1 Kings 4:23 - John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Bible Comments

Ten fat oxen,.... Such as were kept up in the stall and fatted:

and twenty oxen out of the pastures; which were killed as they were taken from thence, and not put up to be fed:

and an hundred sheep; out of the folds:

beside harts, and roebucks, and fallow deer; which were clean creatures, according to the Levitical law, Deuteronomy 14:5; these were hunted in fields, or taken out of the park, or were presents from other countries; so that here was plenty of beef, mutton, and venison: for the spiritual application of this to the antitypical Solomon, and his provisions, see Matthew 22:4;

and fatted fowl; such as we call capons a; some Jewish writers b, because of the likeness of sound in the word here used, take them to be Barbary fowls, or such as were brought from that country: there is a sort of birds called βαρβαροι, which were without a voice, that neither heard men, nor knew their voice c.

a So David de Pomis, Tzemach David, fol. 12. 3. and some in Kimchi in loc. b Baal Aruch & R. Elias Levit. Tishbi, in voce ברבר. c Scholia in Aristoph. Aves, p. 550.

1 Kings 4:23

23 Ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and fallowdeer, and fatted fowl.