April 17

1 Kings 4:1 — 6:38

4 And King Solomon continued king over all Israel. 2 And these are the princes that he had: Azariah the son of Zadok, the priest; 3 Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha, secretaries; Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud, the recorder; 4 and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the army, and Zadok and Abiathar were priests; 5 and Azariah the son of Nathan was over the deputies, and Zabud the son of Nathan was a priest, the friend of the king; 6 and Ahishar was over the household, and Adoniram the son of Abda, over those conscripted for forced labor.

7 And Solomon had twelve deputies over all Israel, and they provided the king and his household with food. It would devolve upon each one to provide the food one month in the year. 8 And these were their names: The son of Hur, in the mountainous region of Ephraim; 9 the son of Deker, in Makaz and in Shaalbim and Beth-shemesh and Elon-beth-hanan; 10 the son of Hesed, in Arubboth (he had Socoh and all the land of Hepher); 11 the son of Abinadab, all the mountain ridge of Dor (Taphath, Solomon’s daughter, herself became his wife); 12 Baana the son of Ahilud, in Taanach and Megiddo and all Beth-shean, which is beside Zarethan below Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah to the region of Jokmeam; 13 the son of Geber, in Ramoth-gilead (he had the tent villages of Jair the son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead; he had the region of Argob, which is in Bashan: sixty large cities with wall and copper bar); 14 Ahinadab the son of Iddo, in Mahanaim; 15 Ahimaaz, in Naphtali (he, too, took Basemath, Solomon’s daughter, as a wife); 16 Baana the son of Hushai, in Asher and Bealoth; 17 Jehoshaphat the son of Paruah, in Issachar; 18 Shimei the son of Ela, in Benjamin; 19 Geber the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the land of Sihon the king of the Amorites, and of Og the king of Bashan, and there was one deputy [over all the other deputies] that were in the land.

20 Judah and Israel were many, like the grains of sand that are by the sea for multitude, eating and drinking and rejoicing.

21 As for Solomon, he proved to be ruler over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines and to the boundary of Egypt. They were bringing gifts and serving Solomon all the days of his life.

22 And Solomon’s food for each day regularly proved to be thirty cor measures of fine flour and sixty cor measures of flour, 23 ten fat cattle and twenty pastured cattle and a hundred sheep, besides some stags and gazelles and roebucks and fattened cuckoos. 24 For he was holding in subjection everything this side of the River, from Tiphsah to Gaza, even all the kings this side of the River; and peace itself became his in every region of his, all around. 25 And Judah and Israel continued to dwell in security, everyone under his own vine and under his own fig tree, from Dan to Beer-sheba, all the days of Solomon.

26 And Solomon came to have forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots and twelve thousand horsemen.

27 And these deputies supplied food to King Solomon and everyone approaching the table of King Solomon, each one in his month. They left nothing lacking. 28 And the barley and the straw for the horses and for the teams of horses they kept bringing to wherever the place might prove to be, each one according to his commission.

29 And God continued giving Solomon wisdom and understanding in very great measure and a broadness of heart, like the sand that is upon the seashore. 30 And Solomon’s wisdom was vaster than the wisdom of all the Orientals and than all the wisdom of Egypt. 31 And he was wiser than any other man, than Ethan the Ezrahite and Heman and Calcol and Darda the sons of Mahol; and his fame came to be in all the nations all around. 32 And he could speak three thousand proverbs, and his songs came to be a thousand and five. 33 And he would speak about the trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that is coming forth on the wall; and he would speak about the beasts and about the flying creatures and about the moving things and about the fishes. 34 And they kept coming from all the peoples to hear Solomon’s wisdom, even from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom.

5 And Hiram the king of Tyre proceeded to send his servants to Solomon, for he had heard that it was he that they had anointed as king in place of his father; for a lover of David Hiram had always proved to be. 2 In turn Solomon sent to Hiram, saying: 3 “You yourself well know that David my father was not able to build a house to the name of Jehovah his God because of the warfare with which they surrounded him, until Jehovah put them under the soles of his feet. 4 And now Jehovah my God has given me rest all around. There is no resister, and there is nothing bad happening. 5 And here I am thinking of building a house to the name of Jehovah my God, just as Jehovah promised to David my father, saying, ‘Your son whom I shall put upon your throne in place of you, he is the one that will build the house to my name.’ 6 And now command that they cut for me cedars from Lebanon; and my servants themselves will prove to be with your servants, and the wages of your servants I shall give to you according to all that you may say, for you yourself well know that there is among us no one knowing how to cut trees like the Sidonians.”

7 And it came about that as soon as Hiram heard the words of Solomon, he began to rejoice greatly, and he went on to say: “Blessed is Jehovah today in that he has given David a wise son over this numerous people!” 8 Accordingly Hiram sent to Solomon, saying: “I have heard what you sent to me. For my part, I shall do all your delight in the matter of timbers of cedar trees and timbers of juniper trees. 9 My servants themselves will bring them down out of Lebanon to the sea; and I, for my part, shall put them in log rafts [to go] by sea clear to the place that you will send me notice of; and I shall certainly have them broken up there, and you, for your part, will carry them; and you, for your part, will do my delight by giving the food for my household.”

10 So Hiram became a giver of timbers of cedar trees and timbers of juniper trees to Solomon according to all his delight. 11 And Solomon, for his part, gave Hiram twenty thousand cor measures of wheat as food supplies for his household and twenty cor measures of beaten-out oil. That was what Solomon kept giving Hiram year by year. 12 And Jehovah, for his part, gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised him; and there came to be peace between Hiram and Solomon, and both of them proceeded to conclude a covenant.

13 And King Solomon kept bringing up those conscripted for forced labor out of all Israel; and those conscripted for forced labor amounted to thirty thousand men. 14 And he would send them to Lebanon in shifts of ten thousand a month. For a month they would continue in Lebanon, for two months at their homes; and Adoniram was over those conscripted for forced labor. 15 And Solomon came to have seventy thousand burden bearers and eighty thousand cutters in the mountain, 16 besides Solomon’s princely deputies who were over the work, three thousand three hundred foremen over the people who were active in the work. 17 Accordingly the king commanded that they should quarry great stones, expensive stones, to lay the foundation of the house with hewn stones. 18 So Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the Gebalites did the cutting, and they kept preparing the timbers and the stones to build the house.

6 And it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel came out from the land of Egypt, in the fourth year, in the month of Ziv, that is, the second month, after Solomon became king over Israel, that he proceeded to build the house to Jehovah. 2 And the house that King Solomon built to Jehovah was sixty cubits in its length, and twenty in its width, and thirty cubits in its height. 3 And the porch in front of the temple of the house was twenty cubits in its length, in front of the width of the house. Ten cubits it was in its depth, in front of the house.

4 And for the house he went on to make windows of narrowing frames. 5 Further, he built against the wall of the house a side structure all around, [against] the walls of the house all around the temple and the innermost room, and made side chambers all around. 6 The lowest side chamber was five cubits in its width, and the middle one was six cubits in its width, and the third one was seven cubits in its width; for there were cutbacks that he gave to the house all around outside, that it might not have a hold in the walls of the house.

7 As for the house, while it was being built, it was of quarry stone already completed that it was built; and as for hammers and axes or any tools of iron, they were not heard in the house while it was being built. 8 The entrance of the lowest side chamber was on the right side of the house, and by a winding staircase they would go up to the middle one, and from the middle one up to the third one. 9 Further, he continued building the house that he might finish it, and covered in the house with beams and rows in cedarwood. 10 Moreover, he built the side chambers against the whole house five cubits in their height, and they had a hold on the house by timbers of cedar trees.

11 Meantime, the word of Jehovah came to Solomon, saying: 12 “As regards this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and perform my judicial decisions and actually keep all my commandments by walking in them, I also shall certainly carry out my word with you that I spoke to David your father; 13 and I shall indeed reside in the middle of the sons of Israel, and I shall not leave my people Israel.”

14 And Solomon continued building the house that he might finish it. 15 And he proceeded to build the walls of the house inside it with boards of cedar. From the floor of the house up to the rafters of the ceiling he overlaid it with timber inside; and he went on to overlay the floor of the house with boards of juniper. 16 Further, he built twenty cubits at the rear sides of the house with boards of cedar, from the floor up to the rafters, and built for it inside the innermost room, the Most Holy. 17 And it was forty cubits that the house proved to be, that is, the temple in front of it. 18 And [the] cedarwood on the house inside was with carvings of gourd-shaped ornaments and garlands of blossoms. All of it was cedarwood; there was no stone to be seen.

19 And the innermost room in the interior of the house he prepared inside, to put there the ark of the covenant of Jehovah. 20 And the innermost room was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in width, and twenty cubits in its height; and he proceeded to overlay it with pure gold, and to overlay the altar with cedarwood. 21 And Solomon went on to overlay the house inside with pure gold, and to make chainwork of gold pass across in front of the innermost room, and to overlay it with gold. 22 And the whole house he overlaid with gold, until all the house was completed; and all the altar that was toward the innermost room he overlaid with gold.

23 Further, he made in the innermost room two cherubs of oil-tree wood, ten cubits being the height of each one. 24 And five cubits was the one wing of the cherub, and five cubits was the other wing of the cherub. Ten cubits it was from the tip of his wing to the tip of his wing. 25 And the second cherub was ten cubits. The two cherubs had the same measure and the same shape. 26 The height of the one cherub was ten cubits, and that was so of the other cherub. 27 Then he put the cherubs inside the inner house, so that they spread out the wings of the cherubs. Thus the wing of the one reached to the wall and the wing of the other cherub was reaching to the other wall; and their wings were toward the middle of the house, reaching wing to wing. 28 Moreover, he overlaid the cherubs with gold.

29 And all the walls of the house round about he carved with engraved carvings of cherubs and palm-tree figures and engravings of blossoms, inside and outside; 30 and the floor of the house he overlaid with gold, inside and outside. 31 And the entrance of the innermost room he made with doors of oil-tree wood: side pillars, doorposts [and] a fifth. 32 And the two doors were of oil-tree wood, and he carved upon them carvings of cherubs and palm-tree figures and the engravings of blossoms, and he overlaid them with gold; and he proceeded to beat the gold down upon the cherubs and the palm-tree figures. 33 And that was the way he made for the entrance of the temple, the doorposts of oil-tree wood, foursquare. 34 And the two doors were of juniper wood. The two leaves of the one door turned on pivots, and the two leaves of the other door turned on pivots. 35 And he carved cherubs and palm-tree figures and engravings of blossoms, and overlaid gold foil upon the representations.

36 And he went on to build the inner courtyard with three rows of hewn stone and a row of beams of cedarwood.

37 In the fourth year the house of Jehovah had its foundation laid, in the lunar month of Ziv; 38 and in the eleventh year, in the lunar month of Bul, that is, the eighth month, the house was finished as regards all its details and all its plan; so that he was seven years at building it.