1 Kings 4:1-6:7

Living Bible

4 ^1-6 Here is a list of King Solomon’s cabinet members:

⁷ There were also twelve officials of Solomon’s court—one man from each tribe—responsible for requisitioning food from the people for the king’s household. Each of them arranged provisions for one month of the year.

^8-19 The names of these twelve officers were:

A general manager supervised these officials and their work.

²⁰ Israel and Judah were a wealthy, populous, contented nation at this time. ²¹ King Solomon ruled the whole area from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines and down to the borders of Egypt. The conquered peoples of those lands sent taxes to Solomon and continued to serve him throughout his lifetime.

²² The daily food requirements for the palace were 195 bushels of fine flour, 390 bushels of meal, ²³ 10 oxen from the fattening pens, 20 pasture-fed cattle, 100 sheep, and, from time to time, deer, gazelles, roebucks, and plump fowl.

²⁴ His dominion extended over all the kingdoms west of the Euphrates River, from Tiphsah to Gaza. And there was peace throughout the land.

²⁵ Throughout the lifetime of Solomon, all of Judah and Israel lived in peace and safety; and each family had its own home and garden.

²⁶ Solomon owned forty thousand chariot horses and employed twelve thousand charioteers. ²⁷ Each month the tax officials provided food for King Solomon and his court, ²⁸ also the barley and straw for the royal horses in the stables.

²⁹ God gave Solomon great wisdom and understanding, and a mind with broad interests. ³⁰ In fact, his wisdom excelled that of any of the wise men of the East, including those in Egypt. ³¹ He was wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and he was famous among all the surrounding nations. ³² He was the author of 3,000 proverbs and wrote 1,005 songs. ³³ He was a great naturalist, with interest in animals, birds, snakes, fish, and trees—from the great cedars of Lebanon down to the tiny hyssop which grows in cracks in the wall. ³⁴ And kings from many lands sent their ambassadors to him for his advice.

5 King Hiram of Tyre had always been a great admirer of David, so when he learned that David’s son Solomon was the new king of Israel, he sent ambassadors to extend congratulations and good wishes. ^2-3 Solomon replied with a proposal about the Temple of the Lord he wanted to build. His father David, Solomon pointed out to Hiram, had not been able to build it because of the numerous wars going on, and he had been waiting for the Lord to give him peace.

⁴ “But now,” Solomon said to Hiram, “the Lord my God has given Israel peace on every side; I have no foreign enemies or internal rebellions. ⁵ So I am planning to build a Temple for the Lord my God, just as he instructed my father that I should do. For the Lord told him, ‘Your son, whom I will place upon your throne, shall build me a Temple.’ ⁶ Now please assist me with this project. Send your woodsmen to the mountains of Lebanon to cut cedar timber for me, and I will send my men to work beside them, and I will pay your men whatever wages you ask; for as you know, no one in Israel can cut timber like you Sidonians!”

⁷ Hiram was very pleased with the message from Solomon. “Praise God for giving David a wise son to be king of the great nation of Israel,” he said. ⁸ Then he sent this reply to Solomon: “I have received your message and I will do as you have asked concerning the timber. I can supply both cedar and cypress. ⁹ My men will bring the logs from the Lebanon mountains to the Mediterranean Sea and build them into rafts. We will float them along the coast to wherever you need them; then we will break the rafts apart and deliver the timber to you. You can pay me with food for my household.”

¹⁰ So Hiram produced for Solomon as much cedar and cypress timber as he desired, ¹¹ and in return Solomon sent him an annual payment of 125,000 bushels of wheat for his household and 96 gallons of pure olive oil. ¹² So the Lord gave great wisdom to Solomon just as he had promised. And Hiram and Solomon made a formal alliance of peace.

¹³ Then Solomon drafted thirty thousand laborers from all over Israel, ¹⁴ and rotated them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month, so that each man was a month in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was the general superintendent of this labor camp. ¹⁵ Solomon also had seventy thousand additional laborers, eighty thousand stonecutters in the hill country, ¹⁶ and thirty-three hundred foremen. ¹⁷ The stonecutters quarried and shaped huge blocks of stone—a very expensive job—for the foundation of the Temple. ¹⁸ Men from Gebal helped Solomon’s and Hiram’s builders in cutting the timber and making the boards, and in preparing the stone for the Temple.

6 It was in the spring of the fourth year of Solomon’s reign that he began the actual construction of the Temple. (This was 480 years after the people of Israel left their slavery in Egypt.) ² The Temple was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high. ³ All along the front of the Temple was a porch thirty feet long and fifteen feet deep. ⁴ Narrow windows were used throughout.

⁵ An annex of rooms was built along the full length of both sides of the Temple against the outer walls. ⁶ These rooms were three stories high, the lower floor being 7-1/2 feet wide, the second floor 9 feet wide, and the upper floor 10-1/2 feet wide. The rooms were connected to the walls of the Temple by beams resting on blocks built out from the wall—so the beams were not inserted into the walls themselves.

⁷ The stones used in the construction of the Temple were prefinished at the quarry, so the entire structure was built without the sound of hammer, ax, or any other tool at the building site.