1 Kings 8:63

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

⁶²Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the LORD. ⁶³And Solomon offered as peace offerings to the LORD 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the Israelites dedicated the house of the LORD.⁶⁴On that same day the king consecrated the middle of the courtyard in front of the house of the LORD, and there he offered the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings, since the bronze altar before the LORD was too small to contain all these offerings. ⁶⁵So at that time Solomon and all Israel with him-a great assembly of people from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt-observed the feast before the LORD our God for seven days and seven more days-fourteen days in all. ⁶⁶On the fifteenth day Solomon sent the people away. So they blessed the king and went home, joyful and glad in heart for all the good things that the LORD had done for His servant David and for His people Israel.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

a sacrifice: Leviticus 3:1-17, 1 Chronicles 29:21, 2 Chronicles 15:11, 2 Chronicles 29:32-35, 2 Chronicles 30:24, 2 Chronicles 35:7-9, Ezra 6:16, Ezra 6:17, Ezekiel 45:17, Micah 6:7

two and twenty: We are not to suppose that all these victims were sacrificed in one day, or on one altar; for this was the whole amount of those that had been offered during the fourteen days which the feast of dedication and the feast of tabernacles lasted; and there appears to have been an altar erected in the middle of the court, which was set apart for that purpose, in consequence of the great altar of burnt offering being not sufficient for the multitude of sacrifices then offered.

dedicated: Numbers 7:10, Numbers 7:11, Numbers 7:84-88, 2 Chronicles 2:4, 2 Chronicles 7:5, Ezra 6:16, Ezra 6:17, Nehemiah 12:27, John 10:22

Reciprocal: Numbers 7:23 - General 1 Kings 3:4 - a thousand 1 Kings 3:15 - peace offerings 1 Kings 8:5 - sacrificing sheep 2 Chronicles 1:6 - a thousand Psalms 118:27 - bind

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered unto the Lord,.... Part of which belonged to the offerer, and with those Solomon feasted the people all the days of the feast of the dedication, if not of tabernacles also; for the number was exceeding large, as follows:

22,000 oxen, and 120,000 sheep; which, as suggested, might be the number for all the fourteen days; nor need it seem incredible, since, as Josephus b says, at a passover celebrated in the times of Cestius the Roman governor, at the evening of the passover, in two hours time 256,500 lambs were slain; however, this was a very munificent sacrifice of Solomon's, in which he greatly exceeded the Heathens, whose highest number of sacrifices were hecatombs, or by hundreds, but his by thousands:

so the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord; devoted it to divine and religious worship by these sacrifices: hence in imitation of this sprung the dedication of temples with the Heathens; the first of which among the Romans was that in the capitol at Rome c by Romulus; the rites and ceremonies used therein by them may be read in Cicero, Livy, Tacitus, and others d.

b De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 9. sect. 3. c Vid. Liv. Hist. Decad. 1. l. 1. p. s. & l. 2. p. 33. d Vid. Hospinian. de Templis, l. 4. c. 2. p. 451. & Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 6. c. 14.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

These numbers have been thought incredible, but they are not impossible. At least 100, 000, or 120, 000 men 1 Kings 8:65 were assembled; and as they all offered sacrifice with the king 1 Kings 8:62, the number of victims must have been enormous. Part of the flesh of so many victims would be eaten; but much of the meat may have been privately burned Leviticus 19:6, the object of the sacrifice being the glory of God, and not the convenience of the people. Profusion was a usual feature of the sacrifices of antiquity.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 63. Two and twenty thousand oxen — This was the whole amount of the victims that had been offered during the fourteen days; i.e., the seven days of the dedication, and the seven days of the feast of tabernacles. In what way could they dispose of the blood of so many victims?