1 Kings 4:23

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

²⁰Judah and Israel became as numerous as the sand by the sea, eating and drinking and rejoicing. ²¹And Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These kingdoms offered tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life. ²²Solomon's provisions for a single day were thirty cors of fine flour, sixty cors of meal, ²³ten fat oxen, twenty range oxen, and a hundred sheep, as well as deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened poultry.²⁴For Solomon had dominion over everything west of the Euphrates-over all the kingdoms from Tiphsah to Gaza-and he had peace on all sides. ²⁵Throughout the days of Solomon, Judah and Israel lived in safety from Dan to Beersheba, each man under his own vine and his own fig tree. ²⁶Solomon had four thousand stalls for his chariot horses and twelve thousand horses. ²⁷Each month the governors in turn provided food for King Solomon and all who came to his table. They saw to it that nothing was lacking. ²⁸Each one also brought to the required place their quotas of barley and straw for the chariot horses and other horses.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Ten fat: Nehemiah 5:17, Nehemiah 5:18

harts: Dr. Shaw understands ayil as the name of the genus, including all the species of the deer kind, whether they are distinguished by round horns, as the stag, or by flat ones, as the fallow deer, or by the smallness of the branches, as the roe.

roebucks: See note on Deuteronomy 15:22.

fallowdeer: Yachmur, rendered bubalus by the Vulgate, probably the buffalo; and though "the flesh of a buffalo does not seem so well tasted as beef, being harder and more coarse," yet in our times, "persons of distinction, as well as the common people, and even the European merchants, eat a good deal of it, in the countries where that animal abounds." Niebuhr, Descrip. de l'Arab p. 146.

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 14:4 - General 1 Samuel 8:12 - and will set 1 Kings 10:5 - the meat 1 Kings 12:4 - our yoke 2 Chronicles 9:4 - the meat Ecclesiastes 5:11 - they Isaiah 3:7 - neither bread Daniel 1:5 - a daily

Cross-References

Exodus 20:13
You shall not murder.

Leviticus 19:18
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.

Numbers 23:18
Then Balaam lifted up an oracle, saying: "Arise, O Balak, and listen; give ear to me, O son of Zippor.

Judges 9:7
When this was reported to Jotham, he climbed to the top of Mount Gerizim, raised his voice, and cried out: "Listen to me, O leaders of Shechem, and may God listen to you.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Ten fat oxen,.... Such as were kept up in the stall and fatted:

and twenty oxen out of the pastures; which were killed as they were taken from thence, and not put up to be fed:

and an hundred sheep; out of the folds:

beside harts, and roebucks, and fallow deer; which were clean creatures, according to the Levitical law, Deuteronomy 14:5; these were hunted in fields, or taken out of the park, or were presents from other countries; so that here was plenty of beef, mutton, and venison: for the spiritual application of this to the antitypical Solomon, and his provisions, see Matthew 22:4;

and fatted fowl; such as we call capons a; some Jewish writers b, because of the likeness of sound in the word here used, take them to be Barbary fowls, or such as were brought from that country: there is a sort of birds called βαρβαροι, which were without a voice, that neither heard men, nor knew their voice c.

a So David de Pomis, Tzemach David, fol. 12. 3. and some in Kimchi in loc. b Baal Aruch & R. Elias Levit. Tishbi, in voce ברבר. c Scholia in Aristoph. Aves, p. 550.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Harts ... - The exact sorts of wild land animals here intended are very uncertain. Perhaps it would be best to translate “wild-goats, gazelles, and wild oxen,” which abounded in the wilder parts of Syria, from where Solomon would be supplied. (See 1 Kings 4:24.) (Yahmur, or the “roebuck,” gives its name to a valley in a wooded district, south of Carmel (Conder).) The use of game at the royal banquets of Assyria appears in the sculptures.