1 Kings 9:1-13

God's Promise and Warning

1 ¹Now it came about when Solomon had finished building the house of the LORD, and ²the king's house, and ³all that Solomon desired to do,

2 that ⁴the LORD appeared to Solomon a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon.

3 The LORD said to him, "⁵I have heard your prayer and your supplication, which you have made before Me; I have consecrated this house which you have built ⁶by putting My name there forever *, and ⁷My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually *.

4 "As for you, ⁸if you will walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you and will keep My statutes and My ordinances,

5 then ⁹I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, just as I promised to your father David, saying, 'You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.'

6 "¹⁰But if you or your sons indeed turn away from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statutes which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them,

7 ¹¹then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them, and ¹²the house which I have consecrated for My name, I will cast out of My sight. So ¹³Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

8 "And this house will become ¹⁴a heap of ruins; everyone who passes by will be astonished and hiss and say, '¹⁵Why * has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?'

9 "And they will say, '¹⁶Because * they forsook the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and adopted other gods and worshiped them and served them, therefore * the LORD has brought all this adversity on them.' "

Cities Given to Hiram

10 ¹⁷It came about ¹⁸at the end of twenty years in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the LORD and the king's house

11 (Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold according to all his desire ), then King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee.

12 So Hiram came out from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him, and they did not please * him.

13 He said, "What are these cities which you have given me, my brother?" So they were called the land of ¹⁹Cabul to this day.

1 Kings 9:1-13 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO 1 KINGS 9

This chapter relates a second vision Solomon had at Gibeon, in which he received an answer to his prayer in the preceding chapter, 1Ki 9:1-9 that passed between him and Hiram king of Tyre, 1Ki 9:10-14, the places that Solomon built or repaired, 1Ki 9:15-19, the Canaanitish people that became bondmen to him, and the officers he had among the children of Israel, 1Ki 9:20-23 the removal of Pharaoh's daughter to the house built for her, 1Ki 9:24. Solomon's attention to religious services, 1Ki 9:25 and the navy of ships he employed, which brought him in great riches, 1Ki 9:26-28.

Cross References

• 1. 2 Chronicles 7:11
• 2. 1 Kings 7:1, 2
• 3. 2 Chronicles 8:6
• 4. 1 Kings 3:5; 1 Kings 11:9; 2 Chronicles 1:7
• 5. 2 Kings 20:5; Psalms 10:17; Psalms 34:17
• 6. 1 Kings 8:29
• 7. Deuteronomy 11:12; 2 Chronicles 6:40
• 8. 1 Kings 3:6, 14; 1 Kings 11:4, 6, 8; 2 Kings 20:3; Psalms 128:1
• 9. 2 Samuel 7:12, 16; 1 Kings 2:4; 1 Kings 6:12; 1 Chronicles 22:10
• 10. 2 Samuel 7:14-16; 1 Chronicles 28:9; Psalms 89:30f
• 11. Leviticus 18:24-29; Deuteronomy 4:26; 2 Kings 17:23
• 12. Jeremiah 7:4-14
• 13. Deuteronomy 28:37; Psalms 44:14; Jeremiah 24:9
• 14. 2 Kings 25:9; 2 Chronicles 36:19
• 15. Deuteronomy 29:24-26; 2 Chronicles 7:21; Jer 22:8, 9, 28
• 16. Deuteronomy 29:25-28; Jeremiah 2:10-13
• 17. 2 Chronicles 8:1
• 18. 1 Kings 6:37, 38; 1 Kings 7:1; 1 Kings 9:1
• 19. Joshua 19:27

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit "Solomon's desire which he was pleased to do"
• [b]. Lit "spoke"
• [c]. Lit "There shall not be cut off to you a man"
• [d]. Lit "send"
• [e]. Heb "high"
• [f]. Lit "were not right in his sight"
• [g]. Lit "he called them"
• [h]. I.e. as good as nothing