College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
1 Kings 5:13-18
B. THE ORGANIZATION OF LABORERS 5:13-18
TRANSLATION
(13) Then King Solomon raised a levy from all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men. (14) And he sent them to Lebanon ten thousand a month in shifts; a month they were in Lebanon, two months in their homes. And Adoniram was over the levy. (15) And Solomon had seventy thousand burden bearers, and eighty thousand stonecutters in the mountains, (16) besides Solomon's superintendents who were over the work, thirty-three hundred who supervised the people who labored in the work. (17) And the king commanded and they quarried great stones, precious stones, to lay the foundation of the house, dressed stones. (18) So the builders of Solomon and the builders of Hiram, even the Gegalites, dressed them, and prepared the timber and the stones to build the house.
COMMENTS
Solomon made further preparation for the construction work by drafting out of Israel a labor force numbering some thirty thousand (1 Kings 5:13). Solomon's Temple was built with forced labor; Moses-' Tabernacle was built through freewill offerings and volunteer services. While thirty thousand appears to be rather large, the conscription only affected one in forty of the male population.[165] The thirty thousand were divided into three shifts of ten thousand, and each shift was compelled to labor in Lebanon four months of the year (1 Kings 5:14). These workmen should be thought of as free Israelites who worked in consort with and under the direction of the servants of Hiram. Whether or not they received remuneration for their labor is uncertain. Certainly the present verse does not contradict 1 Kings 9:22 which asserts that Solomon did not make bondmen of the children of Israel as he did of the Canaanites.[166]
[165] According to the census taken by Joab in the reign of David, Israel numbered eight hundred thousand and Judah five hundred thousand fighting men (2 Samuel 24:9).
[166] The Canaanites are called tribute-slaves (mas-'obed) while the thirty thousand Israelites are called tribute-laborers (mas).
In addition to the thirty thousand Israelite draftees, Solomon compelled the remnants of the Canaanites to become tribute slaves (1 Kings 9:20-21). The seventy thousand bearers of burdens and the eighty thousand hewers of stone mentioned in 1 Kings 5:15 were the last of the Canaanites remaining in the land.[167] It is a matter of dispute whether or not the phrase in the mountain refers to the Lebanon mountains or the hill country of Canaan. It is hard to imaginethough it is not impossiblethat the massive Temple stones were brought from Lebanon to Jerusalem. Fine quality limestone can be obtained near Jerusalem. This stone is soft when quarried, but gradually hardens under exposure. The term hew (Heb., chasab) denotes the splitting of blocks from the living rock rather than the more skilled operation of dressing the stone (Heb., pasal).
[167]According to 2 Chronicles 2:17 David's census had found 153,600 Canaanite men remaining. The burden bearers and stonecutters totaled 150,000 and there were 3,600 Canaanite officers over them (2 Chronicles 2:18).
Thirty-three hundred foremen (lit., the princes of the overseers) supervised the various work crews (1 Kings 5:16). At the end of the construction account, mention is made of five hundred fifty additional princes of the overseers (1 Kings 9:23). This yields a total of 3,850 superintendents which agrees with the total stated in the Book of Chronicles. However, 2 Chronicles 2:18 refers to a body of thirty-six hundred overseers to set the people at -work while 2 Chronicles 8:10 speaks of two hundred fifty princes of the overseers. Thus while the totals are the same in Kings and Chronicles, it is obvious that the two sacred writers have employed different systems of classification and arrangement of these superintendents. The author of Chronicles has made race the basis of arrangement. The thirty-six hundred mentioned in 2 Chronicles 2:18 were Canaanites, while the two hundred fifty mentioned in 2 Chronicles 8:10 were no doubt Israelites. Kings, on the other hand, has used rank as the basis of classification. There were thirty-three hundred subordinate (1 Kings 5:16) and five hundred fifty superior officers (1 Kings 9:23).
SOLOMONS SUPERINTENDENTS
A Harmony of Kings and Chronicles
CLASSIFICATION BY RACE
Chronicles
CLASSIFICATION BY RANK
Kings
Canaanice Officers 3,600
Israelite Officers 250
Total 3,850
Subordinate Officers 3.300
Superior Officers 550
Total 3,850
CONCLUSIONS
1. Of the 550 superior officers. 300 were Canaanites.
2. All of the 3.300 officers in 1 Kings 5:16 were Canaanites.
ORGANIZATION OF SOLOMON'S WORK FORCE
Cabinet Level
ADONIRAM
Superior Officers
250 Israelites
300 Canaanites
(Each in Charge of 11 Crews)
Foremen
Probably Hiram's men served as crew Foremen Cf. 1 Kings 5:6
3.300 Canaanites
2 Chronicles 2:18; 1 Kings 5:16
(Each over a Crew of about 45 Men)
Laborers
30.000 Israelites who Cut Timber 1 Kings 5:13
70.000 Canaanice Burden Bearers 80,000 Canaanice Stonecutters 1 Kings 5:15; 2 Chronicles 2:18
Total
30.2S0 Israelites
153.600 Canaanites
The workingmen having been secured and organized, Solomon issued the order for the foundation stones to be cut out and brought to the Temple site (1 Kings 5:17). Although the foundation stones would not be seen, equal care was given to their preparation. Ordinarily plain stones were used for foundations; but the king commanded that they should prepare great, costly, hewn stones. Some of these very stones can still be viewed at the excavations on Mt. Moriah. There is no contradiction between the reference to hewn stone and the statement in 1 Kings 6:7 that neither hammer nor axe nor iron was heard in the house while it was being built since the stone was made ready at the quarry.
Hiram's workers assisted in the work of quarrying the great Temple stones as well as in securing the timber (1 Kings 5:18). The King James rendering stonecutters in 1 Kings 5:18 is best taken as a proper noun, Gebalites. Gebal (Byblos) was a Phoenician city not far from the coast about twenty miles north of modern Beirut. According to Ezekiel 27:9 the Gebalites were skilled ship builders and therefore, were probably skillful builders generally. They would be the most suitable of Hiram's subjects to superintend the working of the wood and stone for Solomon's building projects.