1 Kings 9:11

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁰Now at the end of the twenty years during which Solomon built these two houses, the house of the LORD and the royal palace, ¹¹King Solomon gave twenty towns in the land of Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, who had supplied him with cedar and cypress logs and gold for his every desire.¹²So Hiram went out from Tyre to look over the towns that Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them. ¹³"What are these towns you have given me, my brother?" asked Hiram, and he called them the land of Cabul, as they are called to this day. ¹⁴And Hiram had sent the king 120 talents of gold.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Now Hiram: 1 Kings 5:6-10, 2 Chronicles 2:8-10, 2 Chronicles 2:16

king Solomon: 2 Chronicles 8:2

of Galilee: Joshua 20:7

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 9:1 - all Solomon's 1 Kings 9:14 - General 2 Kings 15:29 - Galilee Amos 1:9 - brotherly covenant Matthew 4:15 - Galilee

Cross-References

Genesis 9:21
But when he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent.

Genesis 9:22
And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside.

Genesis 9:23
Then Shem and Japheth took a garment and placed it across their shoulders, and walking backward, they covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned away so that they did not see their father's nakedness.

Isaiah 54:9
"For to Me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So I have sworn that I will not be angry with you or rebuke you.

2 Peter 3:7
And by that same word, the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

2 Peter 3:11
Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to conduct yourselves in holiness and godliness

Gill's Notes on the Bible

(Now Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedar trees and fir trees,.... For the building of both his houses; see 1 Kings 5:8,

and with gold, according to all his desire): which is not before mentioned, and accounts for it from whence Solomon had his gold; if he made no use, as some think he did not, of what his father left him; see 1 Kings 7:51 with which he covered several parts of the temple, and made several vessels in it. Hiram traded to Ophir, and had it from thence; and he could supply Solomon with it, and did, before he sent a navy thither:

that then Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee; that is, by or near it, for they were not in the land of Canaan; for then Solomon could not have disposed of them, being allotted and belonging to one of the tribes of Israel, and part of the Lord's inheritance; but they were upon the borders, particularly on the borders of Asher, if Cabul in Joshua 19:27, can be thought to be the same with these; though some think that Solomon did not give Hiram the possession of these cities, but the royalties and revenues of them, their produce until the debt was paid: but they rather seem to be a gratuity, and a full grant of them, and might be cities which David had conquered, and taken out of the hands of the ancient inhabitants of them; and so Solomon had a right to dispose of them, being left him by his father; for it is plain as yet they were not inhabited by Israelites; see 2 Chronicles 8:2. They are by a Jewish writer f said to be twenty two, very wrongly.

f Gloss. in T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 54. 1.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

By the spirit, if not by the letter, of the Law, Solomon had no right to give away these cities, or any part of the inheritance of Israel Leviticus 25:13-34. But the exigences of a worldly policy caused the requirements of the Law to be set aside.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 1 Kings 9:11. Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities — It is very likely that Solomon did not give those cities to Hiram so that they should be annexed to his Tyrian dominions, but rather gave him the produce of them till the money was paid which he had advanced to Solomon for his buildings. It appears however that either Hiram did not accept them, or that having received the produce till he was paid, he then restored them to Solomon; for in the parallel place, 2 Chronicles 8:2, it is said, The cities which Hiram had restored to Solomon, Solomon built them, and caused the children of Israel to dwell there. Some think that they were heathen cities which Solomon had conquered, and therefore had a right to give them if he pleased, as they were not any part of the land given by promise to the Israelites.