Solomon's 12 administrative districts
Solomon replaces tribal leaders
He sets up 12 districts and appoints directors
Excerpt from 1 Kings 4: 7Solomon created 12 administrative districts in Israel. [3] Each district provided a month’s worth of food for the king and the royal family. 8These are the names of Solomon's 12 supervisors of his administrative districts. They became taxing machines to fund the kingdom.Solomon's administrative districts 1-6
Ben-hur Hills of Ephraim 9Ben-deker Cities of Makaz, Shaalbim, Beth-shemesh, and Elon-beth-hanan; 10Ben-hesed Arubboth, Socoh, and all the land of Hepher 11Ben-abinadab, he married Taphath, Solomon’s daughter Naphath-dor 12Baana son of Ahilud Cities of Taanach, Megiddo, Beth-shan, by the town of Zarethan below the town of Jezreel, and from Beth-shan to Abel-meholah and the other side of Jokmeam 13Ben-geber Ramoth-gilead, villages of Jair son of Manasseh, in Gilead, and the territory Argob in Bashan, with 60 large cities protected by walls and gates locked with bronze barsSolomon's administrative districts 7-12
14Ahinadab son of Iddo Mahanaim 15Ahimaaz, he married Basemath, Solomon’s daughter Tribal territory of Naphtali 16Baana son of Hushai Asher’s tribal land and Bealoth 17Jehoshaphat son of Paruah Issachar’s tribal land 18Shimei son of Ela Benjamin’s tribal land 19Geber son of Uri, governor of the district Gilead, with Amorite territory of King Sihon, and King Og’s land of Bashan.RICH KING SOLOMON
20Judah and Israel filled the land with happy people, who could eat and drink all they wanted. 21Solomon controlled a long swath of land from the Euphrates River southward to the borders of Egypt and Philistine territory. All the people in that stretch of land paid taxes to Solomon for all his life.Solomon's groceries
22Solomon’s household needed this much food every day:- Four tons (3,600 kilograms) [4] of the highest quality flour,
- Eight tons (7,200 kilograms) of coarsely ground grains known as meal,
- 2310 grain-fattened cattle,
- 100 sheep, or goats, deer, gazelle, and poultry such as geese.
For feature articles about the Bible
Stephen M. Miller's blogSolomon’s kingdom grows
Solomon's kingdom grows
Solomon's kingdom grows
After King David died, his son Solomon didn't waste time. He took charge of the kingdom like a boss. But he didn't stop there—he wanted to make the nation even stronger and richer? Solomon wasn't about to let his enemies walk all over him. He gathered his troops and went on the offense against hostile neighbors: Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, and even the Philistines. His enemies learned quickly learned not to mess with him. Solomon also had a knack for business. He knew the importance of expanding his kingdom's wealth. So, he started making big trade deals with countries like Egypt and Phoenicia. He brought in all sorts of extravagant products—gold, silver, horses—you name it. His kingdom turned into this buzzing hub where people from all over would swing by to trade and network.Solomon's harem
And there were the women. King Solomon, renowned for his wisdom, unfortunately succumbed to the allure of foreign women. Despite divine warnings against marrying multiple wives, he married an astounding 700, along with 300 concubines. These unions were politically motivated, aimed at forging alliances and establishing bonds with neighboring nations. However, these marriages ultimately led Solomon to idolatry, as his wives introduced foreign gods and rituals into his kingdom. This deviation from worshiping God alone, as Jewish law required, displeased the Lord, who eventually punished Solomon for his sins.Solomon beautifies Jerusalem
Jerusalem became the pride and joy of Solomon's reign. He had big plans for the capital city. He went all out and built this beautiful temple for the Almighty himself. Picture this: gold decorations, exquisite furnishings, and amazing artwork everywhere you looked. People were absolutely dazzled by it and came from far and wide just to see it. Jerusalem became the talk of the region.For feature articles about the Bible
Stephen M. Miller's blogSolomon’s Jerusalem add-on
Solomon's Jerusalem add-on
SOLOMON’S JERUSALEM
King Solomon's Jerusalem sat on ridge and stretched about one kilometer (3/4 miles) from the Temple Mount on the top of the ridge, down to Lower Jerusalem called the City of David. King David's Jerusalem was about half as big. Solomon added the Temple and surrounding area later.Kings after Solomon began extending Jerusalem to the west. The Jerusalem of Jesus, during the Roman occupation of Israel, was much larger...until Rome crushed a Jewish revolt and destroyed the city in AD 70. That was the last Temple the Jews ever had. Arab invaders conquered the land and 1400 years ago built a Muslim shrine on the Temple Mount.
It's now Jerusalem's most famous landmark: the Dome of the Rock. For another angle on Jerusalem, see the map with Nehemiah 7.
Here's a sampling of King Solomon's unusual writing, which many scholars say was written centuries later by a writer borrowing Solomon's name.
WHATEVER WE DO, IT’S A WASTE OF TIME
1David’s son, the Scholar and King of Jerusalem, offers these observations2It’s a pitiful waste of time, the Scholar says. It’s all worthless and meaningless.
3What do people get for all their hard work, For spilling their sweat under the sun?
4A generation dies and another is born, But it makes no difference to the everlasting earth.
5The sun rises. The sun sets. Then it races all night to rise again.
6The wind blows north. The wind blows south. The wind blows round and round. It follows its route, comes back home, Then it starts all over again.
7Rivers and streams flow into the sea But the sea always has room for more. So, water returns to the streams where it came from And the streams flow back to the sea.
8Everything is exhausting, Too exhausting for words. What we see isn’t satisfying. What we hear isn’t good enough. Ecclesiastes 1:1-8, Casual English Bible
King Solomon's Jerusalem
Solomon's Jerusalem
Solomon’s Jerusalem Temple
Solomon's Jerusalem Temple
Solomon's Jerusalem Temple
Solomon's Jerusalem Temple sits on what is known as the Temple Mount at the rocky top of the ridge on which Jews built their Jerusalem Temple. King David lived down the hill in the City of David, a walled city below the top of the ridge. His son and successor, Solomon, expanded the city north, to the Temple Mount, where he built the first Jewish Temple. Solomon's extension of Jerusalem to the hill north of the City of David produced a walled city about 1 kilometer north to south (three-fourths of a mile). Ophel hill sat on the elbow of the ridge between the City of David below and the king's palace and the sprawling Temple above. Babylonian invaders destroyed the Temple and the entire city about 400 years later, in 586 BC. They exiled the surviving Jews. Persians conquered the Babylonians 50 years later and freed the Jews to go home. They rebuilt the Temple in 516 BC. So, they had lived without a Jerusalem worship center for 70 years. Then, 70 years after they built the second Temple, Nehemiah, a Jewish winetaster for the Persian king, got permission to go to Jerusalem and repair the walls. He served there as governor for about 13 years.Solomon's Jerusalem & Temple Mount
Kings of Israel and Judah
Kings of Israel and Judah
All the kings of Israel and Judah
The united nation of Israel lasted only about 90 years, under three kings: Saul, David, and Solomon. After that, the northern tribes divorced the tribe of Judah. We could describe the parting as anything but a civil war. The wars came later. But when Solomon's son took the throne of Israel and threatened high taxes and more brutal repression, all the tribes that could leave did just that. All that King Rehoboam was left with was his own tribe of Judah; they couldn't go anywhere.Mostly kings not interested in God
Most kings—north and south—didn’t measure up to God’s lowest bar of acceptance. No kings in the north made the cut. In the south, godly kings included Asa and Jehoshaphat in 1 Kings and Jotham, Hezekiah, and Josiah in 2 Kings. Two of the worst were Ahab and his Queen Jezebel. Ahab’s death ends the book of 1 Kings. But Jezebel lives to die another day, as dog meat outside her Jezreel getaway palace (2 Kings 9). Instead of looking out the upstairs window at the chariot corps commander who had just assassinated her son, the king, she should have run home to Lebanon.Israel’s gilded age
King David secured peace in the region by defeating neighboring armies. Solomon inherited that peace and power. And he expanded it by adding subordinate nations as far north as the Euphrates River, on Turkey’s southern border. This was Israel’s golden age—40 years of peace and prosperity for everyone but those commoners Solomon drafted. He didn’t draft them for the army. He drafted them for building projects like hauling rocks and timber for his palace and for building cities to help fortify and defend the kingdom. That’s what did in his son. People asked King Rehoboam for a breather—some relief from the forced labor and high taxes. He said, “You think my father was heavy-handed. Compared to my heavy hand, my father was a pinky finger” (1 Kings 12:10).Fun with Ecclesiastes
Fun with Ecclesiastes
Fun with Ecclesiastes
Here's some more good news. We don't have to agree with everything in the Bible. That's good because some "wisdom" writers...like the one claiming to be Solomon in Ecclesiastes... occasionally sound a little over the edge and off the wall. Whoever actually wrote that book says it's the story of his journey to find the Meaning of Life...why we humans exist. Naturally, he begins buy conducting this very logical scientific experiment:"I decided to drink a lot of wine and make bad decisions—as part of a scholarly study. I wanted to know the best way to spend the short time we have in life: as the rascals or the righteous." (Ecclesiastes 2:3)The point of this video is to remind us to think about what we're reading. Not everything in the Holy Bible is holy or wise. The Bible reports the stories of both those who got it right and those who got it wrong. Job's comforters, for example. They brought no comfort and only bad advice. Ecclesiastes gets it right sometimes and wrong other times. That's because the writer is telling the story of his journey. He's not preaching. Or if he is, he shouldn't.
Watch on
YouTube or Vimeo.Ecclesiastes 1
WHATEVER WE DO, IT’S A WASTE OF TIME
1David’s son, the Scholar and King of Jerusalem, offers these observations. 2It’s a pitiful waste of time, the Scholar says. It’s all worthless and meaningless. 3What do people get for all their hard work, For spilling their sweat under the sun? 4A generation dies and another is born, But it makes no difference to the everlasting earth. 5The sun rises. The sun sets. Then it races all night to rise again. 6The wind blows north. The wind blows south. The wind blows round and round. It follows its route, comes back home, Then it starts all over again. Read More.Having fun with Ecclesiastics
Wise men
Wise men
Wise men who outsmarted King Herod
The story of a king outsmarted by wise men from the East. A fresh account of an ancient, reported in a new easy-reading Bible still under construction, The Casual English Bible, at CasualEnglishBible.com. You’ll find the story in the Bible book of Matthew, second chapter. 3D Bible maps you see in the video are among nearly 1,000 Bible maps available for download as PDFs. The complete set is available, along with Q&A Bible study leader’s guides. Matthew 2WISE MEN FOLLOW A STAR TO BETHLEHEM
1Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in the province of Judea, when Herod the Great was king of the Jews. Later, a group of wise men known as magi showed up in Jerusalem. They came from a distant land somewhere in the east. 2They started asking around, “Where’s the boy who’s going to become king of the Jews? We saw the sign of his birth: a rising star. We came to honor him.” Read MoreWatch on
YouTube or Vimeo.Gihon Spring
Gihon Spring
Safe in the walled town of Jebus
Citizens felt safe in their walled city of Jebus, former name of Jerusalem. They had no idea enemy soldiers knew about the shaft inside the city that dropped 45 feet (13 meters) in the unguarded cave of Gihon Spring below. And they never expected any soldiers to try climbing it.David marches to Jerusalem
From 2 Samuel 5
6King David and his men marched north to Jerusalem. They intended to take the city from Jebusite people who lived there. Jebusites were so confident of their defenses that they yelled down to David, “Hey, you can’t get in here. A blind cripple could stop you.” 7David took the walled city anyhow. People sometimes call the city Zion. But David called it the City of David. The name stuck. 8David said, “Let’s show those blind cripples how much I hate them. To get to them, you’re going to have to climb up the shaft that drops into their spring of water.” That’s where the old saying comes from, that “The lame and blind aren’t allowed in the Temple.”Jebus becomes City of David
9David moved into the walled town and named it City of David. He fortified the position even more, from Millo tower on the perimeter and then toward the center of the city. 10David became a stronger and more respected leader because the LORD of everyone was on his side. 11King Hiram decided to give David a palace as a gift. So, he sent ambassadors along with carpenters and masons, supplied with cedar trees. 12David took that as a sign that the LORD had, in fact, given him the job of king over Israel and had lifted his status for Israel’s sake. 13After David moved to Jerusalem, he took more women into his harem—concubines and wives. They gave him more sons and daughters. 14The names of David’s 11 children born in Jerusalem include: Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, Solomon, 15Ibhar, Elishua, Nepheg, Japhia, 16Elishama, Eliada, and Eliphelet.Headhunting in northern Israel
Headhunting in northern Israel
David's army takes home a rebel's head
David's army was looking for the right man to behead. They had to travel about a week's march north of Jerusalem—about 100 miles/160 km—to the borderland of northern Israel, to the town of Abel.David's enemy was a rebel trying to pull the northern tribes of Israel away from the united kingdom. He was recruiting walled cities to join the cause. Walled cities are harder to attack without an overwhelming force.
The rebel was Sheba, from the tiny tribe of Benjamin, Judah's neighbor on the north.
David sent his new general and part of the army on the headhunt. The former general went along, Joab, whom David had demoted. Mistake on David's part. Joab had already killed one competing general, Abner, and David's own son, Absalom. He murdered this general, too, and took back his old job. He led the chase to Sheba.
David's army lays siege in northern Israel
From 2 Samuel 20
14Sheba went recruiting throughout the northern tribes of Israel. His extended family clan, the Bichri’s, followed him one day into the walled city of Abel Beth Maacah.15Joab’s army surrounded the city. Some men started building a siege ramp to the top of the wall. Others used a battering ram to try breaking through the walls. 16A wise woman inside the town called out to the attacking soldiers. “Hey listen! Listen! Tell Joab I want to talk with him.”
Negotiating a peace
17Joab came over and the woman said, “Are you Joab?” He said, “Yes, I am.” She said, “Please listen to me.” He said, “Go ahead, I’m listening.” 18She said, “There’s an old saying in Israel, ‘Ask it in Abel.’ After that, people would work out their differences. 19I’m one of the peace-loving people in Israel. And I’m watching you destroy one of the mother cities of Israel. You’re tearing into the heritage of the LORD himself. Why would you do this?”20Joab said, “That’s the last thing on my mind. No way would I want to destroy this place. 21That’s not my plan. But there’s a man inside who has launched a rebellion against King David. The man comes from the hills of Ephraim. His name is Sheba, a son of Bichri. Give him to me and we will leave your town.” The woman said, “We’ll toss his head over the wall.”
Sheba loses his head
22The savvy woman pitched her survival plan to others in town. They cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri and threw it over to Joab. He ordered his trumpeter to blow the ram’s horn signal to stand down and withdraw. The soldiers went home. Joab went to see the king in Jerusalem.For other Bible versions see Bible Gateway.
Northern Israel
Absalom and David run away
Absalom and David run away
Israel's royalty run for their lives
Prince Absalom orchestrates the murder of his big brother, and then runs for his life from his Dad, King David. A few years later, the world flips and David is running for his life away from his son, who was leading a coup.Rape of the princess
The family troubles all started with lust and incest. David's oldest son, Amnon, first in line for the throne, fell in lust with his half sister, Tamar. She was the full sister of Absalom. Amnon raped her. She tried to stop him. She said, “No, no, no. Don’t do this to me. It’s disgusting. And it’s not allowed in Israel. Who would marry me after you shamed me like this? It would ruin your reputation, too. I’m begging you, if you want me, go to the king and ask him for me. He’ll give you anything you want” (2 Samuel 13:12-13). He raped her anyhow, and the kicked her out of his house. Bible writers seem to imply she spent the rest of her life as a single woman living with her brother.David gets mad
The rape infuriated David, yet he didn't even mention it to Amnon.Absalom gets even
Absalom slowly fumed for months, plotting murder of his brother...years later he would attempt to murder David as well, in a coup. In the spring, when shepherds shear the sheep and harvest a crop of wool, Absalom threw a party to celebrate the payday. Amnon got the invite. He got drunk. And he got dead.Absalom runs to grandpa, king of Geshur
Absalom's mother came from the royal family of Geshur, a territory just beyond the eastern of the Sea of Galilee. He would live there in exile for three years before David finally invited him home. That's when David's biggest problem blew up in his face.Absalom and David run for their lives