1 Kings 5:13 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Solomon raised a levy Which were to be employed in the most honourable and easy parts of the work relating to the temple, in the manner expressed 1 Kings 5:14; and these were Israelites; but those one hundred and fifty thousand mentioned 1Ki 5:15 were strangers. if it seem strange that so many thousands should be employed about so small a building as the temple was, it must be considered, 1st, That the temple, all its parts being considered, was far larger than men imagine: 2d, That it is probable they were employed by turns, as the thirty thousand were, (1 Kings 5:13,) else they had been oppressed with hard and uninterrupted labours: 3d, That the timber and stone hewed and carried by them were designed, not only for the temple, but also for Solomon's own houses and buildings; because we read of no other levy of men, nor of any care and pains taken, after the building of the temple, for the procurement or preparation of materials for his own houses, or his other buildings; nay, that this very levy of men was made and employed for the building of the Lord's house, and Solomon's house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer, is expressed chap. 1 Kings 9:15.