[212] 2 Sam. v. 14; Zech. xii. 12; Luke iii. 31.
[213] The degraded and ominous apparitions of _Sarisim_ (eunuchs) probably began at the court of Solomon on a large scale, though the name occurs in the days of David (1 Sam. viii. 15; 1 Chron. xxviii. 1). In the Northern Kingdom we first hear of them in the harem of the polygamous Ahab.
[214] 2 Kings xviii. 18; Isa. xxii. 15.
[215] 2 Sam. xx. 24. He is not mentioned in 1 Chron. xxvii. 25-31.
[216] This use of patronymics only is common among the Arabs, but not in Scripture (Reuss, _Hist. d. Isr._, i. 423).
[217] If he was the son of David's elder brother (1 Sam. xvi. 8, xvii. 13) he was Solomon's first cousin. The materialistic or non-religious element in Solomon seems to come out in the names of his only known children. The element "Jehovah," afterwards so universal, does not occur in them. Basmath, characteristically, means "fragrant"; Taphath is perhaps connected with טָפַת, to go mincingly; Rehoboam means "enlarger of the people."
[218] The LXX. indeed reads καὶ νασὲφ εἷς ἐν γῇ Ἰούδα ("and he was the only officer in the land of Judah"). But this would make thirteen fiscal overseers. The Targum, adopting the same reading, says that the thirteenth _nitzab_ was to maintain the king in the intercalary month.
[219] Taking the _cor_ at a low estimate this would amount to eighteen thousand pounds of bread a day.
[220] 1 Kings iv. 23, בַּרְבֻּרִים. Vulg., _Avium altilium_.
[221] Athen., _Deipnos._, iv. 146.
[222] 2 Sam. iv. 6 (LXX.).
[223] This description of _agricultural_ felicity soon became an anachronism.
[224] Not "dromedaries" (A.V.). The ruins of his stables are still pointed out at Jerusalem. He traded with Egypt for horses and chariots which his merchants brought to Tekoa, and he then sold them at a profit to the Hittite princes. The forty thousand stalls of 1 Kings iv. 26 should doubtless be four thousand (2 Chron. ix. 25), as Solomon only had fourteen hundred chariots (1 Kings x. 26). In 1 Kings x. 28 the meaning and reading is "as for the export of horses, which Solomon got from Egypt _even from Tekoa_" (LXX., καὶ ὲκ θεκουὲ), "the royal merchants used to fetch a troop of horses at a price." The "linen yarn" of the A.V. is a mistranslation.
[225] Cant. i. 9.
[226] 1 Kings v. 6, ix. 19, x. 26, 28. Two of those passages are omitted in the LXX. Comp. 1 Kings xvi. 9.
[227] Deut. xvii. 16.
[228] Josh. xi. 9; 1 Sam. viii. 11, 12; 2 Sam. viii. 4.
[229] The energetic dislike to the importation or use of horses is also found in Isa. ii. 7, xxx. 16, 17, xxxi. 1-3; Micah v. 10-14; Zech. ix. 10, x. 5, xii. 4.
[230] Psalm xxxiii. 17, lxxvi. 6, cxlvii. 10.
[231] Compare Poludemos, Eurudemos.
[232] Xen., _Anab._, i. 4, 11; Arrian, ii. 13, iii. 7. For the phrase "on _this_ side of the river," see _ante_, p. 18.