• Solomon’s Officials

  • 1 Now King Solomon was king over all Israel.
  • 2 These were his officials: Azariah the son of Zadok was the priest;
  • 3 Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha were scribes; Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the secretary;
  • 4 and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the army; and Zadok and Abiathar were priests;
  • 5 and Azariah the son of Nathan was over the deputies; and Zabud the son of Nathan, a priest, was the king’s confidant;
  • 6 and Ahishar was over the household; and Adoniram the son of Abda was over the forced labor.
  • 7 Solomon had twelve deputies over all Israel, who provided food for the king and his household; each deputy had to provide food for a month in the year.
  • 8 And these were their names: Ben-hur, in the hill country of Ephraim;
  • 9 Ben-deker in Makaz and Shaalbim, and Beth-shemesh, and Elonbeth-hanan;
  • 10 Ben-hesed in Arubboth (Socoh was his and all the land of Hepher);
  • 11 Ben-abinadab in all the hills of Dor (Taphath the daughter of Solomon was his wife);
  • 12 Baana the son of Ahilud in Taanach and Megiddo, and all Beth-shean which is beside Zarethan below Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah as far as the other side of Jokmeam;
  • 13 Ben-geber in Ramoth-gilead (the villages of Jair, the son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead were his: the region of Argob, which is in Bashan, sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars were his);
  • 14 Ahinadab the son of Iddo in Mahanaim;
  • 15 Ahimaaz in Naphtali (he also married Basemath the daughter of Solomon);
  • 16 Baana the son of Hushai in Asher and Bealoth;
  • 17 Jehoshaphat the son of Paruah in Issachar;
  • 18 Shimei the son of Ela in Benjamin;
  • 19 Geber the son of Uri in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan; and he was the only deputy who was in the land.

  • Solomon’s Power, Wealth, and Wisdom

  • 20 Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance; they were eating, drinking, and rejoicing.
  • 21 Now Solomon was ruling over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt; they brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.
  • 22 Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty kors of fine flour and sixty kors of meal,
  • 23 ten fat oxen, twenty pasture-fed oxen, and a hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened geese.
  • 24 For he was ruling over everything west of the Euphrates River, from Tiphsah even to Gaza, over all the kings west of the River; and he had peace on all sides surrounding him.
  • 25 So Judah and Israel lived securely, everyone under his vine and his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.
  • 26 Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.
  • 27 And those deputies provided food for King Solomon and all who came to King Solomon’s table, each in his month; they allowed nothing to be lacking.
  • 28 They also brought barley and straw for the war horses and baggage horses to the place where it was required, each deputy according to his duty.
  • 29 Now God gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment and breadth of mind, like the sand that is on the seashore.
  • 30 Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt.
  • 31 For he was wiser than all other people, more than Ethan the Ezrahite, Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was known in all the surrounding nations.
  • 32 He also told three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered 1,005.
  • 33 He told of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that grows on the wall; he told also of animals, birds, crawling things, and fish.
  • 34 People came from all the nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom.