1 Now at the end of twenty years, in which time Solomon had put up the house of the Lord and a house for himself,
Now at the end of twenty years, in which time Solomon had put up the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king's house, (Hiram, king of Tyre, had given Solomon cedar-trees and cypress-trees and gold, as much as he had need of,) King Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in the land of Galilee. But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the towns which Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. And he said, What sort of towns are these which you have given me, my brother? So they were named the land of Cabul, to this day. And Hiram sent the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold. Now, this was the way of Solomon's system of forced work for the building of the Lord's house and of the king's house, and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Megiddo and Gezer. ... Pharaoh, king of Egypt, came and took Gezer, burning it down and putting to death the Canaanites living in the town, and he gave it for a bride-offering to his daughter, Solomon's wife. ... ... and Solomon was the builder of Gezer and Beth-horon the lower, And Baalath and Tamar in the waste land, in that land; And all the store-towns and the towns which Solomon had for his war-carriages and for his horsemen, and everything which it was his pleasure to put up in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land under his rule. As for the rest of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not children of Israel; Their children who were still in the land, and whom the children of Israel had not been able to put to complete destruction, them did Solomon put to forced work, to this day. But Solomon did not put the children of Israel to forced work; they were the men of war, his servants, his captains, and his chiefs, captains of his war-carriages and of his horsemen. These were the chiefs of the overseers of Solomon's work, five hundred and fifty, in authority over the people who did the work. At that time Solomon made Pharaoh's daughter come up from the town of David to the house which he had made for her: then he made the Millo. Three times in the year it was Solomon's way to give burned offerings and peace-offerings on the altar he had made to the Lord, causing his fire-offering to go up on the altar before the Lord. And King Solomon made a sea-force of ships in Ezion-geber, by Eloth, on the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. Hiram sent his servants, who were experienced seamen, in the sea-force with Solomon's men. And they came to Ophir, where they got four hundred and twenty talents of gold, and took it back to King Solomon.
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Commentary on 2 Chronicles 8 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 8
2Ch 8:1-6. Solomon's Buildings.
2. cities which Huram had restored … Solomon built them, &c.—These cities lay in the northwest of Galilee. Though included within the limits of the promised land, they had never been conquered. The right of occupying them Solomon granted to Huram, who, after consideration, refused them as unsuitable to the commercial habits of his subjects (see on 1Ki 9:11). Solomon, having wrested them from the possession of the Canaanite inhabitants, repaired them and filled them with a colony of Hebrews.
3-6. And Solomon went to Hamath-zobah—Hamath was on the Orontes, in Cœle-Syria. Its king, Toi, had been the ally of David; but from the combination, Hamath and Zobah, it would appear that some revolution had taken place which led to the union of these two petty kingdoms of Syria into one. For what cause the resentment of Solomon was provoked against it, we are not informed, but he sent an armed force which reduced it. He made himself master also of Tadmor, the famous Palmyra in the same region. Various other cities along the frontiers of his extended dominions he repaired and fitted up, either to serve as store-places for the furtherance of his commercial enterprises, or to secure his kingdom from foreign invasion (see on 2Ch 1:14; 1Ki 9:15).
2Ch 8:7-11. The Canaanites Made Tributaries.
7. all the people that were left, &c.—The descendants of the Canaanites who remained in the country were treated as war prisoners, being obliged to "pay tribute or to serve as galley slaves" (2Ch 2:18), while the Israelites were employed in no works but such as were of an honorable character.
10. two hundred and fifty that bare rule—(Compare 1Ki 9:23). It is generally agreed that the text of one of these passages is corrupt.
11. Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David unto the house that he had built for her—On his marriage with the Egyptian princess at the beginning of his reign, he assigned her a temporary abode in the city of David, that is, Jerusalem, until a suitable palace for his wife had been erected. While that palace was in progress, he himself lodged in the palace of David, but he did not allow her to occupy it, because he felt that she being a heathen proselyte, and having brought from her own country an establishment of heathen maid-servants, there would have been an impropriety in her being domiciled in a mansion which was or had been hallowed by the reception of the ark. It seems she was received on her arrival into his mother's abode (So 3:4; 8:2).
2Ch 8:15-18. Solomon's Festival Sacrifices.
15. they departed not from the commandment of the king—that is, David, in any of his ordinances, which by divine authority he established.
unto the priests and Levites concerning any matter, or concerning the treasures—either in regulating the courses of the priests and Levites, or in the destination of his accumulated treasures to the construction and adornment of the temple.
17. Then went Solomon to Ezion-geber, and to Eloth—These two maritime ports were situated at the eastern gulf of the Red Sea, now called the Gulf of Akaba. Eloth is seen in the modern Akaba, Ezion-geber in El Gudyan [Robinson]. Solomon, determined to cultivate the arts of peace, was sagacious enough to perceive that his kingdom could become great and glorious only by encouraging a spirit of commercial enterprise among his subjects; and, accordingly, with that in mind he made a contract with Huram for ships and seamen to instruct his people in navigation.
18. Huram sent him … ships—either sent him ship-men, able seamen, overland; or, taking the word "sent" in a looser sense, supplied him, that is, built him ships—namely, in docks at Eloth (compare 1Ki 9:26, 27). This navy of Solomon was manned by Tyrians, for Solomon had no seamen capable of performing distant expeditions. The Hebrew fishermen, whose boats plied on the Sea of Tiberias or coasted the shores of the Mediterranean, were not equal to the conducting of large vessels laden with valuable cargoes on long voyages and through the wide and unfrequented ocean.
four hundred and fifty talents of gold—(Compare 1Ki 9:28). The text in one of these passages is corrupt.