1 Kings 5

1 Kings 5:1

E. Solomon’s Temple (Chaps. 57)1. Solomon’s Agreement with King Hiram (Chap. 5)5:1-12 Hiram was a Gentile king of Tyre, and as such he controlled vast timber resources in Lebanon. He had been very friendly to David and now wished to show that same friendliness to Solomon. It was therefore arranged that he should provide lumber with which Solomon could build a temple for the LORD. Solomon would send workers north to Lebanon to assist in the cutting operation. The logs would then be taken to the Mediterranean Sea, floated in rafts down to a point near Joppa, and then transported inland to Jerusalem. As payment for the timber, Solomon provided Hiram’s household with food supplies year by year. 5:13-18 In order to obtain the manpower for this gigantic task of cutting lumber, Solomon drafted thirty thousand men of Israel, requiring them to go to Lebanon . . . in shifts of ten thousand each month. In addition to these men, the king had eighty thousand Canaanite slaves (Gebalites) working in the quarries of Israel, preparing stones for the temple (cf. v. 15; 2Ch_2:17-18). He also had seventy thousand who carried burdens. Solomon’s massive building operations involved a great force of slave labor (cf. 1Ki_9:15-22). But even this proved inadequate, and he was compelled to draft native Israelites (probably excluding Judah), not as slave laborers but as forced laborers. The Israelites, with their tradition for sturdy independence, bitterly resented this, and it became a major cause of the division of the kingdom (1Ki_12:4). How necessary it is to have divine wisdom in all matters, and not to ride roughshod over the sensitivities and welfare of others! (Daily Notes of the Scripture Union). (See the notes on problems in 2 Chron. 2 for an explanation of the numerical discrepancies between these two chapters.)