Read 1 Kings 5 here (text coming …) or at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraphs:
5:1 {s} King Hiram of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon, for he was a friend to David;
5:2-11 {p} Solomon contracted with King Hiram for cedar and cypress logs from Lebanon for YHVH’s house
5:12-14 {s} YHVH gave Solomon wisdom and peace/ he raised up conscripted labor of 30,000 men for Lebanon
5:15-16 {s} Also 70,000 burdern-bearers and 80,000 stonecutters/ 3300 officers over the conscripted labor
5:17-18 {p} They quarried stones for the foundation of the temple/ prepared timber and stones to build
The Strong themes:
4:22-5:11 {sx4+p} Solomon’s greatness in prosperity, dominion, wisdom, peace enabled him to build the temple
5:12-18 {s+s+p} YHVH gave Solomon wisdom and peace/ he raised a great labor force to build the temple
1 Kin 2:28-5:18 Chiastic structure:
I wondered why Hiram and David were such great friends. And perhaps it was because they shared a common enemy in the Philistines. From The Story of the Ancient World:
Now there was enmity between the Phoenicians and the Philistines, for the Phoenicians once held all the coast from their city of Sidon south to Gaza (Gen 10:19), but the Philistines took some of their cities and dwelt in them instead, when they first came into the Promised Land, in the days of the patriarchs. The Philistines thus blocked the Phoenicians from using the land route to Egypt to carry on their trade.
Therefore forced to the sea, the Sidonians became expert sailors, as we have heard. But they refused to visit the cities of the Philistines, or trade with them, because of the enmity which was between them. When Joshua brought the children of Israel into the Promised Land, the Sidonians lived in security, quiet and unsuspecting, lacking nothing and possessing wealth (Jud 18:7; ca. 1400 BC).
But when the Philistines had increased in might, before the days of Samson the judge of Israel, the king of Ashkelon attacked Sidon, and besieged it, to overcome it (1205 BC). The inhabitants simply boarded their ships and removed to a smaller outpost of theirs, a city established on an island not far from the shore.
This city, named Tyre (tire), soon became the principal city of the Phoenicians, for it was securely situated, with a large harbor well suited to their shipping, and protected by the sea from invasion. Here the Sidonians, or Phoenicians, continued their society and commerce unabated.
David was the great conqueror of the Philistines who had been a thorn in Phoenicia’s side for hundreds of years, just as it had been in Israel’s. That the Philistines were the common enemies of both Phoenicia and Israel, laid the ground for Phoenicia’s invaluable help to Solomon in building the Temple.
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