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. A levy refers both to men and money; and the necessity for Solomon making it, arose from the many gigantic works he undertook to erect.
Millo - part of the fort of Jerusalem, on Mount Zion (2 Samuel 5:9; 1 Chronicles 11:8); or a row of stone bastions around Mount Zion, Millo being the great corner-tower of that fortified wall (1 Kings 11:27; 2 Chronicles 32:5).
The wall of Jerusalem - either repairing some breaches in it (1 Kings 11:27), or extending it, so as to enclose Mount Zion.
Hazor - fortified on account of its importance as a town in the northern boundary of the country.
Megiddo - now Lejjun-lying in the great caravan road between Egypt and Damascus-was the key to the north of Palestine by the western lowlands, and therefore fortified.
Gezer - or Gazer х Gaazer (H1507)], on the northern border of Benjamin, in the Shephelah, or maritime plain, between Beth-horon the nether and the Mediterranean; and though assigned as a Levitical city, it continued to be occupied by the Canaanites. It was the scene of many a severe contest between the Hebrews and the Philistines (2 Samuel 5:25; 1 Chronicles 20:4), until at last, having fallen by right of conquest to the king of Egypt, who for some cause attacked it, it was given by him as a dowry to his daughter, and fortified by Solomon. [This sacking of Gezer by the Egyptian monarch is rendered in the Alexandrine version of the Septuagint literally from the Hebrew original, as in our own. It is omitted in the Vatican here, but is narrated in the Septuagint addition to Joshua 16:10, where, however, it is represented as a stronghold of the Canaanites and Perizzites.]