1 Kings 4:20

Were many. — The description of the condition of the people here and in 1 Kings 4:25, as multiplied in numbers, and living in festivity and peace, is evidently designed to specify not only their general prosperity and wealth, but also the fact noticed in 1 Kings 9:20, that at this time they were a dominant race, relieved from all burden of labour, and ruling over the subject races, now reduced to complete subjection and serfship. (That it was otherwise hereafter is clear from the complaints to Rehoboam in 1 Kings 12:4.) Now, for the first time, did Israel enter on full possession of the territory promised in the days of the Conquest (Joshua 1:4), and so into the complete fulfilment of the promise to Abraham, alluded to in the words, “many as the sand which is by the sea in multitude” (Genesis 22:17).