Study Desk

The priests and the Levites were standing at their stations. The Levites had the musical instruments of the Lord, which King David had made to give thanks to the Lord—“for his faithful love endures forever”—when he offered praise with them. Across from the Levites, the priests were blowing trumpets, and all the people were standing.

On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people home, rejoicing and with happy hearts for the goodness the Lord had done for David, for Solomon, and for his people Israel.

So Solomon finished the Lord’s temple and the royal palace. Everything that had entered Solomon’s heart to do for the Lord’s temple and for his own palace succeeded.

At the end of twenty years during which Solomon had built the Lord’s temple and his own palace—

Baalath, all the storage cities that belonged to Solomon, all the chariot cities, the cavalry cities, and everything Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, or anywhere else in the land of his dominion.

But Solomon did not consign the Israelites to be slaves for his work; they were soldiers, commanders of his captains, and commanders of his chariots and his cavalry.

According to the ordinances of his father David, he appointed the divisions of the priests over their service, of the Levites over their responsibilities to offer praise and to minister before the priests following the daily requirement, and of the gatekeepers by their divisions with respect to each temple gate, for this had been the command of David, the man of God.

So Hiram sent ships to him by his servants along with crews of experienced seamen. They went with Solomon’s servants to Ophir, took from there seventeen tons of gold, and delivered it to King Solomon.

the food at his table, his servants’ residence, his attendants’ service and their attire, his cupbearers and their attire, and the burnt offerings he offered at the Lord’s temple, it took her breath away.

Blessed be the Lord your God! He delighted in you and put you on his throne as king for the Lord your God. Because your God loved Israel enough to establish them forever, he has set you over them as king to carry out justice and righteousness.”

All the kings of the world wanted an audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart.

Each of them would bring his own gift—items of silver and gold, clothing, weapons, spices, and horses and mules—as an annual tribute.

Solomon rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David. His son Rehoboam became king in his place.

Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had attended his father Solomon when he was alive, asking, “How do you advise me to respond to this people?”

The king did not listen to the people because the turn of events came from God, in order that the Lord might carry out his word that he had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

Then King Rehoboam sent Hadoram, who was in charge of the forced labor, but the Israelites stoned him to death. However, King Rehoboam managed to get into his chariot to flee to Jerusalem.

He also put large shields and spears in each and every city to make them very strong. So Judah and Benjamin were his.

for the Levites left their pasturelands and their possessions and went to Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons refused to let them serve as priests of the Lord.

Jeroboam appointed his own priests for the high places, the goat-demons, and the golden calves he had made.

Rehoboam loved Maacah daughter of Absalom more than all his wives and concubines. He acquired eighteen wives and sixty concubines and was the father of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.