Read the Bible

Solomon's Officials

¹ Now King Solomon was king over all Israel.² These were his officials: Azariah the son of Zadok was ^(C1)the priest;³ Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha were scribes; ^(C1)Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the secretary;⁴ and ^(C1)Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the army; and Zadok and ^(C2)Abiathar were priests;⁵ and Azariah the son of Nathan was over ^(C1)the deputies; and Zabud the son of Nathan, a priest, was the king's confidant;⁶ and Ahishar was over the household; and Adoniram the son of Abda was over the forced labor.

⁷ Solomon had twelve deputies over all Israel, who provided food for the king and his household; each deputy had to provide food for a month in the year.⁸ And these were their names: Ben-hur, in the ^(C1)hill country of Ephraim;⁹ Ben-deker in Makaz and ^(C1)Shaalbim, and ^(C2)Beth-shemesh, and Elonbeth-hanan;¹⁰ Ben-hesed in Arubboth (^(C1)Socoh was his and all the land of ^(C2)Hepher);¹¹ Ben-abinadab in all ^(F1)the ^(C1)hills of Dor (Taphath the daughter of Solomon was his wife);¹² Baana the son of Ahilud in ^(C1)Taanach and Megiddo, and all ^(C2)Beth-shean which is beside ^(C3)Zarethan below Jezreel, from Beth-shean to ^(C4)Abel-meholah as far as the other side of ^(C5)Jokmeam;¹³ Ben-geber in ^(C1)Ramoth-gilead (^(C2)the villages of Jair, the son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead were his: ^(C3)the region of Argob, which is in Bashan, sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars were his);¹⁴ Ahinadab the son of Iddo in ^(C1)Mahanaim;^15 (C1)Ahimaaz in Naphtali (he also married Basemath the daughter of Solomon);¹⁶ Baana the son of ^(C1)Hushai in Asher and ^(F1)Bealoth;¹⁷ Jehoshaphat the son of Paruah in Issachar;^18 (C1)Shimei the son of Ela in Benjamin;¹⁹ Geber the son of Uri in the land of Gilead, ^(C1)the country of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan; and he was the only deputy who was in the land.

Solomon's Power, Wealth, and Wisdom

^20 (C1)Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand that is on the ^(F1)seashore in abundance; they were eating, drinking, and rejoicing.

^21 (F1)(C1)Now Solomon was ruling over all the kingdoms ^(C2)from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt; ^(C3)they brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

²² Solomon's ^(F1)provision for one day was ^(F2)thirty kors of fine flour and ^(F3)sixty kors of meal,²³ ten fat oxen, twenty ^(F1)pasture-fed oxen, and a hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened geese.²⁴ For he was ruling over everything ^(F1)west of the Euphrates River, from Tiphsah even to ^(C1)Gaza, ^(C2)over all the kings ^(F1)west of the River; and ^(C3)he had peace on all sides surrounding him.^25 (C1)So Judah and Israel lived securely, everyone under his vine and his fig tree, ^(C2)from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.^26 (C1)Solomon had ^(F1)forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.²⁷ And those deputies provided food for King Solomon and all who came to King Solomon's table, each in his month; they allowed nothing to be lacking.²⁸ They also brought barley and straw for the war horses and ^(C1)baggage horses to the place where it was required, each deputy according to his duty.

²⁹ Now ^(C1)God gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment and breadth of ^(F1)mind, ^(C2)like the sand that is on the seashore.³⁰ Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all ^(C1)the ^(F1)people of the east and ^(C2)all the wisdom of Egypt.³¹ For ^(C1)he was wiser than all other people, more than ^(C2)Ethan the Ezrahite, Heman, ^(C3)Calcol, and ^(F1)Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his ^(F2)fame was known in all the surrounding nations.^32 (C1)He also told three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered 1,005.³³ He told of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that grows on the wall; he told also of animals, birds, crawling things, and fish.³⁴ People ^(C1)came from all the ^(F1)nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom.