The Heritage of the Righteous and the Calamity of the Wicked

A Psalm of David.

Solomon Requests Wisdom^(A)

3 Now ^(B)Solomon made ^[a]a treaty with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and married Pharaoh’s daughter; then he brought her ^(C)to the City of David until he had finished building his ^(D)own house, and ^(E)the house of the Lord, and ^(F)the wall all around Jerusalem. ^2 (G)Meanwhile the people sacrificed at the high places, because there was no house built for the name of the Lord until those days. ³ And Solomon ^(H)loved the Lord, ^(I)walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places.

⁴ Now ^(J)the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, ^(K)for that was the great high place: Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. ^5 (L)At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon ^(M)in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask! What shall I give you?”

^6 (N)And Solomon said: “You have shown great mercy to Your servant David my father, because he ^(O)walked before You in truth, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with You; You have continued this great kindness for him, and You ^(P)have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. ⁷ Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a ^(Q)little child; I do not know how ^(R)to go out or come in. ⁸ And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You ^(S)have chosen, a great people, ^(T)too numerous to be numbered or counted. ^9 (U)Therefore give to Your servant an ^[b]understanding heart ^(V)to judge Your people, that I may ^(W)discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?”

¹⁰ The speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. ¹¹ Then God said to him: “Because you have asked this thing, and have ^(X)not asked long life for yourself, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice, ^12 (Y)behold, I have done according to your words; ^(Z)see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you. ¹³ And I have also ^(AA)given you what you have not asked: both ^(AB)riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days. ¹⁴ So ^(AC)if you walk in My ways, to keep My statutes and My commandments, ^(AD)as your father David walked, then I will ^(AE)lengthen^[c] your days.”

¹⁵ Then Solomon ^(AF)awoke; and indeed it had been a dream. And he came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, offered up burnt offerings, offered peace offerings, and ^(AG)made a feast for all his servants.

Solomon’s Wise Judgment

¹⁶ Now two women who were harlots came to the king, and ^(AH)stood before him. ¹⁷ And one woman said, “O my lord, this woman and I dwell in the same house; and I gave birth while she was in the house. ¹⁸ Then it happened, the third day after I had given birth, that this woman also gave birth. And we were together; ^[d]no one was with us in the house, except the two of us in the house. ¹⁹ And this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on him. ²⁰ So she arose in the middle of the night and took my son from my side, while your maidservant slept, and laid him in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. ²¹ And when I rose in the morning to nurse my son, there he was, dead. But when I had examined him in the morning, indeed, he was not my son whom I had borne.”

²² Then the other woman said, “No! But the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son.”

And the first woman said, “No! But the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son.”

Thus they spoke before the king.

²³ And the king said, “The one says, ‘This is my son, who lives, and your son is the dead one’; and the other says, ‘No! But your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.’ ” ²⁴ Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king. ²⁵ And the king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to one, and half to the other.”

²⁶ Then the woman whose son was living spoke to the king, for ^(AI)she yearned with compassion for her son; and she said, “O my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him!”

But the other said, “Let him be neither mine nor yours, but divide him.”

²⁷ So the king answered and said, “Give the first woman the living child, and by no means kill him; she is his mother.”

²⁸ And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had rendered; and they feared the king, for they saw that the ^(AJ)wisdom of God was in him to administer justice.

Solomon’s Administration

4 So King Solomon was king over all Israel. ² And these were his officials: Azariah the son of Zadok, the priest; ³ Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha, ^[e]scribes; ^(AK)Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud, the recorder; ^4 (AL)Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, over the army; Zadok and ^(AM)Abiathar, the priests; ⁵ Azariah the son of Nathan, over ^(AN)the officers; Zabud the son of Nathan, ^(AO)a priest and ^(AP)the king’s friend; ⁶ Ahishar, over the household; and ^(AQ)Adoniram the son of Abda, over the labor force.

⁷ And Solomon had twelve governors over all Israel, who provided food for the king and his household; each one made provision for one month of the year. ⁸ These are their names: ^[f]Ben-Hur, in the mountains of Ephraim; ^9 [g]Ben-Deker, in Makaz, Shaalbim, Beth Shemesh, and Elon Beth Hanan; ^10 [h]Ben-Hesed, in Arubboth; to him belonged Sochoh and all the land of Hepher; ^11 [i]Ben-Abinadab, in all the regions of Dor; he had Taphath the daughter of Solomon as wife; ¹² Baana the son of Ahilud, in Taanach, Megiddo, and all Beth Shean, which is beside Zaretan below Jezreel, from Beth Shean to Abel Meholah, as far as the other side of Jokneam; ^13 [j]Ben-Geber, in Ramoth Gilead; to him belonged ^(AR)the towns of Jair the son of Manasseh, in Gilead; to him also belonged ^(AS)the region of Argob in Bashan—sixty large cities with walls and bronze gate-bars; ¹⁴ Ahinadab the son of Iddo, in Mahanaim; ^15 (AT)Ahimaaz, in Naphtali; he also took Basemath the daughter of Solomon as wife; ¹⁶ Baanah the son of ^(AU)Hushai, in Asher and Aloth; ¹⁷ Jehoshaphat the son of Paruah, in Issachar; ^18 (AV)Shimei the son of Elah, in Benjamin; ¹⁹ Geber the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, in ^(AW)the country of Sihon king of the Amorites, and of Og king of Bashan. He was the only governor who was in the land.

Prosperity and Wisdom of Solomon’s Reign

²⁰ Judah and Israel were as numerous ^(AX)as the sand by the sea in multitude, ^(AY)eating and drinking and rejoicing. ²¹ So ^(AZ)Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from ^(BA)the^[k] River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. ^(BB)They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

^22 (BC)Now Solomon’s ^[l]provision for one day was thirty ^[m]kors of fine flour, sixty kors of meal, ²³ ten fatted oxen, twenty oxen from the pastures, and one hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl.

²⁴ For he had dominion over all the region on this side of ^[n]the River from Tiphsah even to Gaza, namely over ^(BD)all the kings on this side of the River; and ^(BE)he had peace on every side all around him. ²⁵ And Judah and Israel ^(BF)dwelt^[o] safely, ^(BG)each man under his vine and his fig tree, ^(BH)from Dan as far as Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.

^26 (BI)Solomon had ^[p]forty thousand stalls of ^(BJ)horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen. ²⁷ And ^(BK)these governors, each man in his month, provided food for King Solomon and for all who came to King Solomon’s table. There was no lack in their supply. ²⁸ They also brought barley and straw to the proper place, for the horses and steeds, each man according to his charge.

²⁹ And ^(BL)God gave Solomon wisdom and exceedingly great understanding, and largeness of heart like the sand on the seashore. ³⁰ Thus Solomon’s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the men ^(BM)of the East and all ^(BN)the wisdom of Egypt. ³¹ For he was ^(BO)wiser than all men—^(BP)than Ethan the Ezrahite, ^(BQ)and Heman, Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all the surrounding nations. ^32 (BR)He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his ^(BS)songs were one thousand and five. ³³ Also he spoke of trees, from the cedar tree of Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and of fish. ³⁴ And men of all nations, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom, ^(BT)came to hear the wisdom of Solomon.

Solomon Prepares to Build the Temple^(BU)

5 Now ^(BV)Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon, because he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father, ^(BW)for Hiram had always loved David. ² Then ^(BX)Solomon sent to Hiram, saying:

⁷ So it was, when Hiram heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly and said,

⁸ Then Hiram sent to Solomon, saying:

¹⁰ Then Hiram gave Solomon cedar and cypress logs according to all his desire. ^11 (CG)And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand ^[u]kors of wheat as food for his household, and ^[v]twenty kors of pressed oil. Thus Solomon gave to Hiram year by year.

¹² So the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, ^(CH)as He had promised him; and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty together.

¹³ Then King Solomon raised up a labor force out of all Israel; and the labor force was thirty thousand men. ¹⁴ And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts: they were one month in Lebanon and two months at home; ^(CI)Adoniram was in charge of the labor force. ^15 (CJ)Solomon had seventy thousand who carried burdens, and eighty thousand who quarried stone in the mountains, ¹⁶ besides three thousand ^[w]three hundred from the ^(CK)chiefs of Solomon’s deputies, who supervised the people who labored in the work. ¹⁷ And the king commanded them to quarry large stones, costly stones, and ^(CL)hewn stones, to lay the foundation of the ^[x]temple. ¹⁸ So Solomon’s builders, Hiram’s builders, and the Gebalites quarried them; and they prepared timber and stones to build the ^[y]temple.

Solomon Builds the Temple^(CM)

6 And ^(CN)it came to pass in the four hundred and ^[z]eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of ^[aa]Ziv, which is the second month, ^(CO)that he began to build the house of the Lord. ² Now ^(CP)the house which King Solomon built for the Lord, its length was sixty cubits, its width twenty, and its height thirty cubits. ³ The vestibule in front of the ^[ab]sanctuary of the house was ^[ac]twenty cubits long across the width of the house, and the width of ^[ad]the vestibule extended ^[ae]ten cubits from the front of the house. ⁴ And he made for the house ^(CQ)windows with beveled frames.

⁵ Against the wall of the ^[af]temple he built ^(CR)chambers all around, against the walls of the temple, all around the sanctuary ^(CS)and the ^[ag]inner sanctuary. Thus he made side chambers all around it. ⁶ The lowest chamber was five cubits wide, the middle was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide; for he made narrow ledges around the outside of the temple, so that the support beams would not be fastened into the walls of the ^[ah]temple. ⁷ And ^(CT)the temple, when it was being built, was built with stone finished at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built. ⁸ The doorway for the ^[ai]middle story was on the right side of the temple. They went up by stairs to the middle story, and from the middle to the third.

^9 (CU)So he built the ^[aj]temple and finished it, and he paneled the temple with beams and boards of cedar. ¹⁰ And he built side chambers against the entire temple, each five cubits high; they were attached to the temple with cedar beams.

¹¹ Then the word of the Lord came to Solomon, saying: ¹² “Concerning this ^[ak]temple which you are building, ^(CV)if you walk in My statutes, execute My judgments, keep all My commandments, and walk in them, then I will perform My ^[al]word with you, ^(CW)which I spoke to your father David. ¹³ And ^(CX)I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not ^(CY)forsake My people Israel.”

¹⁴ So Solomon built the temple and finished it. ¹⁵ And he built the inside walls of the temple with cedar boards; from the floor of the temple to the ceiling he paneled the inside with wood; and he covered the floor of the temple with planks of cypress. ¹⁶ Then he built the twenty-cubit room at the rear of the temple, from floor to ceiling, with cedar boards; he built it inside as the inner sanctuary, as the ^(CZ)Most Holy Place. ¹⁷ And in front of it the temple sanctuary was forty cubits long. ¹⁸ The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with ornamental buds and open flowers. All was cedar; there was no stone to be seen.

¹⁹ And he prepared the ^[am]inner sanctuary inside the temple, to set the ark of the covenant of the Lord there. ²⁰ The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He overlaid it with pure gold, and overlaid the altar of cedar. ²¹ So Solomon overlaid the inside of the temple with pure gold. He stretched gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, and overlaid it with gold. ²² The whole temple he overlaid with gold, until he had finished all the temple; also he overlaid with gold ^(DA)the entire altar that was by the inner sanctuary.

²³ Inside the inner sanctuary ^(DB)he made two cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high. ²⁴ One wing of the cherub was five cubits, and the other wing of the cherub five cubits: ten cubits from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other. ²⁵ And the other cherub was ten cubits; both cherubim were of the same size and shape. ²⁶ The height of one cherub was ten cubits, and so was the other cherub. ²⁷ Then he set the cherubim inside the inner ^[an]room; and ^(DC)they stretched out the wings of the cherubim so that the wing of the one touched one wall, and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall. And their wings touched each other in the middle of the room. ²⁸ Also he overlaid the cherubim with gold.

²⁹ Then he carved all the walls of the temple all around, both the inner and outer sanctuaries, with carved ^(DD)figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. ³⁰ And the floor of the temple he overlaid with gold, both the inner and outer sanctuaries.

³¹ For the entrance of the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood; the lintel and doorposts were ^[ao]one-fifth of the wall. ³² The two doors were of olive wood; and he carved on them figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold; and he spread gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees. ³³ So for the door of the ^[ap]sanctuary he also made doorposts of olive wood, ^[aq]one-fourth of the wall. ³⁴ And the two doors were of cypress wood; ^(DE)two panels comprised one folding door, and two panels comprised the other folding door. ³⁵ Then he carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers on them, and overlaid them with gold applied evenly on the carved work.

³⁶ And he built the ^(DF)inner court with three rows of hewn stone and a row of cedar beams.

^37 (DG)In the fourth year the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid, in the month of ^[ar]Ziv. ³⁸ And in the eleventh year, in the month of ^[as]Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its details and according to all its plans. So he was ^(DH)seven years in building it.