Chronological Plan

¹Now Solomon made a treaty with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and married Pharaoh’s daughter; then he brought her to the City of David until he had finished building his own house, and the house of the LORD, and the wall all around Jerusalem.

²Meanwhile the people sacrificed at the high places, because there was no house built for the name of the LORD until those days.

³And Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places.

⁴Now the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place: Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.

⁵At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask! What shall I give you?”

⁶And Solomon said: “You have shown great mercy to Your servant David my father, because he walked before You in truth, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with You; You have continued this great kindness for him, and You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.

⁷Now, O LORD my God, You have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in.

⁸And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted.

⁹Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?”

¹⁰The speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing.

¹¹Then God said to him: “Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked long life for yourself, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice,

¹²behold, I have done according to your words; see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you.

¹³And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days.

¹⁴So if you walk in My ways, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.”

¹⁵Then Solomon awoke; and indeed it had been a dream. And he came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of the LORD, offered up burnt offerings, offered peace offerings, and made a feast for all his servants.

¹⁶Now two women who were harlots came to the king, and stood before him.

¹⁷And one woman said, “O my lord, this woman and I dwell in the same house; and I gave birth while she was in the house.

¹⁸Then it happened, the third day after I had given birth, that this woman also gave birth. And we were together; no one was with us in the house, except the two of us in the house.

¹⁹And this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on him.

²⁰So she arose in the middle of the night and took my son from my side, while your maidservant slept, and laid him in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom.

²¹And when I rose in the morning to nurse my son, there he was, dead. But when I had examined him in the morning, indeed, he was not my son whom I had borne.”

²²Then the other woman said, “No! But the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son.” And the first woman said, “No! But the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son.” Thus they spoke before the king.

²³And the king said, “The one says, ‘This is my son, who lives, and your son is the dead one’; and the other says, ‘No! But your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.’ ”

²⁴Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king.

²⁵And the king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to one, and half to the other.”

²⁶Then the woman whose son was living spoke to the king, for she yearned with compassion for her son; and she said, “O my lord, give her the living child, and by no means kill him!” But the other said, “Let him be neither mine nor yours, but divide him.”

²⁷So the king answered and said, “Give the first woman the living child, and by no means kill him; she is his mother.”

²⁸And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had rendered; and they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice.

¹So King Solomon was king over all Israel.

²And these were his officials: Azariah the son of Zadok, the priest;

³Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha, scribes; Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud, the recorder;

⁴Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, over the army; Zadok and Abiathar, the priests;

⁵Azariah the son of Nathan, over the officers; Zabud the son of Nathan, a priest and the king’s friend;

⁶Ahishar, over the household; and Adoniram the son of Abda, over the labor force.

⁷And Solomon had twelve governors over all Israel, who provided food for the king and his household; each one made provision for one month of the year.

⁸These are their names: Ben-Hur, in the mountains of Ephraim;

⁹Ben-Deker, in Makaz, Shaalbim, Beth Shemesh, and Elon Beth Hanan;

¹⁰Ben-Hesed, in Arubboth; to him belonged Sochoh and all the land of Hepher;

¹¹Ben-Abinadab, in all the regions of Dor; he had Taphath the daughter of Solomon as wife;

¹²Baana the son of Ahilud, in Taanach, Megiddo, and all Beth Shean, which is beside Zaretan below Jezreel, from Beth Shean to Abel Meholah, as far as the other side of Jokneam;

¹³Ben-Geber, in Ramoth Gilead; to him belonged the towns of Jair the son of Manasseh, in Gilead; to him also belonged the region of Argob in Bashan—sixty large cities with walls and bronze gate-bars;

¹⁴Ahinadab the son of Iddo, in Mahanaim;

¹⁵Ahimaaz, in Naphtali; he also took Basemath the daughter of Solomon as wife;

¹⁶Baanah the son of Hushai, in Asher and Aloth;

¹⁷Jehoshaphat the son of Paruah, in Issachar;

¹⁸Shimei the son of Elah, in Benjamin;

¹⁹Geber the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, in the country of Sihon king of the Amorites, and of Og king of Bashan. He was the only governor who was in the land.

²⁰Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking and rejoicing.

²¹So Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

²²Now Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty kors of fine flour, sixty kors of meal,

²³ten fatted oxen, twenty oxen from the pastures, and one hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl.

²⁴For he had dominion over all the region on this side of the River from Tiphsah even to Gaza, namely over all the kings on this side of the River; and he had peace on every side all around him.

²⁵And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, each man under his vine and his fig tree, from Dan as far as Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.

²⁶Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.

²⁷And these governors, each man in his month, provided food for King Solomon and for all who came to King Solomon’s table. There was no lack in their supply.

²⁸They also brought barley and straw to the proper place, for the horses and steeds, each man according to his charge.

²⁹And God gave Solomon wisdom and exceedingly great understanding, and largeness of heart like the sand on the seashore.

³⁰Thus Solomon’s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the men of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt.

³¹For he was wiser than all men— than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all the surrounding nations.

³²He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs were one thousand and five.

³³Also he spoke of trees, from the cedar tree of Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and of fish.

³⁴And men of all nations, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom, came to hear the wisdom of Solomon.

¹Now Solomon the son of David was strengthened in his kingdom, and the LORD his God was with him and exalted him exceedingly.

²And Solomon spoke to all Israel, to the captains of thousands and of hundreds, to the judges, and to every leader in all Israel, the heads of the fathers’ houses.

³Then Solomon, and all the assembly with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon; for the tabernacle of meeting with God was there, which Moses the servant of the LORD had made in the wilderness.

⁴But David had brought up the ark of God from Kirjath Jearim to the place David had prepared for it, for he had pitched a tent for it at Jerusalem.

⁵Now the bronze altar that Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made, he put before the tabernacle of the LORD; Solomon and the assembly sought Him there.

⁶And Solomon went up there to the bronze altar before the LORD, which was at the tabernacle of meeting, and offered a thousand burnt offerings on it.

⁷On that night God appeared to Solomon, and said to him, “Ask! What shall I give you?”

⁸And Solomon said to God: “You have shown great mercy to David my father, and have made me king in his place.

⁹Now, O LORD God, let Your promise to David my father be established, for You have made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in multitude.

¹⁰Now give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people; for who can judge this great people of Yours?”

¹¹Then God said to Solomon: “Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked riches or wealth or honor or the life of your enemies, nor have you asked long life—but have asked wisdom and knowledge for yourself, that you may judge My people over whom I have made you king—

¹²wisdom and knowledge are granted to you; and I will give you riches and wealth and honor, such as none of the kings have had who were before you, nor shall any after you have the like.”

¹³So Solomon came to Jerusalem from the high place that was at Gibeon, from before the tabernacle of meeting, and reigned over Israel.

¹⁴And Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen; he had one thousand four hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem.

¹⁵Also the king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedars as abundant as the sycamores which are in the lowland.

¹⁶And Solomon had horses imported from Egypt and Keveh; the king’s merchants bought them in Keveh at the current price.

¹⁷They also acquired and imported from Egypt a chariot for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for one hundred and fifty; thus, through their agents, they exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria.