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1Ki_9:18
His commerce with Egypt, and his maritime traffic, evince the king’s wakeful attention to his commercial advantages. As he possessed all the territory to the Euphrates, and held the fortified towns which commanded the places of passage over that river, he possessed the means of entirely controlling the great caravan trade, which from ancient times existed between the regions east of the Euphrates on the one hand, and the emporiums of Syria and Egypt on the other. The site of Tadmor is an oasis in the midst of an arid and sandy desert, being rendered such by the abundance of water. This circumstance compelled the caravans to pass in this direction—the water being essential for the refreshment of the cattle in the passage across the desert.
There can, therefore, be no doubt that this was an important watering station for the great caravans, from the very earliest period, in which were transported in long files of camels the products of the East across the great Syrian desert. It could not but occur to the sagacious Hebrew king, that here was a most proper station for a commercial town. It was doubtless fortified, and adequately garrisoned, so that while it enabled him to maintain the region in complete subjection, and to prevent the passage of the trade without his concurrence (which, indeed, would otherwise have been impossible for the want of water), put him in a position to give complete security to the caravans against the predatory Arab tribes, which formerly, as now, invested this region, and rendered the passage either positively dangerous, or purchasable only at a fearful sacrifice, which, as it must fall on the ultimate consumer, helped to render the products of this traffic exceeding costly by the time it reached the shores of the Mediterranean. As Solomon held the fortress of Thapsacus at the place where the caravans crossed the Euphrates, he could afford an escort of troops thence to Tadmor, and thence again to the western coast, if required; and for this, as well as for the aid and assistance at Tadmor, and for the advantages of its stores and khans, a toll might reasonably be required; and this would cheerfully be paid, as a return for actual benefits, and as a most gratifying exchange for the harassing, irregular, inordinate, and greedy exactions of the Arab tribes.
But we apprehend that Tadmor was more than this—that it became under Solomon what we know that it was in later times, an actual emporium for the products of the East, at which the caravans did not merely rest on their journey, but where they terminated it, deposited their ladings, transacted their sales with the factors from the West, who then took charge of the commodities, and bore them away thence to the western markets at their leisure—or whither the dealers repaired to purchase such of those commodities as they required from the consignees. This is the usual mode in which the goods brought by distant caravans are disposed of in the East, almost always at some border town, and rarely at the ultimate market. More than this, we see little room to doubt that Solomon himself took up, by his agents, the greater part, if not the whole, of the goods thus brought into his territories, and kept them in his stores—eventually selling them at a profit to such of the western merchants as required them. This would in fact amount to a monopoly of the Eastern trade. But such is the custom of Eastern kings, when they take any interest in commercial undertakings. And not only so, but such royal merchants are very much in the habit of taking such commodities from the caravans at their own price—which the merchant dare not refuse to accept. This, however, has a practical limit, and must especially have had such in the case of Solomon—for had he oppressed the trade, by compelling them to dispose of their goods at a price essentially less than they might have obtained in the ordinary course of business, the result might have been to direct the traffic into some other channel, which might have been found by crossing the Euphrates more to the north, and so proceeding westward. But this would have been an expensive and fatiguing course, not to be adopted without more serious cause than so prudent a king as Solomon would be likely to give.
That this, in substance, was the course taken by Solomon, seems to us to be proved by the fact, that it was really the policy on which he conducted his trade with Egypt; and from the fact that we read of “store cities” which he built—and as this is mentioned in connection with his building of Tadmor, it is obviously suggested that these towns were intended to be places for the deposit and sale of the products of this great eastern land trade—so ancient, so important—and which now seems to have been chiefly in the hands of Solomon. Among other cities held by the king in connection with this trade, was very probably Baalbek (or Heliopolis), which may have been included among the “store cities” of Hamath, even if it be not expressly named under the designation of Baalath—1Ki_9:18—about which there is some difference of opinion.
It is a most important fact in evidence of the truth of the conjectures we have hazarded, that all our information respecting this place, under its name of Palmyra, transmitted through heathen writers, exhibits it as a city of merchants—the factors of the eastern trade, who sold to the Romans and others the valuable products and precious commodities of India and Arabia, and who were so enriched by the traffic, that the place was proverbial for its luxury and wealth, and for the expensive habits of its citizens.