And Baalath, and Tadmor in the wilderness, in the land,
Baalath - Baalbec, called also Aven, or On (Amos 1:5). But some think that Baalath was in the south of Palestine, near the Shephelah, or Philistines plain (cf. 2 Chronicles 8:5).
Tadmor - probably from х Tamar (H8558)] palm, a city of palms; called by the Greeks Palmyra, between Damascus and the Euphrates-was rebuilt and fortified, as a security against invasion from Northern Asia. It was anciently a superb city, ten miles in circumference. It was situated in a dreary desert, in the midst of barren, uninhabited sands. It became the capital of a great kingdom, the emporium of the Eastern world; and its merchants dealt with the Roman and western nations for the products and luxuries of India and Arabia. John of Antioch says that the structures here erected by Solomon must have been demolished by Nebuchaduezzar, who, in his march to the siege of Jerusalem, destroyed this city. It is now a mass of magnificent ruins.
In accomplishing these and various other works which were carried on throughout the kingdom, especially in the north, where Rezon of Damascus, has enemy, might prove dangerous, he employed vast numbers of the Canaanites as galley-slaves (2 Chr. 1:18), treating them as prisoners of war, who were compelled to do the drudgery and hard labour, while the Israelites were only engaged in honourable employment. This, policy of employing the descendants of the Canaanites as serfs to labour in gangs, was contrary to the spirit of the Mosaic legislation, and was evidently burrowed from Egypt. Representations of the lowest caste employed as labourers on the public works, as the Fellahs in modern Egypt, are abundant on the ancient monumental paintings. These remains of the Amorites were afterward called "Solomon's servants" (Ezra 2:55; Ezra 2:58), and are supposed by some to have submitted to Solomon, who, on their renouncing idolatry followed the precedent of the Gibeonites in their treatment. But proof is wanting. Solomon's possession of Edom, through a small territory, gave him command of the Red Sea and the great caravan routes into the country and ports of Arabia, while his acquisition of the Paran mountains secured him the extensive overland commerce to Egypt and Phoenicia (Drew's 'Scripture Lands,' p. 131).