1 Kings 9 - Clarke's commentary and critical notes on the Bible

Bible Comments
  • 1 Kings 9:1 open_in_new

    And it came to pass, when Solomon had finished the building of the house of the LORD, and the king's house, and all Solomon's desire which he was pleased to do,

  • 1 Kings 9:2 open_in_new

    That the LORD appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared unto him at Gibeon. The Lord appeared to Solomon - The design of this appearance, which was in a dream, as that was at Gibeon, was to assure Solomon that God had accepted his service, and had taken that house for his dwelling-place, and would continue it, and establish him and his descendants upon the throne of Israel for ever, provided they served him with an upright heart; but, on the contrary, if they forsook him, he would abandon both them and his temple.

  • 1 Kings 9:3 open_in_new

    And the LORD said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.

  • 1 Kings 9:4 open_in_new

    And if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments:

  • 1 Kings 9:5 open_in_new

    Then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel.

  • 1 Kings 9:6 open_in_new

    But if ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children, and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods, and worship them:

  • 1 Kings 9:7 open_in_new

    Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people: A proverb and a by - word among all people - And so they are to the present; the unbelieving Jews, the stubborn, stiff-necked Jews, are words still in common use. They forsook the Lord, rejected his Christ, and are cast off, their temple destroyed, and they scattered over the face of the earth.

  • 1 Kings 9:8 open_in_new

    And at this house, which is high, every one that passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss; and they shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and to this house?

  • 1 Kings 9:9 open_in_new

    And they shall answer, Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have taken hold upon other gods, and have worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath the LORD brought upon them all this evil. Have taken hold upon other gods - When an indigent person claims the protection of a superior, he casts himself down before him, and lays hold of his feet; and this expression is frequently used when there is no prostration: I have taken hold of thy feet. When a person is called into the presence of the Burman monarch, he is said to go to the golden foot. - Ward's Customs.

  • 1 Kings 9:10 open_in_new

    And it came to pass at the end of twenty years, when Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the LORD, and the king's house, At the end of twenty years - He employed seven years and a half in building the temple, and twelve years and a half in building the king's house; see 1 Kings 7:1; 2 Chronicles 8:1.

  • 1 Kings 9:11 open_in_new

    (Now Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedar trees and fir trees, and with gold, according to all his desire,) that then king Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities - It is very likely that Solomon did not give those cities to Hiram so that they should be annexed to his Tyrian dominions, but rather gave him the produce of them till the money was paid which he had advanced to Solomon for his buildings. It appears however that either Hiram did not accept them, or that having received the produce till he was paid, he then restored them to Solomon; for in the parallel place, 2 Chronicles 8:2, it is said, The cities which Hiram had restored to Solomon, Solomon built them, and caused the children of Israel to dwell there. Some think that they were heathen cities which Solomon had conquered, and therefore had a right to give them if he pleased, as they were not any part of the land given by promise to the Israelites.

  • 1 Kings 9:13 open_in_new

    And he said, What cities are these which thou hast given me, my brother? And he called them the land of Cabul unto this day. Called them the land of Cabul - Whether this epithet was given to this land by Hiram as a mark of disapprobation, or what is its proper meaning, the learned are not agreed. That there was a country of this name in the promised land in the time of Joshua, is evident enough from Joshua 19:27, as it was one part of the boundary of the tribe of Asher; hence some interpret the word border or boundary, and so, the Septuagint understood it, for they have translated the Hebrew word ὁριον, which signifies the same. The margin gives another meaning.

  • 1 Kings 9:14 open_in_new

    And Hiram sent to the king sixscore talents of gold. Sixscore talents of gold - This was the sum which Hiram had lent, and in order to pay this Solomon had laid a tax upon his people, as we afterward learn. The whole is very darkly expressed.

  • 1 Kings 9:15 open_in_new

    And this is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised; for to build the house of the LORD, and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer. This is the reason of the levy - That is, in order to pay Hiram the sixscore talents of gold which he had borrowed from him (Hiram not being willing to take the Galilean cities mentioned above; or, having taken them, soon restored them again) he was obliged to lay a tax upon the people; and that this was a grievous and oppressive tax we learn from 1 Kings 12:1-4, where the elders of Israel came to Rehoboam, complaining of their heavy state of taxation, and entreating that their yoke might be made lighter.

    And Millo - This is supposed to have been a deep valley between Mount Sion and what was called the city of Jebus, which Solomon filled up, and it was built on, and became a sort of fortified place, and a place for public assemblies. - See Calmet.

  • 1 Kings 9:16 open_in_new

    For Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, and taken Gezer, and burnt it with fire, and slain the Canaanites that dwelt in the city, and given it for a present unto his daughter, Solomon's wife. Pharaoh - had gone up, and taken Gezer - This city Joshua had taken from the Canaanites, Joshua 10:33; Joshua 12:12, and it was divided by lot to the tribe of Ephraim, and was intended to be one of the Levitical cities; but it appears that the Canaanites had retaken it, and kept possession till the days of Solomon, when his father-in-law, Pharaoh king of Egypt, retook it, and gave it to Solomon in dowry with his daughter.

  • 1 Kings 9:18 open_in_new

    And Baalath, and Tadmor in the wilderness, in the land, And Tadmor in the wilderness - This is almost universally allowed to be the same with the celebrated Palmyra, the ruins of which remain to the present day, and give us the highest idea of Solomon's splendor and magnificence. Palmyra stood upon a fertile plain surrounded by a barren desert, having the river Euphrates on the east. The ruins are well described by Messrs. Dawkes and Wood, of which they give fine representations. They are also well described in the ancient part of the Universal History, vol. i., p. 367-70. The description concludes thus: "The world never saw a more glorious city; the pride, it is likely, of ancient times, and the reproach of our own; a city not more remarkable for the state of her buildings and unwontedness of her situation than for the extraordinary personages who once flourished there, among whom the renowned Zenobia and the incomparable Longinus must for ever be remembered with admiration and regret."

  • 1 Kings 9:19 open_in_new

    And all the cities of store that Solomon had, and cities for his chariots, and cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion. And all the cities of store - Though, by the multitude and splendor of his buildings, Solomon must have added greatly to the magnificence of his reign; yet, however plenteous silver and gold were in his times, his subjects must have been greatly oppressed with the taxation necessary to defray such a vast public expenditure.

  • 1 Kings 9:20 open_in_new

    And all the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which were not of the children of Israel,

  • 1 Kings 9:21 open_in_new

    Their children that were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel also were not able utterly to destroy, upon those did Solomon levy a tribute of bondservice unto this day. A tribute of bond-service - He made them do the most laborious part of the public works, the Israelites being generally exempt. When Sesostris, king of Egypt, returned from his wars, he caused temples to be built in all the cities of Egypt, but did not employ one Egyptian in the work, having built the whole by the hands of the captives which he had taken in his wars. Hence he caused this inscription to be placed upon each temple: -

    Ουδεις εγχωριος εις αυτα μεμοχθηκε.

    No native has labored in these

    Diodor. Sic. Bibl., lib. i., c. 56.

    It appears that Solomon might with propriety have placed a similar inscription on most of his works.

  • 1 Kings 9:22 open_in_new

    But of the children of Israel did Solomon make no bondmen: but they were men of war, and his servants, and his princes, and his captains, and rulers of his chariots, and his horsemen.

  • 1 Kings 9:23 open_in_new

    These were the chief of the officers that were over Solomon's work, five hundred and fifty, which bare rule over the people that wrought in the work.

  • 1 Kings 9:24 open_in_new

    But Pharaoh's daughter came up out of the city of David unto her house which Solomon had built for her: then did he build Millo.

  • 1 Kings 9:25 open_in_new

    And three times in a year did Solomon offer burnt offerings and peace offerings upon the altar which he built unto the LORD, and he burnt incense upon the altar that was before the LORD. So he finished the house. Three times in a year did Solomon offer - These three times were:

    1. The passover.

    2. The feast of pentecost.

    3. The feast of tabernacles.

  • 1 Kings 9:26 open_in_new

    And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom. A navy of ships - Literally, אני oni, a ship: in the parallel place, 2 Chronicles 8:17, it is said that Hiram sent him אניות oniyoth, ships; but it does not appear that Solomon in this case built more than one ship, and this was manned principally by the Tyrians.

  • 1 Kings 9:27 open_in_new

    And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon.

  • 1 Kings 9:28 open_in_new

    And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon. And they came to Ophir - No man knows certainly, to this day, where this Ophir was situated. There were two places of this name; one somewhere in India, beyond the Ganges, and another in Arabia, near the country of the Sabaeans, mentioned by Job, Job 22:24 : Then shalt thou lay up gold as dust; and the gold of Ophir as the stones of the brooks. And Job 28:16 : It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. Calmet places this country at the sources of the Euphrates and Tigris.

    But there are several reasons to prove that this was not the Ophir of the Bible, which it seems was so situated as to require a voyage of three years long to go out, load, and return. Mr. Bruce has discussed this subject at great length; see his Travels, vol. ii., chap. iv., p. 354, etc. He endeavors to prove

    1. That Ezion-geber is situated on the Elanitic branch of the Arabian Gulf or Red Sea.

    2. That Tharshish is Moka, near to Melinda, in the Indian Ocean, in about three degrees south latitude.

    3. That Ophir lies somewhere in the land of Sofala, or in the vicinity of the Zimbeze river, opposite the island of Madagascar, where there have been gold and silver mines in great abundance from the remotest antiquity. And he proves,

    4. That no vessel could perform this voyage in less than Three years, because of the monsoons; that more time need not be employed, and that this is the precise time mentioned in 1 Kings 10:22.

    5. That this is the country of the queen of Sheba, or Sabia, or Azeba, who on her visit to Solomon, brought him one hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices and precious stones great store, 1 Kings 10:10. And that gold, ivory, silver, etc., are the natural productions of this country.

    To illustrate and prove his positions he has given a map on a large scale, "showing the track of Solomon's fleet in their three years' voyage from the Elanitic Gulf to Ophir and Tharshish;" to which, and his description, I must refer the reader.

    Commentary on the Bible, by Adam Clarke [1831].