1 Kings 4:22
Ver. 22. And Solomon's provision for one day was thirty measures of fine flour,.... The measure here used was the "corus", or "cor", the same with the homer, which was equal to ten ephahs, and, according to Bishop Cumberland {w}, held seventy five wine gallons and five pints, and somewhat more; by which may be known how many gallons of fine flour these thirty measures held, which were all consumed in one day:
and threescore measures of meal: sixty measures of a coarser sort, for the servants, not so finely dressed; the same measure is here used as before; and it is observed by some, that one cor is equivalent to six hundred forty eight Roman pounds, and allowing to one man two pounds a day for his food, there would be food enough for 29,160 men out of 90 times 648, or 58,320 pounds {x}. Others exaggerate the account; Vilalpandus says it would have sufficed 48,600 persons; Seth Calvisius 54,000, and Salianus 70,000 {y}; the Jews say {z} that he had 60,000 that ate at his table; that is, who were maintained at his court.{w} Scripture Weights and Measures, ch. 3. p. 86. {x} Vid. Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. p. 516. {y} Vid. Witsii Miscellan. tom. 2. exercit. 10. sect. 26. {z} Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 8. 2. 1 Kings 4:23Ver. 23. Ten fat oxen,.... Such as were kept up in the stall and fatted:and twenty oxen out of the pastures; which were killed as they were taken from thence, and not put up to be fed:and an hundred sheep; out of the folds:beside harts, and roebucks, and fallow deer; which were clean creatures, according to the Levitical law, De 14:5; these were hunted in fields, or taken out of the park, or were presents from other countries; so that here was plenty of beef, mutton, and venison: for the spiritual application of this to the antitypical Solomon, and his provisions, see Mt 22:4;and fatted fowl; such as we call capons {a}; some Jewish writers {b}, because of the likeness of sound in the word here used, take them to be Barbary fowls, or such as were brought from that country: there is a sort of birds called barbaroi, which were without a voice, that neither heard men, nor knew their voice {c}.{a} So David de Pomis, Tzemach David, fol. 12. 3. and some in Kimchi in loc. {b} Baal Aruch & R. Elias Levit. Tishbi, in voce rbrb. {c} Scholia in Aristoph. Aves, p. 550. 1 Kings 4:24Ver. 24. For he had dominion over all [the region] on this side the river,.... Or beyond the river Euphrates, in the sense before given, 1Ki 4:21; which accounts for the plenty of provisions he had, and the revenue with which he supported such a table he kept:from Tiphsah even to Azzah; or Gaza, one of the five principalities of the Philistines. Tiphsah is thought to be the Thapsacus of Pliny {d} which both he and Ptolemy {e} place near the river Euphrates, since called Amphipolis; the former places it in Syria, the latter in Arabia Deserta; and which Strabo {f}, from Eratosthenes, describes as 4800 furlongs or six hundred miles from Babylon, and from the place where Mesopotamia begins not less than two thousand furlongs or two hundred and fifty miles:over all the kings on this side the river; the river Euphrates, or beyond it, in the sense before explained, as the kings of Syria, Arabia, &c.and he had peace on all sides round about him; in which he was a type of Christ, the Prince of peace.{d} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 24. {e} Geograph. l. 5. c. 19. {f} Geograph. l. 16. p. 514. 1 Kings 4:25Ver. 25. And Judah and Israel dwelt safely,.... Without fear of any injury done to their persons or properties by any enemy; which is, and will be, more abundantly fulfilled in Christ, the antitype of Solomon, Jer 23:5;every man under his vine, and under his fig tree; which were principal trees in the land of Judea, put for all the rest; and the phrase denotes the happy, safe, quiet, full, and peaceable enjoyment of all outward blessings, and is used of the times of the Messiah, Mic 4:4;from Dan even to Beersheba; which were the two extremities of the land of Israel, north and south:all the days of Solomon; so long this peace and safety continued, there being no wars in his time. 1 Kings 4:26Ver. 26. And Solomon had forty thousand stalls for horses,.... In 2Ch 9:25; it is only four thousand; and therefore some think that here is a mistake of the copier, of "arbaim", forty, for "arbah", four; which it is thought might be through divine permission, in such lesser matters, without any prejudice to the authority of the Scriptures in matters of faith and practice; but without supposing this, a reconciliation may be made, by observing, that here the writer, as Ben Gersom notes, gives the number of the horses that were in the stables, which were forty thousand, there the stables themselves, which were four thousand, ten horses in a stable; or here he numbers the stalls, which were forty thousand, and there the stables, which were four thousand, there being ten stalls in each; and the word there has the letter "yod" in it more than here, which is the numerical letter for "ten", and may point thereunto; or here the writer speaks of all the stalls for horses Solomon had throughout the kingdom, there of those only he had in Jerusalem. Benjamin of Tudela {g} affirms, that these stalls, or stables, which Solomon built very strong of large stones, are still in being in Jerusalem, and that there is no building to be seen like it any where; but no other writer speaks of them; nor is it at all probable that they should remain:for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; some of the said stalls of horses were for his chariots, to draw in them for various uses, of which had 1400, 1Ki 10:26; and others to mount twelve thousand horsemen, who were placed in various parts, to defend kingdom.{g} Itinerar. p. 43. 1 Kings 4:27Ver. 27. And these officers provided victuals for King Solomon,.... The twelve before mentioned; and this is repeated here, after the account of his horses, to observe, that they provided for them also, as well as for the sake of what follows; that the large provision made by them was not only for Solomon's family and domestic servants, but for strangers from different arts, who came upon messages to him, or to visit him, and to behold the splendour of his court:and for all that came to Solomon's table; which was an open table for all comers, as there were some from all parts of the earth, 1Ki 4:34;every man in his month; each of the twelve officers provided food in the month assigned to him:they lacked nothing; they always had enough to supply the king with, and they failed not in the performance of their duty, nor came short of their salaries, being fully and punctually paid them. 1 Kings 4:28Ver. 28. Barley also, and straw for the horses and dromedaries,.... Or rather mules, by comparing the passage with 2Ch 9:24; the particular kind of creatures meant is not agreed on; though all take them to be a swifter sort of creatures than horses; or the swifter of horses, as race horses or posts horses: barley was for their provender, that being the common food of horses in those times and countries, and in others, as Bochart {h} has shown from various writers; and in the Misnah {i} it is called the food of beasts; and Solomon is said to have every day his own horses two hundred thousand Neapolitan measures of called "tomboli" {k}; so the Roman soldiers, the horse were allowed a certain quantity of barley for their horses every morning, and sometimes they had money instead of it, which they therefore called "hordiarium" {l} and the "straw" was for the litter of them: thesebrought they unto the place; where the officers were; not where the king was, as the Vulgate Latin version; where Solomon was, as the Arabic version, that is, in Jerusalem; norwhere [the officers] were; in their respective jurisdictions, as our version supplies it, which would be bringing them to themselves; but to the place where the beasts were, whether in Jerusalem, or in any, other parts of the kingdom:every man according to his charge: which he was monthly to perform.{h} Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 9. col. 158, 159. Vid. Homer. Iliad. 4. ver. 196. and Iliad. 8. ver. 560. {i} Sotah, c. 2. sect. 1. {k} Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 10. 2. {l} Vid. Valtrinum de re Militar. Roman. l. 3. c. 15. p. 236. 1 Kings 4:29Ver. 29. And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much,.... In things natural, moral, divine, and spiritual, and that not slight and superficial, but exceeding deep, and large beyond expression; and this he had not from the acuteness of his genius merely, nor from his industry and diligence; but by the gift of God, as whatsoever solid wisdom and understanding is in any man, it is from the liberal hand of God, the fountain of wisdom, Jas 1:5;and largeness of heart, even as sand that [is] on the seashore; he had a genius and capacity to receive anything; his knowledge was vast and comprehensive; it reached to and included things innumerable, as the sand of the sea; there was scarce anything under the heavens, or on the earth, and in the sea, but came within the compass of it, as what are later mentioned show. 1 Kings 4:30Ver. 30. And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east,.... The Arabians, and Persians, famous for wisdom, and who lay to the east of the land of Judea; whose wisdom lay in the knowledge of the stars, in divination by birds, and soothsaying {m}:and all the wisdom of Egypt; which it was eminent for in the times of Moses, and in which he was learned and well-skilled, Ac 7:22; and hence in later times the philosophers of the Gentiles travelled to get knowledge, as Pherecydes, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Plato, and others to Egypt, said to be the mother of arts and sciences {n}.{m} Midrash Kohelet. fol. 76. 3. {n} Macrob. in Som. Scip. c. 19. 21. & Saturnal l. 1. c. 15. 1 Kings 4:31Ver. 31. For he was wiser than all men,.... Not only that lived in his time, but in ages past since the fall of Adam, and in times to come, especially in natural wisdom and knowledge, in all the branches of it; for though some men excel in some part of knowledge, yet not in all, as Solomon did:than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; men of the same names are said to be sons of Zerah, grandson of Judah, 1Ch 2:6; wherefore these are either other men, or their father had two names; or Mahol here may be an appellative, and describe the character of these then, and point at what they were famous for, as that they were sons of music, piping, and dancing, as Mahol may signify; the Jews have a tradition {o}, that Ethan is Abraham, and Heman Moses, and Chalcol Joseph:and his fame was in all nations round about; not for his riches and grandeur only, but chiefly for his wisdom.{o} Hieron. Trad. Heb. in 2 Reg. fol. 80. 1. 1 Kings 4:32Ver. 32. And he spake three thousand proverbs,.... Wise sayings, short and pithy sentences, instructive in morality and civil life; these were not written as the book of Proverbs, but spoken only, and were taken from his lips, and spread by those that heard them for the use of others, but in process of time were lost; whereas the above book, being written under divine inspiration, is preserved: andhis songs were a thousand and five; some things that were useful to improve the minds and morals of men he delivered in verse, to make them more pleasant and agreeable, that they might be the more easily received and retained in memory; but of all his songs, the most: excellent is the book of Canticles, called "the Song of Songs", being divine and spiritual, and dictated by the inspiration of the Spirit of God: he was both a moral philosopher and poet, as well as a botanist and naturalist, and well-skilled in medicine, as the following words suggest, 1Ki 4:33. 1 Kings 4:33Ver. 33. And he spake of trees,.... Of all trees, herbs, and plants, of the nature, virtues, and use them:from the cedar tree that [is] in Lebanon: a mountain on the northern border of Judea, famous for cedars, the tallest and largest of trees:even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall; which grew about Jerusalem, and in the mountains of it, as an Arabic writes testifies {p}, the lowest and least herb; so that what is between the cedar and hyssop include trees and plants of every kind and sort: whether the same herb we call hyssop is meant, is not certain; some take it to be mint; others marjoram; some houseleek; others the wallflower; Levinus Lemnius {q} supposes it to be Adiantum, or maiden hair: the Targum interprets it allegorically, that he prophesied of the kings of the house of David in this world, and in the world to come of the Messiah:he spake also of beasts, and of fowls, and of creeping things, and of fishes; he understood the nature of all sorts of animals in the earth, air, and sea, and discoursed of their names, kinds, qualities, and use, with the greatest ease and perspicuity; the Jews fancy that Aristotle's History of Animals is his, which that philosopher came upon, and published it in his own name. Suidas {r} says it was reported that Solomon wrote a book of medicines for all diseases, which was fixed to the entrance of the temple, which Hezekiah took away, because sick people applied to that for cure of their disorders, and neglected to pray to God.{p} Isaac Ben Omram apud Bochart. Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 50. col. 590. {q} Herb. Bibl. Explicat. c. 26. {r} In voce ezekiav. 1 Kings 4:34Ver. 34. And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon,from all kings of the earth,.... Who sent their ambassadors to his court to know the truth of what was reported, and bring them some proofs and specimens, by which they might judge of the truth of the relations that had been told them; which perhaps might seem to them to be beyond all belief:which had heard of his wisdom; for the fame of it was spread everywhere by merchants and travellers, and such sort of persons, who had been at Jerusalem, and were masters of various anecdotes relating to Solomon; which they industriously spread in the several parts of the world they had dealings in.
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.