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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Kings 10:14 - 10:14
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Solomon's Wealth and the Use He Made of It (cf. 2Ch 9:13-21). - 1Ki 10:14. The gold which Solomon received in one year amounted to 666 talents, - more than seventeen million thalers (two million and a half sterling - Tr.). 666 is evidently a round number founded upon an approximative valuation. אֶחָת בְּשָׁנָה is rendered in the Vulg. per annos singulos; but this is hardly correct, as the Ophir fleet, the produce of which is at any rate included, did not arrive every year, but once in three years. Thenius is wrong in supposing that this revenue merely applies to the direct taxes levied upon the Israelites. It includes all the branches of Solomon's revenue, whether derived from his commerce by sea and land (cf. 1Ki 10:28, 1Ki 10:29) or from the royal domains (1Ch 27:26-31), or received in the form of presents from foreign princes, who either visited him like the queen of Saba or sent ambassadors to him (1Ki 10:23, 1Ki 10:24), excepting the duties and tribute from conquered kings, which are specially mentioned in 1Ki 10:15. הת מֵאַנְשֵׁי לְבַד, beside what came in (לִשְׁלֹמֹה בָּא) from the travelling traders and the commerce of the merchants, and from all the kings, etc. הַתָּרִים אַנְשֵׁי (a combination resembling our merchantmen; cf. Ewald, §287, e., p. 721) are probably the tradesmen or smaller dealers who travelled about in the country, and רֹכְלִים the wholesale dealers. This explanation of תָּרִים cannot be rendered doubtful by the objection that תּוּר only occurs elsewhere in connection with the wandering about of spies; for רָכַל signified originally to go about, spy out, or retail scandal, and after that to trade, and go about as a tradesman. הָעֶרֶב מַלְכֵי are not kings of the auxiliary and allied nations (Chald., Ges.), but kings of the mixed population, and according to Jer 25:24, more especially of the population of Arabia Deserta (בַּמִּדְבָּר הַשֹּׁכְנִים), which bordered upon Palestine; for עֶרֶב rof is a mixed crowd of all kinds of men, who either attach themselves to a nation (Exo 12:38), or live in the midst of it as foreigners (Neh 13:3), hence a number of mercenaries (Jer 50:37). In 2Ch 9:14, הָעֶרֶב is therefore correctly explained by the term עֲרָב, which does not mean the whole of Arabia, but “only a tract of country not very extensive on the east and south of Palestine” (Gesenius), as these tribes were tributary of Solomon. הָאָרֶץ פַּחֹות, the governors of the land, are probably the officers named in 1Ki 4:7-19. As they collected the duties in the form of natural productions and delivered them in that form, so also did the tradesmen and merchants pay their duties, and the subjugated pastoral tribes of Arabia their tribute, in natura. This explains in a very simple manner why these revenues are separated from the revenue of Solomon which came in the form of money. פֶּחָה is a foreign word, which first found its way into the Hebrew language after the times of the Assyrians, and sprang from the Sanscrit paksha, a companion or friend, which took the form of pakkha in Prakrit, and probably of pakha in the early Persian (vid., Benfey and Stern, die Monatsnamen, p. 195).