The Lord Appears to Solomon Again

¹The Lord 's temple and Solomon's palace were now finished, and Solomon had built everything he wanted.

²Some time later the Lord appeared to him again in a dream, just as he had done at Gibeon.[#1 K 3.5; 2 Ch 1.7.]

³The Lord said:[#3 Macc 2.9.]

Other Things Solomon Did

¹⁰It took 20 years for the Lord 's temple and Solomon's palace to be built.

¹¹Later, Solomon gave King Hiram of Tyre 20 towns in the region of Galilee to repay him for the cedar, pine, and gold he had given Solomon.

¹²When Hiram went to see the towns, he did not like them.

¹³He said, “Solomon, my friend, are these the kind of towns you want to give me?” So Hiram called the region Cabul because he thought it was worthless.[#9.13 Cabul sounds like the Hebrew word for “worthless.”]

¹⁴He sent Solomon only five tons of gold in return.

¹⁵After Solomon's workers had finished the temple and the palace, he ordered them to fill in the land on the east side of Jerusalem, to build a wall around the city, and to rebuild the towns of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.[#9.15 The Hebrew text has “build the Millo,” which probably refers to a landfill to strengthen and extend the hill where the city was built.]

¹⁶Earlier, the king of Egypt had captured the town of Gezer; he burned it to the ground and killed the Canaanite people living there. Then he gave it to his daughter as a wedding present when she married Solomon.

¹⁷So Solomon had the town rebuilt.

Solomon ordered his workers to rebuild Lower Beth-Horon,

¹⁸Baalath, and Tamar in the desert of Judah.

¹⁹They also built towns where he could keep his supplies and his chariots and horses. Solomon ordered them to build whatever he wanted in Jerusalem, Lebanon, and anywhere in his kingdom.

^20-21-22Solomon did not force the Israelites to do his work. They were his soldiers, officials, leaders, commanders, chariot captains, and chariot drivers. But he did make slaves of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites who were living in Israel. These were the descendants of those foreigners the Israelites could not destroy, and they remained Israel's slaves.

²³Solomon appointed 550 officers to be in charge of his workers and to watch over his building projects.

²⁴Solomon's wife, the daughter of the king of Egypt, moved from the older part of Jerusalem to her new palace. Then Solomon had the land on the east side of Jerusalem filled in.[#9.24 See the note at 3.1.; #9.24 See the note at 9.15.]

²⁵Three times a year, Solomon burned incense and offered sacrifices to the Lord on the altar he had built.[#Ex 23.17; 34.23; Dt 16.16.]

Solomon had now finished building the Lord 's temple.

²⁶He also had a lot of ships at Ezion-Geber, a town in Edom near Eloth on the Red Sea.[#9.26 Hebrew , here referring to the Gulf of Aqaba, since the term is extended to include the northeastern arm of the Red Sea (see also the note at Exodus 13.11).]

^27-28King Hiram let some of his experienced sailors go to the country of Ophir with Solomon's own sailors, and they brought back about 14 tons of gold for Solomon.[#9.27,28 The location of this place is not known.]