Hiram sent to the king sixscore talents of gold. — The payment, on any calculation, was a large one, though little more than a sixth of Solomon’s yearly revenue. (See 1 Kings 10:14.) How it is connected with the previous verses is matter of conjecture. It may possibly be a note referring back to 1 Kings 9:11, and explaining the amount of gold which Hiram had sent. If this is not so, it would then seem to be a payment in acknowledgment of the cession of the cities, as being of greater value than the debt which it was meant to discharge. Hiram’s depreciation of the cities need not imply that he did not care to keep them. “It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer: but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.” (Proverbs 20:14). Josephus (Ant. viii. 5, 3), has a quaint story in connection with this intercourse between Hiram and Solomon (quoted from Dios), declaring that a contest in riddles took place between these kings, and that, when Hiram could not solve the riddles of Solomon, he “paid a large sum of money for his fine,” but adds that he afterwards retaliated on Solomon, by aid of Abdemon of Tyre. It appears by 2 Chronicles 7:2, that the cities were afterwards restored to Israel — how, and why, we know not.
(15 28) The rest of the chapter consists of brief historical notes, partly referring back to the previous records. Thus, 1 Kings 9:15 refers back to 1 Kings 5:13; 1 Kings 9:20-22 to 1 Kings 5:15; 1 Kings 9:24 to 1 Kings 7:8; 1 Kings 9:25 is a note connected with the history of the dedication of the Temple. The style is markedly different from the graphic and picturesque style of the passages preceding and following it.