1 Kings 9: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

After Solomon finishes the temple and his palace, the LORD appears to him a second time, accepts his prayer, and sets out terms: if Solomon walks as David did, his royal line will continue; if he or his descendants turn to other gods, Israel will be cut off from the land and the temple rejected. The chapter then lists Solomon's other dealings: twenty Galilean towns given to Hiram of Tyre, who was not pleased with them; the forced labor used to build Jerusalem's defenses and a string of cities; the labor drawn from the non-Israelite peoples of the land rather than from Israelites; and the sacrifices he offered three times a year. It closes with the fleet Solomon built at Ezion-geber, crewed with Hiram's experienced sailors, which brought back gold from Ophir.

Claim by Claim

1. 9:1
   • Solomon finished building the house of the LORD.
   • Solomon finished building the king's house.
   • Solomon completed everything he desired and took pleasure in doing.
2. 9:2
   • The LORD appeared to Solomon a second time.
   • The LORD had appeared to Solomon before, at Gibeon.
3. 9:3
   • The LORD said to Solomon that he had heard Solomon's prayer and his plea for favor made before him.
   • The LORD said he had consecrated the house Solomon built.
   • The LORD said he consecrated it to put his name there forever.
   • The LORD said his eyes and his heart would be there continually.
4. 9:4
   • The LORD set a condition: if Solomon walks before him as his father David walked.
   • David walked before the LORD with integrity of heart and with uprightness.
   • The condition includes doing everything the LORD commanded Solomon.
   • The condition includes Solomon keeping the LORD's statutes and judgments.
5. 9:5
   • The LORD said he would establish the throne of Solomon's kingdom over Israel forever.
   • The LORD said this matched what he had spoken concerning David, Solomon's father.
   • The LORD had said to David that a man of his line would never be cut off from the throne of Israel.
6. 9:6
   • The LORD set an opposite condition: if Solomon and his sons turn away from following him.
   • The condition includes their not keeping the LORD's commandments and statutes that he set before them.
   • The condition includes their going and serving other gods.
   • The condition includes their bowing down to other gods.
7. 9:7
   • The LORD said he would then cut Israel off from the land he had given them.
   • The LORD said he would cast out of his sight the house he had consecrated for his name.
   • The LORD said Israel would become a proverb and an object of mockery among all the peoples.
8. 9:8
   • The LORD said this house would be high (the Hebrew says the house will be exalted or high; whether this means exalted or reduced to ruins is unclear).
   • Everyone who passes by the house will be appalled.
   • Everyone who passes by will hiss.
   • Passersby will ask why the LORD has done such a thing to this land and to this house.
9. 9:9
   • People will answer that it happened because they forsook the LORD their God.
   • The LORD their God brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt.
   • They took hold of other gods.
   • They bowed down to other gods.
   • They served other gods.
   • For this reason the LORD brought all this evil upon them.
10. 9:10
    • Twenty years passed during which Solomon built the two houses.
    • The two houses were the house of the LORD and the king's house.
11. 9:11
    • Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar timber.
    • Hiram had supplied Solomon with cypress timber.
    • Hiram had supplied Solomon with gold, according to all Solomon's desire.
    • King Solomon then gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee.
12. 9:12
    • Hiram went out from Tyre to see the cities Solomon had given him.
    • The cities did not please Hiram.
13. 9:13
    • Hiram asked what kind of cities these were that Solomon had given him.
    • Hiram addressed Solomon as his brother.
    • Hiram called the cities the land of Cabul.
    • They are called that to this day.
14. 9:14
    • Hiram sent the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold.
15. 9:15
    • This is the account of the forced labor King Solomon conscripted.
    • The forced labor was for building the house of the LORD.
    • The forced labor was for building Solomon's own house.
    • The forced labor was for building the Millo.
    • The forced labor was for building the wall of Jerusalem.
    • The forced labor was for building Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.
16. 9:16
    • Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer.
    • Pharaoh had burned Gezer with fire.
    • Pharaoh had killed the Canaanites living in the city.
    • Pharaoh had given the city as a parting gift to his daughter, Solomon's wife.
17. 9:17
    • Solomon built Gezer.
    • Solomon built Lower Beth-horon.
18. 9:18
    • Solomon built Baalath.
    • Solomon built Tadmor (the Hebrew written form is Tamar) in the wilderness, in the land.
19. 9:19
    • Solomon built all the storage cities that belonged to him.
    • Solomon built the cities for his chariots.
    • Solomon built the cities for his horsemen.
    • Solomon built whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.
20. 9:20
    • There remained people of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
    • These people were not of the children of Israel.
21. 9:21
    • Their children remained after them in the land.
    • The children of Israel had not been able to destroy them utterly.
    • Solomon conscripted these people into forced labor.
    • They remain forced laborers to this day.
22. 9:22
    • Solomon made no slave of any of the children of Israel.
    • The Israelites were his men of war.
    • The Israelites were his servants, his officials, and his officers.
    • The Israelites were the commanders of his chariots and his horsemen.
23. 9:23
    • These were the chief officers over Solomon's work.
    • They numbered five hundred and fifty.
    • They ruled over the people who did the work.
24. 9:24
    • Pharaoh's daughter came up out of the city of David to her house.
    • Solomon had built that house for her.
    • Then Solomon built the Millo.
25. 9:25
    • Three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.
    • He offered them on the altar he had built to the LORD.
    • He burned incense on the altar before the LORD (the Hebrew may mean he burned incense along with the offerings before the LORD).
    • So he finished the house.
26. 9:26
    • King Solomon made a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber.
    • Ezion-geber is beside Eloth.
    • Ezion-geber is on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.
27. 9:27
    • Hiram sent his servants with the fleet.
    • Hiram's servants were seamen who knew the sea.
    • They went with Solomon's servants.
28. 9:28
    • They came to Ophir.
    • They took gold from there, four hundred and twenty talents.
    • They brought the gold to King Solomon.

Words Worth Explaining

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

9:1

"The house of the LORD" is the temple in Jerusalem; "the king's house" is the royal palace next to it. Hebrew uses the same word, "house," for both, which is why the two buildings keep being paired in this chapter.

9:2

Gibeon was a hilltop sanctuary a few miles northwest of Jerusalem, used for sacrifice before the temple was built. The earlier appearance referred to here is the dream at Gibeon in which Solomon asked for wisdom.

9:3

To "put my name there" is an ancient idiom of ownership and claim, like carving your name on a monument: the place is publicly identified as belonging to that god, and is where he can be addressed by name.

9:4

"Statutes" and "judgments" are two kinds of law: fixed standing rules, and case rulings handed down in particular disputes. Together the pair means the whole legal tradition, not two narrow categories.

9:5

The Hebrew is literally "a man will not be cut off from you from upon the throne of Israel", a standard way of promising an unbroken succession of descendants, not a promise about one individual.

9:6

In the King James, "thou" is singular and "ye" is plural. Verses 4 and 5 address Solomon alone; here the address widens to the whole nation and its future generations. Modern English lost that distinction, so the shift is invisible in most translations.

9:7

A "proverb and a byword" means a stock example, the name people reach for when they want to describe a disaster or a nation that lost everything. The point is public humiliation, not wise sayings.

9:8

Hissing, or whistling through the teeth, was the customary noise made at the sight of ruins in the ancient Near East, a sound of shock and derision, not amusement. The Hebrew of "which is high" is difficult; ancient translations read a similar-looking phrase meaning "will become a heap of ruins," which is why translations differ here.

9:9

The King James "all this evil" does not mean wickedness. In 1611 "evil" covered any kind of harm or calamity, so the sentence means the disaster that fell on them, not a moral quality in God.

9:11

Tyre was a wealthy Phoenician seaport on the Mediterranean coast north of Israel, in what is now Lebanon. Its kings traded timber from the Lebanon mountains (cedar and cypress, which Israel lacked) and its craftsmen and sailors were famous throughout the region.

9:13

"My brother" was the standard diplomatic form of address between kings who dealt with each other as equals under a treaty; it does not mean they were related. "Cabul" sounds in Hebrew like a phrase meaning "like nothing" or "good for nothing," so the name is an insult built on a pun.

9:14

A talent was a weight of roughly seventy-five pounds (about thirty-four kilograms), so a hundred and twenty talents is something over four tons of gold. Gold was weighed, not counted; coinage did not yet exist.

9:15

The "levy" was corvée, forced unpaid labor owed to the crown for a set period each year, a normal tax on subject populations in the ancient world, distinct from being bought and sold as property. The Millo (the name means roughly "the filling") was an earthwork or stepped stone terracing that supported and fortified part of Jerusalem's slope. Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer were key fortified cities guarding the main trade and invasion routes through the land.

9:16

The Hebrew calls this a "parting gift", property given by a bride's father at her marriage. That an Egyptian pharaoh handed over a captured city this way signals an unusually favorable alliance for Solomon; Egypt normally took foreign brides rather than giving its royal daughters away.

9:17

Beth-horon came in an upper and a lower town, guarding the steep pass that climbed from the coastal plain into the hill country toward Jerusalem. The King James "nether" simply means lower.

9:18

The Hebrew text as traditionally written reads "Tamar," a site in the desert south of Judah; the traditional reading aloud is "Tadmor," the oasis city far to the northeast later known as Palmyra. Translations split between the two, and the difference is one letter.

9:19

"Store cities" were supply depots, fortified towns holding grain, weapons, and equipment for the army and the royal administration.

9:20

These are the names of the peoples living in the land before Israel's arrival, listed here as a fixed traditional group rather than as five precisely defined nations.

9:21

"Utterly destroy" translates a Hebrew term meaning to devote something to a god by destroying it, putting it permanently beyond ordinary use, the war practice commanded in the conquest accounts. The verse notes that it was not carried through.

9:22

The distinction is between conscripted labor gangs and military or administrative service. Israelites were drafted too, as later chapters make clear, but not into the permanent hereditary work force. The chapter states the ethnic dividing line plainly rather than smoothing it over.

9:23

The parallel account in 2 Chronicles 8 gives 250 chief officers instead of 550, probably because the two books count Israelite and non-Israelite supervisors differently.

9:24

The City of David was the old fortified ridge captured from the Jebusites, the original and lower part of Jerusalem; the temple and palace complex stood on higher ground to the north, which is why she "came up."

9:25

A burnt offering was an animal burned whole on the altar; a peace offering was an animal partly burned and mostly eaten in a shared meal by the worshipers. "Three times a year" refers to the three annual pilgrimage festivals at which all Israelite men were expected to appear.

9:26

Ezion-geber and Eloth stood at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, the eastern arm of the Red Sea. The Hebrew name for this water is "the Sea of Reeds"; here it means that gulf, giving Israel access to the trade routes of Arabia and Africa. Israel had no Mediterranean port, so a fleet had to be based at the far southern end of the country.

9:27

Israel had no seafaring tradition and almost no coastline it controlled. The Phoenicians of Tyre were the best sailors in the Mediterranean world, so Solomon's fleet ran on borrowed expertise.

9:28

Ophir was a source of exceptionally fine gold, proverbially so in Hebrew poetry; its location is unknown, with ancient and modern guesses ranging along the coasts of Arabia, East Africa, and India. Four hundred and twenty talents is roughly fifteen tons.