1 Kings 4 — Legacy Standard Bible

Solomon’s Officials

4So King Solomon was king over all Israel. ²These were his officials: Azariah the son of Zadok was ^athe priest;

³Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha were scribes; ^aJehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the recorder; ⁴and ^aBenaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the army; and Zadok and ^bAbiathar were priests; ⁵and Azariah the son of Nathan was over ^athe deputies; and Zabud the son of Nathan, a priest, was the king’s friend; ⁶and Ahishar was over the household; and Adoniram the son of Abda was over the men subject to forced labor.

⁷Now Solomon had twelve deputies over all Israel, who sustained the king and his household; each man had to sustain them for a month in the year. ⁸These are their names: Ben-hur, in the ^ahill country of Ephraim;

⁹Ben-deker in Makaz and ^aShaalbim and ^bBeth-shemesh and Elonbeth-hanan; ¹⁰Ben-hesed, in Arubboth (^aSocoh was his and all the land of ^bHepher); ¹¹Ben-abinadab, in all ¹the ^aheight of Dor (Taphath the daughter of Solomon was his wife); ¹²Baana the son of Ahilud, in ^aTaanach and Megiddo, and all ^bBeth-shean which is beside ^cZarethan below Jezreel, from Beth-shean to ^dAbel-meholah as far as the other side of ^eJokmeam; ¹³Ben-geber, in ^aRamoth-gilead (now ¹^,^bHavvoth-Jair—Jair being the son of Manasseh—which is in Gilead was his: ^cthe region of Argob, which is in Bashan, sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars were his); ¹⁴Ahinadab the son of Iddo, in ^aMahanaim; ¹⁵^aAhimaaz, in Naphtali (he also married Basemath the daughter of Solomon); ¹⁶Baana the son of ^aHushai, in Asher and ¹Bealoth; ¹⁷Jehoshaphat the son of Paruah, in Issachar; ¹⁸^aShimei the son of Ela, in Benjamin; ¹⁹Geber the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, ^athe country of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan; and he was the only deputy who was in the land.

Judah’s and Israel’s Abundance and Security

²⁰^aJudah and Israel were as numerous as the sand that is on the ¹seashore in abundance; they were eating and drinking and being glad.

²¹¹^,^aNow Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms ^bfrom the ²River to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt; ^cthey brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

²²And Solomon’s ¹provision for one day was ²thirty kors of fine flour and ³sixty kors of meal, ²³ten fat oxen, twenty ¹pasture-fed oxen, one hundred sheep besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened fowl. ²⁴For he had dominion over everything ¹west of the ²River, from Tiphsah even to ^aGaza, ^bover all the kings ³west of the ⁴River; and ^che had peace on all sides around about him. ²⁵^aSo Judah and Israel lived in security, every man under his vine and his fig tree, ^bfrom Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon. ²⁶^aSolomon had ¹40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 horsemen. ²⁷And these deputies sustained King Solomon and all who came to King Solomon’s table, each in his month; they left nothing lacking. ²⁸They also brought barley and straw for the horses and ^aswift steeds to the place where it should be, each according to the legal judgment for him.

²⁹And ^aGod gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment and breadth of understanding in his heart, ^blike the sand that is on the seashore. ³⁰And Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all ^athe sons of the east and ^ball the wisdom of Egypt. ³¹And ^ahe was wiser than all men, than ^bEthan the Ezrahite, Heman, ^cCalcol, and ¹Darda, the sons of Mahol; and the renown of his name was in all the surrounding nations. ³²^aHe also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. ³³And he spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that grows on the wall; he spoke also of animals and birds and creeping things and fish. ³⁴¹And men ^acame from all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom.