall
not fail from you a man on the throne of
Israel.’
6 But if you turn away from following
me, you or your children, and not keep my
commandments and my statutes which I
have set before you, but go and serve other
gods and worship them,
7 then I will cut off Israel out of the land
which I have given them; and I will cast
this house, which I have made holy for my
name, out of my sight; and Israel will be a
proverb and a byword among all peoples.
8 Though this house is so high, yet everyone whopassesby it
willbe astonishedand hiss; and they will say, ‘Why has Yahweh
done this to this land and to this house?’
9 and they will answer, ‘Because they
abandoned Yahweh their God, who
brought their fathers out of the land of
Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore
Yahweh has brought allthis evil onthem.’ ”
10 At the end of twenty years, in which
Solomon had built the two houses, Yahweh’s house and the king’s house
11 (now Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedar trees and
cypress trees, and with gold, according to
all his desire), King Solomon gave Hiram
twenty cities in the land of Galilee.
12 Hiramcame out ofTyre to see the cities
which Solomon had given him; and they
didn’t please him.
13 He said, “What cities are these which
youhave givenme, my brother?” He called
them the land of Cabul† to this day.
14 Hiram sent to the king one hundred
twenty talents‡ of gold.
15 This is the reason of the forced labor
which King Solomon conscripted: to build
Yahweh’s house, his own house, Millo,
Jerusalem’s wall, Hazor, Megiddo, and
Gezer.
16 Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up,
taken Gezer, burned it with fire, killed
the Canaanites who lived in the city, and
given it for a wedding gift to his daughter,
Solomon’s wife.
17 Solomon built in the land Gezer, Beth
Horon the lower,
18 Baalath, Tamar in the wilderness,
19 all the storage cities that Solomon had,
the cities for his chariots, the cities for his
horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build forhis pleasure inJerusalem,
and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his
dominion.
20 As for all the people who were left of
the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites,
the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were
not of the children of Israel—
21 their children who were left after
them in the land, whom the children of
Israel were not able utterly to destroy—of
them Solomon raised a levy of bondservants to this day.
22 But of the children of Israel Solomon
made no bondservants; but they were the
men of war, his servants, his princes, his
captains, and rulers of his chariots and of
his horsemen.
23These were thefive hundredfifty chief
officers who were over Solomon’s work,
who ruled over the people who labored in
the work.
24 But Pharaoh’s daughter came up out
of David’s city to her house which Solomon
had built for her. Then he built Millo.
25 Solomon offered burnt offerings and
peace offerings on the altar which he built
to Yahweh three times per year, burning
incense with them on the altar that was
before Yahweh. So he finished the house.
26 King Solomon made a fleet of ships in
Ezion Geber, which is beside Eloth, on the
shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.
27 Hiram sent in the fleet his servants,
sailors who had knowledge ofthe sea, with
the servants of Solomon.
28 They came to Ophir, and fetched from
there gold, four hundred and twenty talents,§ and brought it to King Solomon.