And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying, I have considered the things which thou sentest to me for: and I will do all thy desire concerning timber of cedar, and concerning timber of fir.
I have considered the things ... and I will do. The contract was drawn out formally in a written document (2 Chronicles 2:11), which, according to Josephus, was preserved both in the Jewish and Tyrian records. No hint is given that either of the letters was translated; and hence, it is inferred that, like the Canaanites, the Tyrians, as well as Carthaginians, spoke the Hebrew tongue, or at least a language related to the Hebrew. In consequence of the labour of carrying wood so far to the seacoast, some have supposed that the cedars of old could not have been brought down from that part of the Lebanon where they are now found, and have now concluded that they formerly grew in the vicinity of the seashore; but the name of Lebanon (white), or, as it is now called, Lubnon, having been given to the mountain from its 'white summit,' shows that it was from the immediate vicinity of the snowy mountain that the trees were obtained; and 'the mountain-loving cedar,' as it was called by the ancients, is never described as growing on the hills near the shore.
Nor can it be doubted that the Eden of Ezekiel (1 Kin. 31:16-18), which he mentions in connection with the Nor can it be doubted that the Eden of Ezekiel (1 Kin. 31:16-18), which he mentions in connection with the old cedars, is represented by the present village of Eden, close to which the celebrated grove now stands; and when we recollect to what immense distances the ancients carried most ponderous blocks of stone, we can scarcely doubt that, if necessary, the timber for sacred and royal buildings would be conveyed from the most distant parts of that mountain to the shore. The labour, however great, would not have deterred them; and though Diodorus (19:, 38) says that Ptolemy employed 1,000 beasts of burden to carry wood from the Lebanon for shipbuilding purposes, that mode of transport may not have been adopted on all occasions; and any one who has witnessed the conveyance of timber by means of rapid torrents of the Alps and other mountainous regions, will at once perceive, on visiting the neighbouring Wady Kadeesha (the 'Holy Valley'), how easily they might have availed themselves of its powerful stream, after the melting of the snows, for conveying the timber to the coast near Tripoli, where it was formed into rafts, and floated to Jaffa (Joppa) by the Tyrians and 'Sidonians' (Ezra 3:7: cf. Josephus, 'Antiquities,' b. 3:, ch. 5:, sec. 3); and the Hebrew word which we translate in 1 Kings 5:9, "shall bring," may also apply to the act of bringing down by water; being used in Joel 2:23, in the sentence, 'cause rain' to come down 'by or for you;' and the very name of the Jordan is derived from the same word 'iered,' to descend or 'flow' (Extract from Letter, 'Athenaeum,' 1863). Josephus ('Antiquities,' b. 8:, ch. 2:, sec. 8) says that copies of these letters were preserved in his day in the public records of Tyre.