1 Kings 4 – 6 part 4
Last week we ended by looking at the great wisdom that Solomon had been given by God. Now as we enter into Chapter 4 we learn about the great peace and prosperity of Solomon’s kingdom. Now the first 19 verses basically gives us the names of those who are in Solomon’s administration. It mentions those who were priests, recorders and who was over his army but a great deal of these verses talks about the 12 governors he appointed to which they took turns 1 month out of the year to provide provision for the king and his house hold. For the sake of time you can read these verses on your own. So, lets us begin at verse,
1 Kings 4:20
You can see on this map just how big Solomon’s Kingdom was and since he was so powerful all those around him were at peace with him and they served his kingdom.
Now these daily provision were just for his household and did not include his army. Scholars have estimated that this was enough food to feed 14,000 people a day. Having to prepare that much food everyday is beyond my ability to imagine what all went into making it happen. It truly amazes me.
1 Kings 4:26 Solomon
had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand
horsemen. 27 And these
governors, each man in his month, provided food for King Solomon and for all
who came to King Solomon's table. There was no lack in their supply. 28 They also brought barley and
straw to the proper place, for the horses and steeds, each man according to his
charge.
This gives a idea of big his army was and that the fact that he had the money to take care of all these horses and men. Now I do want to point out that we have a difference in numbers in the parallel account in 2 Chron 9:25. It says that the number of stalls was 4000 and not 40,000. Now the only version I could find that didn’t say 40,000 in our primary verse was the NIV which used 4000. This another one those instance involving numbers where we cannot be for sure which one is the correct one due to textual variances. Nearly every one that commented on this difference seemed to think that 4000 was the correct number but it can’t be said for sure. No matter which one is correct we can see that it was still a great number of men and horses to take care of. It also interesting to note that God did not want a king multiplying horses for himself according to.
Deuteronomy 17:16 "But
he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt
to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, 'You shall not return that
way again.'
1 Kings 4:29 And God
gave Solomon wisdom and exceedingly great understanding, and largeness of heart
like the sand on the seashore. 30
Thus Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the men of the East and all
the wisdom of
So without a doubt
Solomon was the wisest man of his day. Out of his writings we only have few of
the preserved for us in the Book of Proverbs, Song of Solomon and a couple of
Psalms. Because of his wisdom many came from far and wide to hear his wise
words.
1 Kings 5:1 Now
Hiram (Hi-rum) king of
Thanks to David Hiram
would work with his son Solomon. Now in 1 Chron 28:3-7 we learn that David
wanted to build a temple for God to house the Ark of the covenant and I have
pointed out in the past that God didn’t need such a temple because He could not
literally dwell there anyway and He no point every asked anyone to make Him a
temple. This was what David wanted to do but because he was a man of war God
did not allow him to do so but God said he would allow his son Solomon to build
that
Hiram was in control of
these beautiful Cedars and the workmen that had the skills to work with this
wood and Solomon was willing to pay any price to receive his help and product.
1 Kings 5:7 So it
was, when Hiram heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly and said,
Blessed be the LORD this day, for He has given David a wise son over
this great people! 8 Then
Hiram sent to Solomon, saying: I have considered the message which you
sent me, and I will do all you desire concerning the cedar and cypress
logs. 9 My servants shall
bring them down from
Basically they come to
agreement and Solomon pays Hiram and hefty price every year for his services.
1 Kings 5: 13
Then King Solomon raised up a labor force out of all
This shows us just how
much man power was involved in gathering the Cedars and building the temple. Now
lets move chapter 6 which deal with the construction of the temple.
1 Kings 6:1 And it
came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of
Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign
over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, that he
began to build the house of the LORD.
What interesting about
this verse is that it establishes a specific timeline of when the temple was
built. Notice it was built 480 years after the children of
1 Kings 6:2 Now the
house which King Solomon built for the LORD, its length was sixty
cubits, its width twenty, and its height thirty cubits. 3 The vestibule in front of the
sanctuary of the house was twenty cubits long across the width of the
house, and the width of the vestibule extended ten cubits from
the front of the house. 4 And
he made for the house windows with beveled frames. 5 Against the wall of the temple
he built chambers all around, against the walls of the temple, all
around the sanctuary and the inner sanctuary. Thus he made side chambers all
around it. 6 The lowest
chamber was five cubits wide, the middle was six cubits wide, and
the third was seven cubits wide; for he made narrow ledges around the
outside of the temple, so that the support beams would not be fastened
into the walls of the temple. 7
And the temple, when it was being built, was built with stone finished at the
quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any iron tool was heard in the
temple while it was being built. 8
The doorway for the middle story was on the right side of the temple.
They went up by stairs to the middle story, and from the middle to the
third. 9 So he built the
temple and finished it, and he paneled the temple with beams and boards of
cedar. 10 And he built side
chambers against the entire temple, each five cubits high; they were attached
to the temple with cedar beams.
Here we have a
description of what the
1 Kings 6:11 Then
the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying:
12 "Concerning this temple which you are
building, if you walk in My statutes, execute My judgments, keep all My
commandments, and walk in them, then I will perform My word with you, which I
spoke to your father David. 13
"And I will dwell among the children of
Once again God gives the
same message that He has always given. If you walk in my ways then I will
continue to bless you. Of course we know as the story continues Solomon wasn’t
paying very close attention to these words of God. It imperative that we
understand this simply concept today as well. To many think they will be
alright with God as long as they are not hurting anyone or causing anyone
problems but the fact of the matter is, is we do not walk in God’s statues
today we will not receive his promises of heaven that He has made to the
faithful.
1 Kings 6:14 So
Solomon built the temple and finished it.
15 And he built the inside walls of the temple with cedar
boards; from the floor of the temple to the ceiling he paneled the inside with
wood; and he covered the floor of the temple with planks of cypress. 16 Then he built the twenty-cubit
room at the rear of the temple, from floor to ceiling, with cedar boards; he
built it inside as the inner sanctuary, as the
Again we given more
details about how the inside of the temple looked. Can you just imaging how
beautiful this temple looked like with all this cedar gold every where. We even
see the little details like the carved ornamental buds and open flowers. To
think about the amount of Gold alone that was put into this temple is truly
amazing. Let’s look at some more of the details of the temple.
1 Kings 6:23 Inside
the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olive wood, each ten
cubits high. 24 One wing of
the cherub was five cubits, and the other wing of the cherub five
cubits: ten cubits from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other. 25 And the other cherub was ten
cubits; both cherubim were of the same size and shape. 26 The height of one cherub was
ten cubits, and so was the other cherub. 27 Then he set the cherubim inside
the inner room; and they stretched out the wings of the cherubim so that the
wing of the one touched one wall, and the wing of the other cherub
touched the other wall. And their wings touched each other in the middle of the
room. 28 Also he overlaid the
cherubim with gold.
Now originally according
to God’s pattern for the tabernacle the Cherubim was much smaller and was used
to cover the ark. But, Solomon makes it so huge that it touches both sides of
the room. While he tried to follow the respective ratio of the tabernacle here
he seems to do it his own way. We also
see that he used Olive wood which I have shown examples of in my Wednesday
night class on how pretty it was and he used Gold on them as well. Lets look a
few more details about the extravagant temple.
1 Kings 6:29 Then he
carved all the walls of the temple all around, both the inner and outer sanctuaries,
with carved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. 30 And the floor of the temple he
overlaid with gold, both the inner and outer sanctuaries. 31 For the entrance of the inner
sanctuary he made doors of olive wood; the lintel and doorposts were
one-fifth of the wall. 32
The two doors were of olive wood; and he carved on them figures of
cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold; and
he spread gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees. 33 So for the door of the
sanctuary he also made doorposts of olive wood, one-fourth of the
wall. 34 And the two
doors were of cypress wood; two panels comprised one folding
door, and two panels comprised the other folding door. 35 Then he carved cherubim, palm
trees, and open flowers on them, and overlaid them with gold
applied evenly on the carved work. 36
And he built the inner court with three rows of hewn stone and a row of cedar
beams.
Once again we see just
how pretty Solomon made this temple and how made sure that it was decorated
with carved flowers, cherubims and palm trees and more and more Gold. There
only one thing that missing from this temple and that was the veil that was
suppose to cover the holy of hollies. Now based on what information we are
given here on the temple apparently he left the veil out. Now when the temple
gets rebuilt latter on history they have the veil in place.
1 Kings 6:37 In the
fourth year the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid, in the month of
Ziv. 38 And in the eleventh
year, in the month of Bul, (bool)
which is the eighth month, the house was
finished in all its details and according to all its plans. So he was seven
years in building it.
Now specifically it took
7 ½ years for him to complete this huge project and wish I knew how much it
cost to do so. One writer stated that if the temple was build today at rate of
100 per day per worker that it would have cost 28 Billion dollars in labor
alone and of course this doesn’t include any of the costly materials that were
put into the temple.
So in conclusion we
looked at Solomon’s administration, and how he was in a great time of peace. We
looked at his agreement he had with King Hiram and how he built that
extravagant temple that his father wanted build for the God’s ark.