1 Kings 5:15

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁰So Hiram provided Solomon with all the cedar and cypress timber he wanted, ¹¹and year after year Solomon would provide Hiram with twenty thousand cors of wheat as food for his household, as well as twenty thousand baths of pure olive oil. ¹²And the LORD gave Solomon wisdom, as He had promised him. There was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty. ¹³Then King Solomon conscripted a labor force of thirty thousand men from all Israel. ¹⁴He sent them to Lebanon in monthly shifts of ten thousand, so that they would spend one month in Lebanon and two months at home. And Adoniram was in charge of the labor force. ¹⁵Solomon had 70,000 porters and 80,000 stonecutters in the mountains,¹⁶not including his 3,300 foremen who supervised the workers. ¹⁷And the king commanded them to quarry large, costly stones to lay the foundation of the temple with dressed stones. ¹⁸So Solomon's and Hiram's builders, along with the Gebalites, quarried the stone and prepared the timber and stone for the construction of the temple.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

threescore: These were all strangers, or proselytes, dwelling among the Israelites, as we learn from the paralled place in 2Chr. 1 Kings 9:20-22, 2 Chronicles 2:17, 2 Chronicles 2:18, 2 Chronicles 8:7-9, Ezra 2:58, Nehemiah 7:57, Nehemiah 7:60

Reciprocal: 2 Chronicles 2:2 - told out threescore 2 Chronicles 24:12 - masons

Cross-References

1 Chronicles 1:2
Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared,

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And Solomon had threescore and ten thousand that bare burdens,.... Seventy thousand to carry the stones from the mountains out of which they were dug, and which were near Jerusalem, to the city; these were strangers in Israel, as were those that follow:

and fourscore thousand hewers in the mountains: eighty thousand that dug the stones out of the quarries, and squared them; these, with the others, made 150,000, see 2 Chronicles 2:17; according to Jacob Leon g, the number of workmen at the temple for seven years was 163,600, and some make them more.

g Relation of Memorable Things in the Temple, ch. 3. p. 14.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

That bare burdens ... - Compare the marginal references. These laborers, whose services were continuous, consisted of “strangers” - “the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites” - whom Solomon, following the example of his father 1 Chronicles 22:2, condemned to slavery, and employed in this way.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 1 Kings 5:15. Threescore and ten thousand that bare burdens — These were all strangers, or proselytes, dwelling among the Israelites; as we learn from the parallel place, 1 Kings 2:17-18.