1 Kings 4-7

1 Kings 4

¹So King Solomon ruled over Israel,

²and these were his chief officials: Azariah son of Zadok was the priest;

³Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha, were secretaries; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the recorder;

⁴Benaiah son of Jehoiada was in charge of the army; Zadok and Abiathar were priests;

⁵Azariah son of Nathan was in charge of the governors; Zabud son of Nathan was a priest and adviser to the king;

⁶Ahishar was in charge of the palace; and Adoniram son of Abda was in charge of the forced labor.

⁷Solomon had twelve governors over all Israel to provide food for the king and his household. Each one would arrange provisions for one month of the year,

⁸and these were their names: Ben-hur in the hill country of Ephraim;

⁹Ben-deker in Makaz, in Shaalbim, in Beth-shemesh, and in Elon-beth-hanan;

¹⁰Ben-hesed in Arubboth (Socoh and all the land of Hepher belonged to him);

¹¹Ben-abinadab in Naphath-dor (Taphath, a daughter of Solomon, was his wife);

¹²Baana son of Ahilud in Taanach, in Megiddo, and in all of Beth-shean next to Zarethan below Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah and on past Jokmeam;

¹³Ben-geber in Ramoth-gilead (the villages of Jair son of Manasseh in Gilead belonged to him, as well as the region of Argob in Bashan with its sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars);

¹⁴Ahinadab son of Iddo in Mahanaim;

¹⁵Ahimaaz in Naphtali (he had married Basemath, a daughter of Solomon);

¹⁶Baana son of Hushai in Asher and in Aloth;

¹⁷Jehoshaphat son of Paruah in Issachar;

¹⁸Shimei son of Ela in Benjamin;

¹⁹Geber son of Uri in the land of Gilead, including the territories of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan. There was also one governor in the land of Judah.

²⁰The people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore, and they were eating and drinking and rejoicing.

²¹And Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These kingdoms offered tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

²²Solomon’s provisions for a single day were thirty cors of fine flour, sixty cors of meal,

²³ten fat oxen, twenty range oxen, and a hundred sheep, as well as deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened poultry.

²⁴For Solomon had dominion over everything west of the Euphrates—over all the kingdoms from Tiphsah to Gaza—and he had peace on all sides.

²⁵Throughout the days of Solomon, Judah and Israel dwelt securely from Dan to Beersheba, each man under his own vine and his own fig tree.

²⁶Solomon had 4,000 stalls for his chariot horses and 12,000 horses.

²⁷Each month the governors in turn provided food for King Solomon and all who came to his table. They saw to it that nothing was lacking.

²⁸Each one also brought to the required place their quotas of barley and straw for the chariot horses and other horses.

²⁹And God gave Solomon wisdom, exceedingly deep insight, and understanding beyond measure, like the sand on the seashore.

³⁰Solomon’s wisdom was greater than that of all the men of the East, greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.

³¹He was wiser than all men—wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and wiser than Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread throughout the surrounding nations.

³²Solomon composed three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered a thousand and five.

³³He spoke of trees, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop growing in the wall, and he taught about animals, birds, reptiles, and fish.

³⁴So men of all nations came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.

1 Kings 5

¹Now when Hiram king of Tyre heard that Solomon had been anointed king in his father’s place, he sent envoys to Solomon; for Hiram had always been a friend of David.

²And Solomon relayed this message to Hiram:

³“As you are well aware, due to the wars waged on all sides against my father David, he could not build a house for the Name of the LORD his God until the LORD had put his enemies under his feet.

⁴But now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side, and there is no adversary or crisis.

⁵So behold, I plan to build a house for the Name of the LORD my God, according to what the LORD said to my father David: ‘I will put your son on your throne in your place, and he will build the house for My Name.’

⁶Now therefore, order that cedars of Lebanon be cut down for me. My servants will be with your servants, and I will pay your servants whatever wages you set, for you know that there are none among us as skilled in logging as the Sidonians.”

⁷When Hiram received Solomon’s message, he rejoiced greatly and said, “Blessed be the LORD this day! He has given David a wise son over this great people!”

⁸Then Hiram sent a reply to Solomon, saying: “I have received your message; I will do all you desire regarding the cedar and cypress timber.

⁹My servants will haul the logs from Lebanon to the Sea, and I will float them as rafts by sea to the place you specify. There I will separate the logs, and you can take them away. And in exchange, you can meet my needs by providing my household with food.”

¹⁰So Hiram provided Solomon with all the cedar and cypress timber he wanted,

¹¹and year after year Solomon would provide Hiram with 20,000 cors of wheat as food for his household, as well as 20,000 baths of pure olive oil.

¹²And the LORD gave Solomon wisdom, as He had promised him. There was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty.

¹³Then King Solomon conscripted a labor force of 30,000 men from all Israel.

¹⁴He sent them to Lebanon in monthly shifts of 10,000 men, so that they would spend one month in Lebanon and two months at home. And Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor.

¹⁵Solomon had 70,000 porters and 80,000 stonecutters in the mountains,

¹⁶not including his 3,300 foremen who supervised the workers.

¹⁷And the king commanded them to quarry large, costly stones to lay the foundation of the temple with dressed stones.

¹⁸So Solomon’s and Hiram’s builders, along with the Gebalites, quarried the stone and prepared the timber and stone for the construction of the temple.

1 Kings 6

¹In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the house of the LORD.

²The house that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.

³The portico at the front of the main hall of the temple was twenty cubits long, extending across the width of the temple and projecting out ten cubits in front of the temple.

⁴He also had narrow windows framed high in the temple.

⁵Against the walls of the temple and the inner sanctuary, Solomon built a chambered structure around the temple, in which he constructed the side rooms.

⁶The bottom floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits, and the third floor seven cubits. He also placed offset ledges around the outside of the temple, so that nothing would be inserted into its walls.

⁷The temple was constructed using finished stones cut at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any other iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.

⁸The entrance to the bottom floor was on the south side of the temple. A stairway led up to the middle level, and from there to the third floor.

⁹So Solomon built the temple and finished it, roofing it with beams and planks of cedar.

¹⁰He built chambers all along the temple, each five cubits high and attached to the temple with beams of cedar.

¹¹Then the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying:

¹²“As for this temple you are building, if you walk in My statutes, carry out My ordinances, and keep all My commandments by walking in them, I will fulfill through you the promise I made to your father David.

¹³And I will dwell among the Israelites and will not abandon My people Israel.”

¹⁴So Solomon built the temple and finished it.

¹⁵He lined the interior walls with cedar paneling from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and he covered the floor with cypress boards.

¹⁶He partitioned off the twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place.

¹⁷And the main hall in front of this room was forty cubits long.

¹⁸The cedar paneling inside the temple was carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; not a stone could be seen.

¹⁹Solomon also prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the LORD there.

²⁰The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar.

²¹So Solomon overlaid the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold.

²²So he overlaid with gold the whole interior of the temple, until everything was completely finished. He also overlaid with gold the entire altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.

²³In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim, each ten cubits high, out of olive wood.

²⁴One wing of the first cherub was five cubits long, and the other wing was five cubits long as well. So the full wingspan was ten cubits.

²⁵The second cherub also measured ten cubits; both cherubim had the same size and shape,

²⁶and the height of each cherub was ten cubits.

²⁷And he placed the cherubim inside the innermost room of the temple. Since their wings were spread out, the wing of the first cherub touched one wall, while the wing of the second cherub touched the other wall, and in the middle of the room their wingtips touched.

²⁸He also overlaid the cherubim with gold.

²⁹Then he carved the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer sanctuaries, with carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers.

³⁰And he overlaid the temple floor with gold in both the inner and outer sanctuaries.

³¹For the entrance to the inner sanctuary, Solomon constructed doors of olive wood with five-sided doorposts.

³²The double doors were made of olive wood, and he carved into them cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with hammered gold.

³³In the same way he made four-sided doorposts of olive wood for the sanctuary entrance.

³⁴The two doors were made of cypress wood, and each had two folding panels.

³⁵He carved into them cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and he overlaid them with gold hammered evenly over the carvings.

³⁶Solomon built the inner courtyard with three rows of dressed stone and one row of trimmed cedar beams.

³⁷The foundation of the house of the LORD was laid in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, in the month of Ziv.

³⁸In the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the temple was finished in every detail and according to every specification. So he built the temple in seven years.

1 Kings 7

¹Solomon, however, took thirteen years to complete the construction of his entire palace.

²He built the House of the Forest of Lebanon a hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high, with four rows of cedar pillars supporting the cedar beams.

³The house was roofed with cedar above the beams that rested on the pillars—forty-five beams, fifteen per row.

⁴There were three rows of high windows facing one another in three tiers.

⁵All the doorways had rectangular frames, with the openings facing one another in three tiers.

⁶Solomon made his colonnade fifty cubits long and thirty cubits wide, with a portico in front of it and a canopy with pillars in front of the portico.

⁷In addition, he built a hall for the throne, the Hall of Justice, where he was to judge. It was paneled with cedar from floor to ceiling.

⁸And the palace where Solomon would live, set further back, was of similar construction. He also made a palace like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter, whom he had married.

⁹All these buildings were constructed with costly stones, cut to size and trimmed with saws inside and out from the foundation to the eaves, and from the outside to the great courtyard.

¹⁰The foundations were laid with large, costly stones, some ten cubits long and some eight cubits long.

¹¹Above these were costly stones, cut to size, and cedar beams.

¹²The great courtyard was surrounded by three rows of dressed stone and a row of trimmed cedar beams, as were the inner courtyard and portico of the house of the LORD.

¹³Now King Solomon sent to bring Huram from Tyre.

¹⁴He was the son of a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a craftsman in bronze. Huram had great skill, understanding, and knowledge for every kind of bronze work. So he came to King Solomon and carried out all his work.

¹⁵He cast two pillars of bronze, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in circumference.

¹⁶He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on top of the pillars, each capital five cubits high.

¹⁷For the capitals on top of the pillars he made a network of lattice, with wreaths of chainwork, seven for each capital.

¹⁸Likewise, he made the pillars with two rows of pomegranates around each grating to cover each capital atop the pillars.

¹⁹And the capitals atop the pillars in the portico were shaped like lilies, four cubits high.

²⁰On the capitals of both pillars, just above the rounded projection next to the network, were the two hundred pomegranates in rows encircling each capital.

²¹Thus he set up the pillars at the portico of the temple. The pillar to the south he named Jachin, and the pillar to the north he named Boaz.

²²And the tops of the pillars were shaped like lilies. So the work of the pillars was completed.

²³He also made the Sea of cast metal. It was circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim, five cubits in height, and thirty cubits in circumference.

²⁴Below the rim, ornamental buds encircled it, ten per cubit all the way around the Sea, cast in two rows as a part of the Sea.

²⁵The Sea stood on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. The Sea rested on them, with all their hindquarters toward the center.

²⁶It was a handbreadth thick, and its rim was fashioned like the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It could hold two thousand baths.

²⁷In addition, he made ten movable stands of bronze, each four cubits long, four cubits wide, and three cubits high.

²⁸This was the design of the stands: They had side panels attached to uprights,

²⁹and on the panels between the uprights were lions, oxen, and cherubim. On the uprights was a pedestal above, and below the lions and oxen were wreaths of beveled work.

³⁰Each stand had four bronze wheels with bronze axles and a basin resting on four supports, with wreaths at each side.

³¹The opening to each stand inside the crown at the top was one cubit deep, with a round opening like the design of a pedestal, a cubit and a half wide. And around its opening were engravings, but the panels of the stands were square, not round.

³²There were four wheels under the panels, and the axles of the wheels were attached to the stand; each wheel was a cubit and a half in diameter.

³³The wheels were made like chariot wheels; their axles, rims, spokes, and hubs were all of cast metal.

³⁴Each stand had four handles, one for each corner, projecting from the stand.

³⁵At the top of each stand was a circular band half a cubit high. The supports and panels were cast as a unit with the top of the stand.

³⁶He engraved cherubim, lions, and palm trees on the surfaces of the supports and panels, wherever each had space, with wreaths all around.

³⁷In this way he made the ten stands, each with the same casting, dimensions, and shape.

³⁸He also made ten bronze basins, each holding forty baths and measuring four cubits across, one basin for each of the ten stands.

³⁹He set five stands on the south side of the temple and five on the north, and he put the Sea on the south side, at the southeast corner of the temple.

⁴⁰Additionally, Huram made the pots, shovels, and sprinkling bowls. So Huram finished all the work that he had undertaken for King Solomon in the house of the LORD:

⁴¹the two pillars; the two bowl-shaped capitals atop the pillars; the two sets of network covering both bowls of the capitals atop the pillars;

⁴²the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network covering both the bowl-shaped capitals atop the pillars);

⁴³the ten stands; the ten basins on the stands;

⁴⁴the Sea; the twelve oxen underneath the Sea;

⁴⁵and the pots, shovels, and sprinkling bowls. All the articles that Huram made for King Solomon in the house of the LORD were made of burnished bronze.

⁴⁶The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zarethan.

⁴⁷Solomon left all these articles unweighed, because there were so many. The weight of the bronze could not be determined.

⁴⁸Solomon also made all the furnishings for the house of the LORD: the golden altar; the golden table on which was placed the Bread of the Presence;

⁴⁹the lampstands of pure gold in front of the inner sanctuary, five on the right side and five on the left; the gold flowers, lamps, and tongs;

⁵⁰the pure gold basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, ladles, and censers; and the gold hinges for the doors of the inner temple (that is, the Most Holy Place) as well as for the doors of the main hall of the temple.

⁵¹So all the work that King Solomon had performed for the house of the LORD was completed. Then Solomon brought in the items his father David had dedicated—the silver, the gold, and the furnishings—and he placed them in the treasuries of the house of the LORD.