The remainder of Chapter 9 deals with the other projects Solomon undertook besides building the temple and the royal palace. First we learn that King Hiram of Tyre wasn't altogether pleased one aspect of his dealings with Solomon in regard to their agreement regarding supplies for the projects.
"At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon built these two buildings---the temple of the Lord and the royal palace---King Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and juniper and gold he wanted. But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. 'What kinds of towns are these you have given me, my brother?' he asked. And he called them the Land of Kabul, a name they have to this day. Now Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents of gold." (1 Kings 9:10-14) The word "Kabul" means "good for nothing".
The word translated here as "towns" means "settlements" so these were definitely not large enough to be considered cities. They were probably more like small villages. Whether Solomon expected Hiram to be pleased with them or not, we do not know, but it seems clear that Hiram considered the settlements too insignificant to be of interest to him. Another thing we don't know is why Solomon would agree to trade any of the land that the Lord gave to Israel. Some scholars suggest he knew Hiram would find the land unacceptable and that he never expected the foreign king to accept it. I'm not happy with that explanation because it suggests that Solomon did not trade fairly with King Hiram. I prefer the opinion of some of the other scholars who think the twenty settlements were used as collateral---that Hiram held a lien against them until Solomon could pay him back for the 120 talents of fine gold with which he must have plated the inner surfaces of the temple. I can't find any references to there being any gold mines in ancient Israel so Solomon had to obtain gold from outside the nation. He may have mortgaged the twenty towns to obtain the gold and then he paid Hiram back in installments over time with silver or with fine goods produced in Israel.
Whatever the case, Solomon regains the twenty settlements according to the author of the book of 2 Chronicles. In 2 Chronicles 8:2a we learn that Solomon "rebuilt the villages that Hiram had given him". We know by this that the settlements were given back into Solomon's possession. The fact that the villages needed rebuilding indicates that they were in poor condition and perhaps had never been settled since the Israelites took them from the tribes of Canaan when moving into the promised land. When Solomon regained sole possession of them he "settled Israelites in them". (2 Chronicles 8:2b)
In additional to all the materials it took to build the temple, the palace, and all of the other structures Solomon constructed or rebuilt, it took a lot of labor. Next we'll begin turning our attention to studying Solomon's projects. After Solomon rebuilt the villages of Galilee, "Solomon then went to Hamath Zobah and captured it." (2 Chronicles 8:3) Also he did this: "Here is the account of the forced labor King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord's temple, his own palace, the terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. (Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire. He killed its Canaanite inhabitants and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon's wife. And Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) He built up lower Beth Horon, Baalath, and Tadmor in the desert, within his land, as well as all his store cities and the towns for his chariots and horses---whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled." (1 Kings 9:15-19) Earlier in our study we learned that Solomon conscripted thirty thousand men of Israel into the army, other government positions, and into the temple and palace projects. He also conscripted foreigners who were living among and were subject to the Israelites. These foreigners were those whom the Israelites did not fully drive out of the promised land, for we were told previously in the Bible that they subdued them enough to make them their subjects and that they put them to forced labor but that they did not remove them from the land as the Lord instructed them to do.
Gezer, which was mentioned above, had been a major Canaanite city. It lay within the territory granted to the tribe of Ephraim but it was one of the cities the people of Israel had not attacked and captured. Pharaoh of Egypt did this instead, then he gave the city to his daughter as a wedding gift. As the husband of Pharaoh's daughter, the city is as much Solomon's as it is his wife's, so he rebuilds it and (I assume) settles people of Israel in it. We had been told near the beginning of Solomon's reign that he married an Egyptian princess. The author of 2 Chronicles tells us that when Solomon brought her up from Egypt he built a separate dwelling for her instead of having her live in King David's palace. This is because, as Solomon 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.'" (2 Chronicles 8:11) I do not know whether she ever resided in the royal palace Solomon built for himself but I assume not since she already had her own residence. Many scholars have taken his remark to mean that his Egyptian wife never converted to the God of Israel; otherwise they say he would not have felt as if her presence desecrated the location where David stored the ark in a tent before the temple was built. I feel these scholars have a valid point because we will find Solomon marrying other foreign women who don't convert. Not only won't they convert, but he will assist them in their worship of heathen gods by building worship sites for them and by dabbling in idolatrous practices himself.
Moving back to the subject of Solomon's conscripted workers, we learn that the conscripted Israelites who were not serving in the army or in the government were working in supervisory and administrative roles in regard to his building projects. It was the foreigners subject to the Israelites who were conscripted into the hard labor. "There were still people left from the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these peoples were not Israelites.) Solomon conscripted the descendants of all these people remaining in the land---whom the Israelites had not destroyed---to serve as slave labor, as it is to this day. But Solomon did not make slaves of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers. They were also the chief officials in charge of Solomon's projects---550 officials supervising those who did the work." (1 Kings 9:20-23)
In tomorrow's study we'll continue our look at other things Solomon accomplished during his reign---things so famous that a great queen will soon come to see these things for herself.
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