1 Kings 4

¹King Solomon was king over all Israel, ²and these were his high officials: Azariʹah the son of Zadok was the priest; ³Elihorʹeph and Ahiʹjah the sons of Shisha were secretaries; Jehoshʹaphat the son of Ahiʹlud was recorder; ⁴Benaiʹah the son of Jehoiʹada was in command of the army; Zadok and Abiʹathar were priests; ⁵Azariʹah the son of Nathan was over the officers; Zabud the son of Nathan was priest and king’s friend; ⁶Ahiʹshar was in charge of the palace; and Adoniʹram the son of Abda was in charge of the forced labor.

⁷Solomon had twelve officers over all Israel, who provided food for the king and his household; each man had to make provision for one month in the year. ⁸These were their names: Ben-hur, in the hill country of Eʹphraim; ⁹Ben-deker, in Makaz, Sha-alʹbim, Beth-sheʹmesh, and Eʹlon-beth-haʹnan; ¹⁰Ben-hesed, in Arubʹboth (to him belonged Socoh and all the land of Hepher); ¹¹Ben-abinʹadab, in all Naphath-dor (he had Taphath the daughter of Solomon as his wife); ¹²Baʹana the son of Ahiʹlud, in Taʹanach, Megidʹdo, and all Beth-sheʹan which is beside Zarethan below Jezreel, and from Beth-sheʹan to Aʹbel-mehoʹlah, as far as the other side of Jokʹmeam; ¹³Ben-geber, in Ramoth-gilead (he had the villages of Jaʹir the son of Manasʹseh, which are in Gilead, and he had the region of Argob, which is in Bashan, sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars); ¹⁴Ahinʹadab the son of Iddo, in Mahanaʹim; ¹⁵Ahiʹma-az, in Naphʹtali (he had taken Basʹemath the daughter of Solomon as his wife); ¹⁶Baʹana the son of Hushai, in Asher and Bealoth; ¹⁷Jehoshʹaphat the son of Paruʹah, in Isʹsachar; ¹⁸Shimʹe-i the son of Ela, in Benjamin; ¹⁹Geber the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan. And there was one officer in the land of Judah.

²⁰Judah and Israel were as many as the sand by the sea; they ate and drank and were happy. ²¹Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphraʹtes to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt; they brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

²²Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty cors of fine flour, and sixty cors of meal, ²³ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture-fed cattle, a hundred sheep, besides harts, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl. ²⁴For he had dominion over all the region west of the Euphraʹtes from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all the kings west of the Euphraʹtes; and he had peace on all sides round about him. ²⁵And Judah and Israel dwelt in safety, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, all the days of Solomon. ²⁶Solomon also had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen. ²⁷And those officers supplied provisions for King Solomon, and for all who came to King Solomon’s table, each one in his month; they let nothing be lacking. ²⁸Barley also and straw for the horses and swift steeds they brought to the place where it was required, each according to his charge.

²⁹And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and largeness of mind like the sand on the seashore, ³⁰so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east, and all the wisdom of Egypt. ³¹For he was wiser than all other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezʹrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all the nations round about. ³²He also uttered three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a thousand and five. ³³He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall; he spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish. ³⁴And men came from all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.