The temple in Jerusalem has been built and dedicated.
Solomon then went to Hamath Zobah and captured it. He also built up Tadmor in the desert and all the store cities he had built in Hamath. He rebuilt Upper Beth Horon and Lower Beth Horon as fortified cities, with walls and with gates and bars, as well as Baalath and all his store cities, and all the cities for his chariots and for his horses--whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled.
All the people left from the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these peoples were not Israelites), that is, their descendants remaining in the land, whom the Israelites had not destroyed--these Solomon conscripted for his slave labor force, as it is to this day.
Solomon expands the kingdom to the north, into modern day Lebanon. (Tadmor, says Payne, is modern day Palmyra, Syria, far to the north.) As part of Solomon's building projects, he creates a slave labor force of immigrants and conquered peoples.
But Solomon did not make slaves of the Israelites for his work; they were his fighting men, commanders of his captains, and commanders of his chariots and charioteers. They were also King Solomon's chief officials--two hundred and fifty officials supervising the men.
The Israelites were not conscripts in the labor force but were soldiers in the army, an army with chariots and charioteers and 250 officers. Still, everyone seems to be a forced laborer in some way -- to a modern reader, Solomon's kingdom is oppressive. And even in the ancient Near East, there are dangers here, as we will see in chapter 10.
Solomon brought Pharaoh's daughter up from the City of David to the palace he had built for her, for he said, "My wife must not live in the palace of David king of Israel, because the places the ark of the LORD has entered are holy."
We have a short paragraph about one of Solomon's many marriages, possibly his most important marriage, that to the daughter of the king of Egypt. This wife will be one of many that set up idols in Solomon's domain. (The Chronicler does not mention all the wives of Solomon -- that is left for the scroll of Kings, see 1 Kings 11: 1-8.) In this case, Solomon seems to keep his idolatrous wife from living too close to the ark of the covenant and so gives to her a palace of her own.
On the altar of the LORD that he had built in front of the portico, Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings to the LORD, according to the daily requirement for offerings commanded by Moses for Sabbaths, New Moons and the three annual feasts--the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles.
In keeping with the ordinance of his father David, he appointed the divisions of the priests for their duties, and the Levites to lead the praise and to assist the priests according to each day's requirement. He also appointed the gatekeepers by divisions for the various gates, because this was what David the man of God had ordered. They did not deviate from the king's commands to the priests or to the Levites in any matter, including that of the treasuries.
The regular sacrifices included the weekly Sabbath, the first day of the month, as identified by a new moon, and the three feasts named by Moses.
All Solomon's work was carried out, from the day the foundation of the temple of the LORD was laid until its completion. So the temple of the LORD was finished.
Then Solomon went to Ezion Geber and Elath on the coast of Edom. And Hiram sent him ships commanded by his own officers, men who knew the sea. These, with Solomon's men, sailed to Ophir and brought back four hundred and fifty talents of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.
Solomon has developed a navy which trades in the Red Sea and along the Arabian peninsula. (It is not clear where the coast of Edom was. Edom was to the southeast of Israel so the coast of Edom may have been on the Red Sea. The location of Ophir is not clear but most commentators put in along the Arabian Sea, requiring travel down the Red Sea an into the Gulf of Aden.
This chapter roughly parallels 1 Kings 9:10-27.
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