Study Desk

When you brought our ancestors out of Egypt, you told your servant Moses to say to them, "From all people on earth, the Lord God has chosen you to be his very own."

When Solomon finished his prayer at the altar, he was kneeling with his arms lifted toward heaven. He stood up,

Praise the Lord ! He has kept his promise and given us peace. Every good thing he promised to his servant Moses has happened.

Obey the Lord our God and follow his commands with all your heart, just as you are doing today.

Then on the eighth day, he sent everyone home. They said good-by and left, very happy, because of all the good things the Lord had done for his servant David and his people Israel.

This temple will become a pile of rocks! Everyone who walks by will be shocked, and they will ask, "Why did the Lord do such a terrible thing to his people and to this temple?"

Earlier, the king of Egypt had captured the town of Gezer; he burned it to the ground and killed the Canaanite people living there. Then he gave it to his daughter as a wedding present when she married Solomon.

So Solomon had the town rebuilt. Solomon had his workers rebuild Lower Beth-Horon,

They also built towns where he could keep his supplies and his chariots and horses. Solomon had them build whatever he wanted in Jerusalem, Lebanon, and anywhere in his kingdom.

Solomon did not force the Israelites to do his work. They were his soldiers, officials, leaders, commanders, chariot captains, and chariot drivers. But he did make slaves of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites who were living in Israel. These were the descendants of those foreigners the Israelites could not destroy, and they remained Israel's slaves.

Solomon appointed five hundred fifty officers to be in charge of his workers and to watch over his building projects.

King Hiram let some of his experienced sailors go to the country of Ophir with Solomon's own sailors, and they brought back about sixteen tons of gold for Solomon.

The Queen was amazed at Solomon's wisdom. She was breathless when she saw his palace, the food on his table, his officials, his servants in their uniforms, the people who served his food, and the sacrifices he offered at the Lord 's temple.

He also made three hundred smaller gold shields, using almost four pounds for each one, and he put the shields in his palace in Forest Hall.

His throne was made of ivory and covered with pure gold.

Solomon's merchants bought his horses and chariots in the regions of Musri and Kue. They paid about fifteen pounds of silver for a chariot and almost four pounds of silver for a horse. They also sold horses and chariots to the Hittite and Syrian kings.

The Lord did not want the Israelites to worship foreign gods, so he had warned them not to marry anyone who was not from Israel. Solomon loved his wife, the daughter of the king of Egypt. But he also loved some women from Moab, Ammon, and Edom, and others from Sidon and the land of the Hittites.

Seven hundred of his wives were daughters of kings, but he also married three hundred other women. As Solomon got older, some of his wives led him to worship their gods. He wasn't like his father David, who had worshiped only the Lord God.

Solomon's father had obeyed the Lord with all his heart, but Solomon disobeyed and did what the Lord hated.

In fact, he built a shrine for each of his foreign wives, so all of them could burn incense and offer sacrifices to their own gods.