1 Kings 4:28

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

dromedaries: or, mules, or swift beasts, Esther 8:10, Esther 8:14, Micah 1:13

Reciprocal: Genesis 36:24 - found 1 Samuel 8:12 - and will set John 6:9 - barley

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Barley also, and straw for the horses and dromedaries,.... Or rather mules, by comparing the passage with 2 Chronicles 9:24; the particular kind of creatures meant is not agreed on; though all take them to be a swifter sort of creatures than horses; or the swifter of horses, as race horses or posts horses: barley was for their provender, that being the common food of horses in those times and countries, and in others, as Bochart h has shown from various writers; and in the Misnah i it is called the food of beasts; and Solomon is said to have every day his own horses two hundred thousand Neapolitan measures of called "tomboli" k; so the Roman soldiers, the horse were allowed a certain quantity of barley for their horses every morning, and sometimes they had money instead of it, which they therefore called "hordiarium" l and the "straw" was for the litter of them: these

brought they unto the place; where the officers were; not where the king was, as the Vulgate Latin version; where Solomon was, as the Arabic version, that is, in Jerusalem; nor

where [the officers] were; in their respective jurisdictions, as our version supplies it, which would be bringing them to themselves; but to the place where the beasts were, whether in Jerusalem, or in any, other parts of the kingdom:

every man according to his charge: which he was monthly to perform.

h Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 9. col. 158, 159. Vid. Homer. Iliad. 4. ver. 196. and Iliad. 8. ver. 560. i Sotah, c. 2. sect. 1. k Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 10. 2. l Vid. Valtrinum de re Militar. Roman. l. 3. c. 15. p. 236.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Barley is to this day in the East the common food of horses.

Dromedaries - Coursers. The animal intended is neither a camel nor a mule, but a swift horse.

The place where the officers were - Rather, “places where the horses and coursers were,” i. e., to the different cities where they were lodged.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 1 Kings 4:28. And dromedaries — The word רכש rechesh, which we translate thus, is rendered beasts, or beasts of burden, by the Vulgate; mares by the Syriac and Arabic; chariots by the Septuagint; and race-horses by the Chaldee. The original word seems to signify a very swift kind of horse, and race-horse or post-horse is probably its true meaning. To communicate with so many distant provinces, Solomon had need of many animals of this kind.