1 Kings 9:21

21 Their children who were still in the land, and whom the children of Israel had not been able to put to complete destruction, them did Solomon put to forced work, to this day.

1 Kings 9:21 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 9:21

Their children that were left after them in the land
The posterity of those left unsubdued in the times of Joshua:

whom the children of Israel also were not able utterly to destroy;
in later times, though now it is thought by some it was not for want of power, but because they had made a covenant with them, as the Gibeonites did, and therefore they could not, because it would have been a breach of covenant to have destroyed them; see ( 2 Chronicles 8:8 ) ,

upon these did Solomon levy a tribute of bond service unto this day;
not a tribute of money, which being poor they were not able to pay, but of service, and which being once laid on was continued, and even to the time of the writing of this book.

1 Kings 9:21 In-Context

19 And all the store-towns and the towns which Solomon had for his war-carriages and for his horsemen, and everything which it was his pleasure to put up in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land under his rule.

20 As for the rest of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not children of Israel;

21 Their children who were still in the land, and whom the children of Israel had not been able to put to complete destruction, them did Solomon put to forced work, to this day.

22 But Solomon did not put the children of Israel to forced work; they were the men of war, his servants, his captains, and his chiefs, captains of his war-carriages and of his horsemen.

23 These were the chiefs of the overseers of Solomon's work, five hundred and fifty, in authority over the people who did the work.