Knox Bible

1

All the tribes of Israel were under king Solomon’s rule.

2

These are the names of his ministers; Azarias, son of the priest Sadoc,

3

and the two sons of Sisa, Elihoreph and Ahia, were secretaries; Josaphat, son of Ahilud, kept the records;

4

Banaias, son of Joiada, commanded the army; Sadoc and Abiathar were the chief priests;

5

Azarias, son of Nathan, was head of the royal prefects; Zabud, son of Nathan, a priest, was the king’s privy counsellor;

6

Ahisar was controller of the household, and Adoniram, son of Abda, controller of the revenues.

7

Solomon appointed twelve commissioners in the various parts of Israel to secure the maintenance of the king and his court, each of them providing the revenues needed for one month in the year.

8

They were these; the son of Hur, for the hill country of Ephraim,

9

the son of Decar for Maces, Salebim, Bethsames, Elon and Bethhanan,

10

the son of Hesed for Aruboth, with Socho and the whole of Epher,

11

the son of Abinadab, who married Solomon’s daughter Taphet, for the whole of Naphath-Dor.

12

Bana, son of Ahilud, for Thanac and Mageddo and the whole region of Bethsan (close by Sarthana that lies under Jezrahel) from Bethsan itself to Abel-Mehula, that faces Jecmaan.

13

The son of Gaber for Ramoth-Galaad, with the townships Jair, son of Manasses, conquered in Galaad; he controlled all the Argob district of Basan, containing sixty great walled cities that had bolts of bronze.

14

Ahinadab, son of Addo, for Manaim;

15

Achimaas (husband of Solomon’s daughter Basemath) for Nephthali;

16

Baana, son of Husi, for Aser and Baloth;

17

Josaphat, son of Pharue, for Issachar;

18

Semei, son of Ela, for Benjamin;

19

Gaber, son of Uri, for Galaad, that once belonged to the Amorrhite king Sehon and to Og, king of Basan; for all that country he alone was answerable.

20

So Juda and Israel, countless in number as the sand by the sea, ate, drank, and were merry.

21

As for Solomon, he bore rule over all the kingdoms between Euphrates and the Philistine country, right up to the frontiers of Egypt, enjoying the tribute they brought him and the service they did him all his life long.✻

22

Sixty quarters of flour went every day to Solomon’s household, and a hundred and twenty of meal,

23

ten oxen from the stall, and twenty from the meadow, and a hundred rams; besides venison of red-deer and roe-deer and gazelle, and farmyard birds.

24

All the country that lies west of the Euphrates, from Thaphsa to Gaza, was subject to him, with all the kings that dwelt in those parts; look about him where he would, all was peace.

25

As long as the reign of Solomon lasted, Juda and Israel lived secure from alarm, each man under vine and fig-tree of his own, all the land’s length from Dan to Bersabee.

26

Forty thousand stalls king Solomon had for his chariot-horses, and twelve thousand mounted men;

27

the keep of these was a charge on the royal commissioners aforesaid, beside the great ado they had to furnish the king’s table month by month;

28

barley and straw for horse and mule must be conveyed to this place or that, according to the king’s own movements.

29

Wisdom, too, God gave to Solomon, and great discernment, and a store of knowledge wide as the sand on the sea-shore.

30

For that, no king of the east or of Egypt could vie with him,

31

of all men the wisest; wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, or Heman, or Chalcol, or Dorda, that were sons of Mahol; no nation round about but had heard of his fame.

32

Three thousand parables king Solomon uttered, and of songs he made a thousand and five;

33

and he discoursed of all the trees there are, from the cedar on Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out from the wall; and of beasts, and birds, and creeping things, and fish.

34

From all peoples and all kings of the world, when his fame reached them, men came to take back word of Solomon’s wisdom.