1 Kings 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter lists the officials of Solomon's government: his chief officers at court and the twelve district governors who each supplied the royal household with food for one month of the year. It then describes the size of his realm, the daily provisions for his table, his horses, and the peace and security of Judah and Israel during his reign. It closes with an account of the wisdom God gave him, the proverbs and songs he composed, his knowledge of plants and animals, and the visitors who came from other nations to hear him.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • Solomon was king.
   • Solomon's kingship was over all Israel.
2. 4:2
   • Solomon had chief officials.
   • Azariah was one of them.
   • Azariah was the son of Zadok.
   • Azariah was the priest.
3. 4:3
   • Elihoreph and Ahiah were officials.
   • Elihoreph and Ahiah were the sons of Shisha.
   • Elihoreph and Ahiah were scribes.
   • Jehoshaphat was an official.
   • Jehoshaphat was the son of Ahilud.
   • Jehoshaphat was the recorder.
4. 4:4
   • Benaiah was the son of Jehoiada.
   • Benaiah was over the army.
   • Zadok and Abiathar were the priests.
5. 4:5
   • Azariah was the son of Nathan.
   • Azariah was over the officers.
   • Zabud was the son of Nathan.
   • Zabud was the principal officer.
   • Zabud was the king's friend.
6. 4:6
   • Ahishar was over the household.
   • Adoniram was the son of Abda.
   • Adoniram was over the forced labor.
7. 4:7
   • Solomon had twelve officers.
   • The twelve officers were over all Israel.
   • The officers provided food for the king and his household.
   • Each officer provided for one month in the year.
8. 4:8
   • These are the names of the officers.
   • The son of Hur was officer in the hill country of Ephraim.
9. 4:9
   • The son of Dekar was officer in Makaz, Shaalbim, Bethshemesh, and Elonbethhanan.
10. 4:10
    • The son of Hesed was officer in Aruboth.
    • Sochoh belonged to him.
    • All the land of Hepher belonged to him.
11. 4:11
    • The son of Abinadab was officer in all the region of Dor.
    • Taphath was a daughter of Solomon.
    • Taphath was the wife of the son of Abinadab.
12. 4:12
    • Baana was the son of Ahilud.
    • Taanach and Megiddo belonged to Baana.
    • All Bethshean belonged to Baana.
    • Bethshean is beside Zartanah.
    • Bethshean is below Jezreel.
    • Baana's territory ran from Bethshean to Abelmeholah.
    • Baana's territory extended to the place beyond Jokneam.
13. 4:13
    • The son of Geber was officer in Ramothgilead.
    • The towns of Jair belonged to him.
    • Jair was the son of Manasseh.
    • Those towns are in Gilead.
    • The region of Argob belonged to him.
    • Argob is in Bashan.
    • Argob had sixty great cities.
    • Those cities had walls and bronze bars.
14. 4:14
    • Ahinadab was the son of Iddo.
    • Ahinadab had Mahanaim.
15. 4:15
    • Ahimaaz was officer in Naphtali.
    • Ahimaaz took Basmath as his wife.
    • Basmath was a daughter of Solomon.
16. 4:16
    • Baanah was the son of Hushai.
    • Baanah was officer in Asher and in Aloth.
17. 4:17
    • Jehoshaphat was the son of Paruah.
    • Jehoshaphat was officer in Issachar.
18. 4:18
    • Shimei was the son of Elah.
    • Shimei was officer in Benjamin.
19. 4:19
    • Geber was the son of Uri.
    • Geber was officer in the country of Gilead.
    • Gilead was the country of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan.
    • Geber was the only officer in that land.
20. 4:20
    • Judah and Israel were many.
    • Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand by the sea.
    • They were eating and drinking.
    • They were making merry.
21. 4:21
    • Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines.
    • His rule extended to the border of Egypt.
    • Those kingdoms brought presents.
    • Those kingdoms served Solomon all the days of his life.
22. 4:22
    • Solomon's provision for one day was thirty measures of fine flour.
    • Solomon's provision for one day was sixty measures of meal.
23. 4:23
    • Solomon's daily provision included ten fat oxen.
    • It included twenty pasture-fed oxen.
    • It included a hundred sheep.
    • It included deer, gazelles, and roebucks besides.
    • It included fattened fowl.
24. 4:24
    • Solomon had dominion over all the region on this side of the River.
    • His dominion ran from Tiphsah to Gaza.
    • He ruled over all the kings on this side of the River.
    • He had peace on all sides around him.
25. 4:25
    • Judah and Israel dwelt safely.
    • Every man dwelt under his own vine and his own fig tree.
    • This was from Dan to Beersheba.
    • This lasted all the days of Solomon.
26. 4:26
    • Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots.
    • Solomon had twelve thousand horsemen.
27. 4:27
    • Those officers provided food for king Solomon.
    • They provided for all who came to king Solomon's table.
    • Each man provided in his month.
    • Nothing was lacking.
28. 4:28
    • They brought barley and straw for the horses and the swift steeds.
    • They brought it to the place where the officers were.
    • Each man brought according to his assigned duty.
29. 4:29
    • God gave Solomon wisdom.
    • God gave Solomon understanding exceedingly much.
    • God gave Solomon largeness of heart.
    • That largeness of heart was like the sand on the seashore.
30. 4:30
    • Solomon's wisdom exceeded the wisdom of all the people of the east.
    • Solomon's wisdom exceeded all the wisdom of Egypt.
31. 4:31
    • Solomon was wiser than all men.
    • Solomon was wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite.
    • Solomon was wiser than Heman, Chalcol, and Darda.
    • Heman, Chalcol, and Darda were the sons of Mahol.
    • Solomon's fame was in all the surrounding nations.
32. 4:32
    • Solomon spoke three thousand proverbs.
    • Solomon's songs numbered a thousand and five.
33. 4:33
    • Solomon spoke of trees.
    • He spoke of them from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall.
    • He spoke of beasts.
    • He spoke of birds.
    • He spoke of creeping things.
    • He spoke of fish.
34. 4:34
    • People came from all nations to hear Solomon's wisdom.
    • They came from all the kings of the earth.
    • Those kings had heard of Solomon's wisdom.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

4:1

Israel was the land where God's people lived. Solomon was their king, and his father was King David.

4:2

"Priest" here translates a title that in a royal list like this one can mean either a temple priest or a senior officer of the crown; both senses are in use in the same chapter. Azariah is called "son of Zadok," but Hebrew "son of" often means grandson or more distant descendant, and Azariah is elsewhere listed as Zadok's grandson.

4:3

"Scribes" (here royal secretaries) were not copyists but high officers of state, handling correspondence, records and revenue. The "recorder" held another top office, the Hebrew word suggests one who brings matters to the king's attention, so the job may have combined keeping annals with acting as royal spokesman or herald.

4:4

Abiathar had already been removed from office and sent away earlier in Solomon's reign (1 Kings 2:26-27), so his appearance here suggests the list preserves the officials of an earlier moment, or names him as a matter of record.

4:5

"The king's friend" was a formal court title, not a description of personal affection, a trusted confidential adviser with standing at court. The same office appears under David.

4:6

"Over the household" means palace administrator, in charge of the royal estates and staff; in later reigns this was among the most powerful posts in the kingdom. The King James "tribute" here is not money but forced labor: subjects owed the crown fixed periods of unpaid work on royal building projects. Resentment of this labor levy becomes a live issue after Solomon's death.

4:7

This was a tax in kind rather than in coin. Each district had to feed the royal court for one month of the year, delivering grain, livestock and fodder. The twelve districts do not match the twelve tribal territories exactly.

4:8

Several of these governors are listed only as "the son of Hur," "the son of Dekar," and so on, with no personal name given; the Hebrew forms (Ben-hur, Ben-deker) may have functioned as family names. The hill country of Ephraim is the central highland region north of Jerusalem.

4:11

Marrying a daughter of the king to a district governor bound that official to the crown by family ties; royal marriages in this period were normally political arrangements.

4:12

These places lie along the Jezreel Valley, the broad fertile plain cutting across northern Israel, the richest farmland in the country and the main route for trade and armies.

4:13

Gilead, Argob and Bashan are territories east of the Jordan River. "Great cities" means fortified ones; bronze bars were the heavy beams that barred a city gate from the inside.

4:19

The Hebrew of the last clause is unclear. It may mean that this one governor was the sole official over that whole region, or, as the ancient Greek translation reads it: that there was one further governor over the land of Judah, which the list has otherwise not mentioned. Sihon and Og were kings defeated by Israel generations earlier, at the time of the entry into the land; naming their old territories is a way of describing the region.

4:20

"As the sand by the sea" is a stock Hebrew phrase for a number too large to count, and it echoes the wording of the promises made to Abraham about his descendants.

4:21

"The river," with no name attached, always means the Euphrates in this kind of phrase. The "presents" were tribute, regular payments owed by subject kingdoms, not voluntary gifts. The Philistines were a people occupying the coastal plain southwest of Israel, long-standing rivals of the Israelites.

4:22

The measure is the Hebrew cor, reckoned at roughly 220 liters or about six bushels of dry goods, though ancient measures are uncertain. Thirty cors of fine flour plus sixty of coarser meal comes to several tons of flour a day, a figure describing the whole court, guards, servants and guests, not one household's dinner.

4:23

"Fat oxen" are stall-fed cattle, penned and grain-fed rather than grazed. The three kinds of game animal named in the King James (harts, roebucks and fallow deer) translate Hebrew words whose exact species are disputed; they cover wild deer and antelope, probably including the gazelle, which was hunted for the table.

4:24

The King James "this side the river" renders a Hebrew phrase, "Beyond the River," that had become a standing name for the whole territory west of the Euphrates, a label originally used from a Mesopotamian point of view. Tiphsah was a crossing point far up the Euphrates in the north; Azzah is Gaza, on the southern coast. The pair marks the extreme limits of the area.

4:25

"Each man under his own vine and fig tree" was a proverbial image of settled peace and prosperity: vines and fig trees take years to bear, so a man only enjoys his own if nobody drives him off the land. "From Dan to Beersheba" names the northernmost and southernmost towns of Israel and means the entire country.

4:26

The number is uncertain in the ancient texts: the parallel account in 2 Chronicles 9:25 reads four thousand stalls, and some manuscripts and early translations of Kings agree. Four thousand stalls fits twelve thousand horses more naturally than forty thousand does.

4:28

The King James "dromedaries" is a mistaken guess at a rare Hebrew word; it does not mean camels but swift horses, or possibly teams of chariot horses. "According to his charge" means each governor delivered the quota assigned to his district.

4:29

"Largeness of heart" is not warmth or generosity. In Hebrew the heart is the seat of thinking and judgment, so a wide heart means a broad, capacious mind.

4:30

The "children of the east" are the peoples of the desert regions east and southeast of Israel, who had a reputation in the ancient world for proverb-lore and riddles; Job and his friends are placed among them. Egypt likewise had a long, famous tradition of written wisdom instruction, some of it still surviving.

4:31

These four men were evidently proverbial figures of wisdom, well known enough that the comparison needed no explanation. Ethan and Heman also appear in the headings of Psalms 88 and 89.

4:32

The Hebrew word translated "proverbs" covers a wider range than the English word: short sayings, comparisons, riddles and extended parables all fall under it.

4:33

The cedar of Lebanon was the tallest and most valuable tree known to the writer; hyssop is a small bushy plant that grows in cracks in stonework. Naming the two together is a way of saying "everything from the largest to the smallest." "Creeping things" covers reptiles and small ground-crawling creatures.

4:34

"All kings of the earth" means the known world of the writer's region, roughly Egypt, Arabia, and the states of Syria and Mesopotamia. Sending envoys to another court to learn from it was a recognized diplomatic move, and it also functioned as an acknowledgment of that court's standing.