4:1 Now King Solomon was king over all Israel.
4:2 These were his officials: Azariah the son of Zadok was the priest;
4:3 Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha were scribes; Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the secretary;
4:4 and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the army; and Zadok and Abiathar were priests;
4:5 and Azariah the son of Nathan was over the deputies; and Zabud the son of Nathan, a priest, was the king’s confidant;
4:6 and Ahishar was over the household; and Adoniram the son of Abda was over the forced labor.
4:7 Solomon had twelve deputies over all Israel, who provided food for the king and his household; each deputy had to provide food for a month in the year.
4:8 And these were their names: Ben-hur, in the hill country of Ephraim;
4:9 Ben-deker in Makaz and Shaalbim, and Beth-shemesh, and Elonbeth-hanan;
4:10 Ben-hesed in Arubboth (Socoh was his and all the land of Hepher);
4:11 Ben-abinadab in all ①the hills of Dor (Taphath the daughter of Solomon was his wife);
▷ ①Or Naphoth-dor
4:12 Baana the son of Ahilud in Taanach and Megiddo, and all Beth-shean which is beside Zarethan below Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah as far as the other side of Jokmeam;
4:13 Ben-geber in Ramoth-gilead (the villages of Jair, the son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead were his: the region of Argob, which is in Bashan, sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars were his);
4:14 Ahinadab the son of Iddo in Mahanaim;
4:15 Ahimaaz in Naphtali (he also married Basemath the daughter of Solomon);
4:16 Baana the son of Hushai in Asher and ①Bealoth;
▷ ①Or in Aloth
4:17 Jehoshaphat the son of Paruah in Issachar;
4:18 Shimei the son of Ela in Benjamin;
4:19 Geber the son of Uri in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan; and he was the only deputy who was in the land.
4:20 Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand that is on the ①seashore in abundance; they were eating, drinking, and rejoicing.
▷ ①Lit sea
4:21 ①Now Solomon was ruling over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt; they brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.
▷ ①Ch 5:1 in Heb
4:22 Solomon’s ①provision for one day was ②thirty kors of fine flour and ③sixty kors of meal,
▷ ①Lit bread ②About 231 cubic feet or 6.5 cubic meters ③About 462 cubic feet or 13 cubic meters
4:23 ten fat oxen, twenty ①pasture-fed oxen, and a hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened geese.
▷ ①Lit oxen of the pasture
4:24 For he was ruling over everything ①west of the Euphrates River, from Tiphsah even to Gaza, over all the kings ②west of the River; and he had peace on all sides surrounding him.
▷ ①Lit beyond ②Lit beyond
4:25 So Judah and Israel lived securely, everyone under his vine and his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.
4:26 Solomon had ①forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.
▷ ①One LXX ms reads 4,000, cf. 2 Chr 9:25
4:27 And those deputies provided food for King Solomon and all who came to King Solomon’s table, each in his month; they allowed nothing to be lacking.
4:28 They also brought barley and straw for the war horses and baggage horses to the place where it was required, each deputy according to his duty.
4:29 Now God gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment and breadth of ①mind, like the sand that is on the seashore.
▷ ①Lit heart
4:30 Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the ①people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt.
▷ ①Lit sons
4:31 For he was wiser than all other people, more than Ethan the Ezrahite, Heman, Calcol, and ①Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his ②fame was known in all the surrounding nations.
▷ ①In 1 Chr 2:6, Dara ②Lit name
4:32 He also told three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered 1,005.
4:33 He told of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that grows on the wall; he told also of animals, birds, crawling things, and fish.
4:34 People came from all the ①nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom.
▷ ①Lit peoples