Bible-Reading.comI Kings 4
1Now Solomon was king over all Israel.
2And these were his chief men: Azariah, the son of Zadok, was the priest;
3Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha, were scribes; Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, was the recorder;
4Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was head of the army; Zadok and Abiathar were priests;
5Azariah, the son of Nathan, was over those in authority in the different divisions of the country; Zabud, the son of Nathan, was priest and the king's friend;
6Ahishar was controller of the king's house; Adoniram, the son of Abda, was overseer of the forced work.
7And Solomon put twelve overseers over all Israel, to be responsible for the stores needed for the king and those of his house; every man was responsible for one month in the year.
8And these are their names: ... the son of Hur in the hill country of Ephraim;
9... the son of Deker in Makaz and Shaalbim and Beth-shemesh and Elonbeth-hanan;
10... the son of Hesed in Arubboth; Socoh and all the land of Hepher were under his control;
11... the son of Abinadab in all Naphath-dor; his wife was Taphath, the daughter of Solomon.
12Baana, the son of Ahilud, in Taanach and Megiddo, and all Beth-shean which is by the side of Zarethan, under Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah, as far as the far side of Jokmeam;
13... the son of Geber in Ramoth-gilead; he had the towns of Jair, the son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead, and the country of Argob, which is in Bashan, sixty great towns with walls and locks of brass.
14Ahinadab, the son of Iddo, in Mahanaim;
15Ahimaaz in Naphtali; he took Basemath, the daughter of Solomon, as his wife;
16Baana, the son of Hushai, in Asher and Aloth;
17Jehoshaphat, the son of Paruah, in Issachar;
18Shimei, the son of Ela, in Benjamin;
19Geber, the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan; and one overseer had authority over all the overseers who were in the land.
20Judah and Israel were as great in number as the sand by the seaside, and they took their food and drink with joy in their hearts.
21And Solomon was ruler over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, and as far as the edge of Egypt; men gave him offerings and were his servants all the days of his life.
22And the amount of Solomon's food for one day was thirty measures of crushed grain and sixty measures of meal;
23Ten fat oxen and twenty oxen from the fields, and a hundred sheep, in addition to harts and gazelles and roes and fat fowls.
24For he had authority over all the country on this side of the River, from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all the kings on this side of the River; and he had peace round him on every side.
25So Judah and Israel were living safely, every man under his vine and his fig-tree, from Dan as far as Beer-sheba, all the days of Solomon.
26And Solomon had four thousand boxed-off spaces for horses for his carriages, and twelve thousand horsemen.
27And those overseers, every man in his month, saw that food was produced for Solomon and all his guests, they took care that nothing was overlooked.
28And they took grain and dry grass for the horses and the carriage-horses, to the right place, every man as he was ordered.
29And God gave Solomon a great store of wisdom and good sense, and a mind of wide range, as wide as the sand by the seaside.
30And Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt.
31For he was wiser than all men, even than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman and Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and he had a great name among all the nations round about.
32He was the maker of three thousand wise sayings, and of songs to the number of a thousand and five.
33He made sayings about all plants, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop hanging on the wall; and about all beasts and birds and fishes and the small things of the earth.
34People came from every nation to give ear to the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had word of his wisdom.
I Kings 5
1Now Hiram, king of Tyre, hearing that Solomon had been made king in place of his father, sent his servants to him; for Hiram had ever been a friend to David.
2And Solomon sent back word to Hiram, saying,
3You have knowledge that David my father was not able to make a house for the name of the Lord his God, because of the wars which were round him on every side, till the Lord put all those who were against him under his feet.
4But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side; no one is making trouble, and no evil is taking place.
5And so it is my purpose to make a house for the name of the Lord my God, as he said to David my father, Your son, whom I will make king in your place, will be the builder of a house for my name.
6So now, will you have cedar-trees from Lebanon cut down for me, and my servants will be with your servants; and I will give you payment for your servants at whatever rate you say; for it is common knowledge that we have no such wood-cutters among us as the men of Zidon.
7And these words of Solomon made Hiram glad, and he said, Now may the Lord be praised who has given to David a wise son to be king over this great people.
8Then Hiram sent to Solomon, saying; The words you sent have been given to me: I will do all your desire in the question of cedar-wood and cypress-wood.
9My men will take them down from Lebanon to the sea, where I will have them corded together to go by sea to whatever place you say, and I will have them cut up there so that you may take them away; as for payment, it will be enough if you give me food for my people.
10So Hiram gave Solomon all the cedar-wood and cypress-wood he had need of;
11And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of grain, as food for his people, and twenty measures of clear oil; this he did every year.
12Now the Lord had given Solomon wisdom, as he had said to him; and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and they made an agreement together.
13Then King Solomon got together men for the forced work through all Israel, thirty thousand men in number;
14And sent them to Lebanon in bands of ten thousand every month: for a month they were working in Lebanon and for two months in their country, and Adoniram was in control of them.
15Then he had seventy thousand for the work of transport, and eighty thousand stone-cutters in the mountains;
16In addition to the chiefs of the responsible men put by Solomon to oversee the work, three thousand and three hundred in authority over the workmen.
17By the king's orders great stones, stones of high price, were cut out, so that the base of the house might be made of squared stone.
18Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders did the work of cutting them, and put edges on them, and got the wood and the stone ready for the building of the house.
I Kings 6
1In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year that Solomon was king of Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, the building of the Lord's house was started.
2The house which Solomon made for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.
3The covered way before the Temple of the house was twenty cubits long, as wide as the house, and ten cubits wide in front of the house.
4And for the house he made windows, with network across.
5And against the walls all round, and against the walls of the Temple and of the inmost room, he put up wings, with side rooms all round:
6The lowest line of them being five cubits wide, the middle six cubits wide and the third seven cubits; for there was a space all round the outside walls of the house so that the boards supporting the rooms did not have to be fixed in the walls of the house.
7(And the stones used in the building of the house were squared at the place where they were cut out; there was no sound of hammer or axe or any iron instrument while they were building the house.)
8The door to the lowest side rooms was in the right side of the house; and they went up by twisting steps into the middle rooms, and from the middle into the third.
9So he put up the house and made it complete, roofing it with boards of cedar-wood.
10And he put up the line of side rooms against the walls of the house, fifteen cubits high, resting against the house on boards of cedar-wood.
11(And the word of the Lord came to Solomon, saying,
12About this house which you are building: if you will keep my laws and give effect to my decisions and be guided by my rules, I will give effect to my word which I gave to David your father.
13And I will be ever among the children of Israel, and will not go away from my people.
14So Solomon made the building of the house complete.)
15The walls of the house were covered inside with cedar-wood boards; from the floor to the roof of the house they were covered inside with wood; and the floor was covered with boards of cypress-wood.
16And at the back of the house a further space of twenty cubits was shut in with boards of cedar-wood, for the inmost room.
17And the house, that is, the Temple, in front of the holy place was forty cubits long.
18(All the inside of the house was cedar-wood, ornamented with designs of buds and flowers; no stonework was to be seen inside.)
19And he made ready an inmost room in the middle of the house, in which to put the ark of the agreement of the Lord.
20And the inmost room was twenty cubits square and twenty cubits high, plated over with clear gold, and he made an altar of cedar-wood, plating it with gold.
21Solomon had all the inside of the house covered with gold, and he put chains of gold across in front of the inmost room, which itself was covered with gold.
22Plates of gold were put all through the house till it was covered completely (and the altar in the inmost room was all covered with gold).
23In the inmost room he made two winged beings of olive-wood, ten cubits high;
24With outstretched wings five cubits wide; the distance from the edge of one wing to the edge of the other was ten cubits.
25The two winged ones were ten cubits high, of the same size and form.
26The two of them were ten cubits high.
27These were placed inside the inner house, their outstretched wings touching the walls of the house, one touching one wall and one the other, while their other wings were touching in the middle.
28These winged ones were plated over with gold.
29And all the walls of the house inside and out were ornamented with forms of winged ones and palm-trees and open flowers.
30And the floor of the house was covered with gold, inside and out.
31For the way into the inmost room he made doors of olive-wood, the arch and the door supports forming a five-sided opening.
32On the olive-wood doors were cut designs of winged ones and palm-trees and open flowers, all of them, with the doors, plated with gold.
33Then he made pillars of olive-wood for the way into the Temple; the pillars were square:
34And two folding doors of cypress-wood, with two leaves.
35These were ornamented with designs of winged ones and palm-trees and open flowers, plated over with gold.
36And the inner space was walled with three lines of squared stones and a line of cedar-wood boards.
37In the fourth year the base of the house was put in its place, in the month Ziv.
38And in the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, the building of the house was complete in every detail, as it had been designed. So he was seven years building it.
I Kings 7
1Solomon was thirteen years building a house for himself till it was complete.
2And he made the house of the Woods of Lebanon, which was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high, resting on four lines of cedar-wood pillars with cedar-wood supports on the pillars.
3And it was covered with cedar over the forty-five supports which were on the pillars, fifteen in a line.
4There were three lines of window-frames, window facing window in every line.
5And all the doors and windows had square frames, with the windows facing one another in three lines.
6And he made a covered room of pillars, fifty cubits long and thirty cubits wide, and ... with steps before it.
7Then he made a covered room for his high seat when he gave decisions; this was the covered room of judging; it was covered with cedar-wood from floor to roof.
8And the house for his living-place, the other open square in the covered room, was made in the same way. And then he made a house like it for Pharaoh's daughter, whom Solomon had taken as his wife.
9All these buildings were made, inside and out, from base to crowning stone, and outside to the great walled square, of highly priced stone, cut to different sizes with cutting-instruments.
10And the base was of great masses of highly priced stone, some ten cubits and some eight cubits square.
11Overhead were highly priced stones cut to measure, and cedar-wood.
12The great outer square all round was walled with three lines of squared stones and a line of cedar-wood boards, round about the open square inside the house of the Lord and the covered room of the king's house.
13Then King Solomon sent and got Hiram from Tyre.
14He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass; he was full of wisdom and knowledge and an expert worker in brass. He came to King Solomon and did all his work for him.
15He it was who made the two brass pillars; the first pillar was eighteen cubits high, and a line of twelve cubits went round it; and the second was the same.
16And he made the two crowns to be put on the tops of the pillars, of brass made soft in the fire; the crowns were five cubits high.
17There were nets of open-work for the crowns on the tops of the pillars, a net of open-work for one and a net of open-work for the other.
18And he made ornaments of apples; and two lines of apples all round over the network, covering the crowns of the pillars, the two crowns in the same way.
19The crowns on the tops of the pillars were ornamented with a design of flowers, and were four cubits across.
20And there were crowns on the two pillars near the round part by the network, and there were two hundred apples in lines round every crown.
21He put up the pillars at the doorway of the Temple, naming the one on the right Jachin, and that on the left Boaz.
22The tops of the pillars had a design of flowers; and the work of making the pillars was complete.
23And he made a great metal water-vessel ten cubits across from edge to edge, five cubits high and thirty cubits round.
24And under the edge of it, circling it all round for ten cubits, were two lines of flower buds, made together with it from liquid metal.
25It was supported on twelve oxen, with their back parts turned to the middle of it, three of them facing to the north, three to the west, three to the south, and three to the east; the vessel was resting on top of them.
26It was as thick as a man's open hand, and was curved like the edge of a cup, like the flower of a lily: it would take two thousand baths.
27And he made ten wheeled bases of brass; every one four cubits long, four cubits wide, and three cubits high.
28And the bases were made in this way; their sides were square, fixed in a framework;
29And on the square sides between the frames were lions, oxen, and winged ones; and the same on the frame; and over and under the lions and the oxen and the winged ones were steps.
30Every base had four wheels of brass, turning on brass rods, and their four angles had angle-plates under them; the angle-plates under the base were of metal, and there were ornaments at the side of every one.
31The mouth of it inside the angle-plate was one cubit across; it was round like a pillar, a cubit and a half across; it had designs cut on it; the sides were square, not round.
32The four wheels were under the frames, and the rods on which the wheels were fixed were in the base; the wheels were a cubit and a half high.
33The wheels were made like carriage-wheels, the rods on which they were fixed, the parts forming their edges, their rods and the middle points of them, were all formed out of liquid metal.
34And there were four angle-plates at the four angles of every base, forming part of the structure of the base.
35And at the top of the base there was a round vessel, half a cubit high;
36In the spaces of the flat sides and on the frames of them, he made designs of winged ones, lions, and palm-trees, with ornamented edges all round.
37All the ten bases were made in this way, after the same design, of the same size and form.
38And he made ten brass washing-vessels, everyone taking forty baths, and measuring four cubits; one vessel was placed on every one of the ten bases.
39And he put the bases by the house, five on the right side and five on the left; and he put the great water-vessel on the right side of the house, to the east, facing south.
40And Hiram made the pots and spades and the basins. So Hiram came to the end of all the work he did for King Solomon in the house of the Lord:
41The two pillars and the two cups of the crowns which were on the tops of the two pillars; and the network covering the two cups of the crowns on the tops of the pillars,
42And the four hundred apples for the network, two lines of apples for every network, covering the two cups of the crowns on the pillars;
43And the ten bases, with the ten washing-vessels on them;
44And the great water-vessel, with the twelve oxen under it;
45And the pots and the spades and the basins; all the vessels which Hiram made for King Solomon, for the house of the Lord, were of polished brass.
46He made them of liquid metal in the lowland of Jordan, at the way across the river, at Adama, between Succoth and Zarethan.
47The weight of all these vessels was not measured, because there was such a number of them; it was not possible to get the weight of the brass.
48And Solomon had all the vessels made for use in the house of the Lord: the altar of gold and the gold table on which the holy bread was placed;
49And the supports for the lights, five on the right side and five on the left before the inmost room, of clear gold; and the flowers and the lights and all the instruments of gold;
50And the cups and the scissors and the basins and the spoons and the fire-trays, all of gold; and the pins on which the doors were turned, the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and the doors of the Temple, all of gold.
51So all the work King Solomon had done in the house of the Lord was complete. Then Solomon took the holy things which David his father had given, the silver and the gold and all the vessels, and put them in the store-houses of the house of the Lord.