The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of KingsFarrar, F. W. (Frederic William)
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Kings
Farrar, F. W. (Frederic William)
Bible. Kings, 1st -- Commentaries
[217] If he was the son of David's elder brother (1 Sam. xvi. 8,
xvii. 13) he was Solomon's first cousin. The materialistic or
non-religious element in Solomon seems to come out in the names
of his only known children. The element "Jehovah," afterwards so
universal, does not occur in them. Basmath, characteristically, means
"fragrant"; Taphath is perhaps connected with טָפַת, to go mincingly;
Rehoboam means "enlarger of the people."
[218] The LXX. indeed reads καὶ νασὲφ εἷς ἐν γῇ Ἰούδα ("and he was
the only officer in the land of Judah"). But this would make thirteen
fiscal overseers. The Targum, adopting the same reading, says that the
thirteenth _nitzab_ was to maintain the king in the intercalary month.
[219] Taking the _cor_ at a low estimate this would amount to
eighteen thousand pounds of bread a day.
[220] 1 Kings iv. 23, בַּרְבֻּרִים. Vulg., _Avium altilium_.
[221] Athen., _Deipnos._, iv. 146.
[222] 2 Sam. iv. 6 (LXX.).
[223] This description of _agricultural_ felicity soon became an
anachronism.
[224] Not "dromedaries" (A.V.). The ruins of his stables are still
pointed out at Jerusalem. He traded with Egypt for horses and
chariots which his merchants brought to Tekoa, and he then sold
them at a profit to the Hittite princes. The forty thousand stalls
of 1 Kings iv. 26 should doubtless be four thousand (2 Chron. ix.
25), as Solomon only had fourteen hundred chariots (1 Kings x. 26).
In 1 Kings x. 28 the meaning and reading is "as for the export of
horses, which Solomon got from Egypt _even from Tekoa_" (LXX., καὶ ὲκ
θεκουὲ), "the royal merchants used to fetch a troop of horses at a
price." The "linen yarn" of the A.V. is a mistranslation.
[225] Cant. i. 9.
[226] 1 Kings v. 6, ix. 19, x. 26, 28. Two of those passages are
omitted in the LXX. Comp. 1 Kings xvi. 9.
[227] Deut. xvii. 16.
[228] Josh. xi. 9; 1 Sam. viii. 11, 12; 2 Sam. viii. 4.
[229] The energetic dislike to the importation or use of horses is
also found in Isa. ii. 7, xxx. 16, 17, xxxi. 1-3; Micah v. 10-14;
Zech. ix. 10, x. 5, xii. 4.
[230] Psalm xxxiii. 17, lxxvi. 6, cxlvii. 10.
[231] Compare Poludemos, Eurudemos.
[232] Xen., _Anab._, i. 4, 11; Arrian, ii. 13, iii. 7. For the phrase
"on _this_ side of the river," see _ante_, p. 18.
CHAPTER XIV.
_THE TEMPLE._
1 KINGS v., vi., vii.
"And his next son, for wealth and wisdom famed,
The clouded Ark of God, till then in tents
Wandering, shall in a glorious temple enshrine."
_Paradise Lost_, xii. 340.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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