The First Book of the Kings

⭑ Unlocked Dynamic Bible :: World English Bible Catholic ⭑

- Chapter 9 -

(2 Chronicles 7:11–22)

After Solomon’s workers had finished building the temple and his palace and everything else that Solomon wanted them to build,

Yahweh appeared to him in a dream a second time, like he had appeared to him at the city of Gibeon.

Yahweh said to him, “I heard what you prayed and what you pleaded for me to do. I have set this house apart for myself, for me to be present in it forever.

And as for you, if you conduct your life as I want you to, like your father David did, and if you very sincerely obey all the statutes and decrees that I have commanded you to obey,

I will do what I promised your father that I would do. I promised him that Israel would always be ruled by his descendants.

But suppose that you or your descendants stop worshiping me; suppose that you disobey the commands and decrees that I have given to you; suppose that you start to worship other gods.

Then I will remove my Israelite people from the land that I have given to them. I will also abandon this temple that I have dedicated. Then people everywhere will despise Israel and make fun of it.

Despite the fact that this temple is very beautiful, there will come a time when everyone who passes by will be astonished when they see it, and they will hiss and say, ‘Why has Yahweh done this to this land and to this temple?’

Other people will reply, ‘It happened because the Israelite people abandoned Yahweh their God, the one who brought their ancestors out of Egypt. They started to accept and worship other gods. And that is why Yahweh has caused them to experience all these disasters.’”

Solomon’s Additional Achievements

(2 Chronicles 8:1–18)

Solomon’s workers worked for twenty years to build the temple and the palace.

Hiram, the king of the city of Tyre, had arranged for his workers to give Solomon all the cedar and pine logs and all the gold that he needed for this work. After it was all finished, King Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in the region of Galilee.

But when Hiram went from Tyre to Galilee to see the cities that Solomon had given to him, he was not pleased with them.

He said to Solomon, “My friend, those cities that you gave me are worthless.” Because of that, Hiram called that region Worthless.

Hiram gave Solomon only 4,000 kilograms of gold for those cities.

This is a record of the work that King Solomon forced men to do. He forced them to build the temple and his palace and the landfill on the east side of the city, and the wall around Jerusalem, and to rebuild the cities of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

The reason they needed to rebuild Gezer was that the army of the king of Egypt had attacked Gezer and captured it. Then they had burned the houses in the city and killed all the people of the Canaan people group who lived there. The king of Egypt gave that city to his daughter for a gift when she married Solomon.

So Solomon’s workers also rebuilt the city of Gezer, and they also rebuilt the city of Lower Beth Horon.

They also rebuilt the cities of Baalath and Tamar in the wilderness in the southern part of Judah.

They also built the cities where they kept the supplies for Solomon, the places where his horses and chariots were kept. They also built everything else that he wanted them to build, in Jerusalem and in Lebanon, and in other places in the area over which he ruled.

There were many people groups who belonged to the Amor, the Heth, the Periz, the Hiv, and the Jebus, who were not killed when the Israelites captured their land.

Their descendants still lived in Israel. It was those people whom Solomon forced to become his slaves to build all those places, and they are still slaves.

But Solomon did not force any Israelite people to become slaves. Some of them became soldiers, servants, officials, army officers, commanders of his chariot forces, and men who rode on his horses.

There were 550 officials who supervised the slaves who worked to build all those places.

After Solomon’s wife, who was the daughter of the king of Egypt, moved from the part of Jerusalem called the city of David to the palace that Solomon’s workers built for her, Solomon told his workers to fill in the land on the east side of the city.

Three times each year Solomon brought to the temple offerings that the priests burned completely on the altar and offerings to promise friendship with Yahweh. He also brought incense to be burned in the presence of Yahweh. And that is how his men finished building the temple.

King Solomon’s workers also built a fleet of ships at the city of Ezion Geber, which is near the city of Elath, on the shore of the Sea of Reeds, in the land belonging to the Edom people group.

King Hiram sent some expert sailors to go on the ships with Solomon’s workers.

They sailed to the region of Ophir and brought back to Solomon about fourteen metric tons of gold.

(2 Chronicles 7:11–22)

When Solomon had finished the building of the LORD’s house, the king’s house, and all Solomon’s desire which he was pleased to do,

The LORD appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.

The LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before me. I have made this house holy, which you have built, to put my name there forever; and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually.

As for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep my statutes and my ordinances,

then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised to David your father, saying, ‘There shall not fail from you a man on the throne of Israel.’

But if you turn away from following me, you or your children, and not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them,

then I will cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and I will cast this house, which I have made holy for my name, out of my sight; and Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

Though this house is so high, yet everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss; and they will say, ‘Why has the LORD done this to this land and to this house?’

and they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore the LORD has brought all this evil on them.’”

Solomon’s Additional Achievements

(2 Chronicles 8:1–18)

At the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the LORD’s house and the king’s house

(now Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedar trees and cypress trees, and with gold, according to all his desire), King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee.

Hiram came out of Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him; and they didn’t please him.

He said, “What cities are these which you have given me, my brother?” He called them the land of Cabul

(a)

to this day.

Hiram sent to the king one hundred twenty talents

(b)

of gold.

This is the reason of the forced labor which King Solomon conscripted: to build the LORD’s house, his own house, Millo, Jerusalem’s wall, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, taken Gezer, burned it with fire, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it for a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.

Solomon built in the land Gezer, Beth Horon the lower,

Baalath, Tamar in the wilderness,

all the storage cities that Solomon had, the cities for his chariots, the cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build for his pleasure in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.

As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel—

their children who were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel were not able utterly to destroy—of them Solomon raised a levy of bondservants to this day.

But of the children of Israel Solomon made no bondservants; but they were the men of war, his servants, his princes, his captains, and rulers of his chariots and of his horsemen.

These were the five hundred fifty chief officers who were over Solomon’s work, who ruled over the people who labored in the work.

But Pharaoh’s daughter came up out of David’s city to her house which Solomon had built for her. Then he built Millo.

Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar which he built to the LORD three times per year, burning incense with them on the altar that was before the LORD. So he finished the house.

King Solomon made a fleet of ships in Ezion Geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.

Hiram sent in the fleet his servants, sailors who had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon.

They came to Ophir, and fetched from there gold, four hundred and twenty talents,(c) and brought it to King Solomon.

Footnotes

(a)9:13 “Cabul” sounds like Hebrew for “good-for-nothing”.

(b)9:14 A talent is about 30 kilograms or 66 pounds or 965 Troy ounces, so 120 talents is about 3.6 metric tons