1 Kings 9:13

13 “What kind of towns are these, my brother?” he asked. So Hiram called that area Cabul (which means “worthless”), as it is still known today.

1 Kings 9:13 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 9:13

And he said
By letter to him:

what cities are these which thou hast given me, my brother?
so he called him, being not only his neighbour, but his ally, in friendship and covenant with him; and this he said of them not by way of complaint, or contempt, as unworthy of his acceptance; for so munificent a prince as Solomon would never offer to a king to whom he was so much obliged anything mean and contemptible; but as being unsuitable to him, however valuable they might be in themselves, or of advantage to others:

and he called them the land of Cabul unto this day;
or rather the words should be rendered impersonally, "they were called so"; for Hiram could not call them by this name to the times of the writer of this book; nor is there any reason to think he would give them any name at all, and much less a contemptible one, as this is thought to be, when he did not choose to accept of them. Some interpret ^F7 the word shut up, or unfruitful, sandy, dirty, clayey; so in the Talmud ^F8 it is said to be a sandy land, and called Cabul, because a man's foot was plunged in it up to his ankles, and is represented as unfruitful. Josephus ^F9 says, in the Phoenician tongue it signifies "not pleasing", which agrees with what Hiram says, ( 1 Kings 9:12 ) . Hillerus ^F11 interprets it "as nothing", they being as nothing to Hiram, of no use to him, whatever they might be to others; and therefore he restored them to Solomon, ( 2 Chronicles 8:2 ) , which seems to be the best sense of the word. They are the same with Decapolis, ( Matthew 4:25 ) so called from ten cities therein ^F12.

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FOOTNOTES:

F7 David de Pomis, Lexic fol. 58. 2.
F8 T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 54. 1.
F9 Antiqu. l. 8. c. 5. sect. 3.
F11 Onomastic. Sacr. p. 435.
F12 Vid. Castel Lex Heptaglot. col. 1669. & Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 18.

1 Kings 9:13 In-Context

11 he gave twenty towns in the land of Galilee to King Hiram of Tyre. (Hiram had previously provided all the cedar and cypress timber and gold that Solomon had requested.)

12 But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the towns Solomon had given him, he was not at all pleased with them.

13 “What kind of towns are these, my brother?” he asked. So Hiram called that area Cabul (which means “worthless”), as it is still known today.

14 Nevertheless, Hiram paid Solomon 9,000 pounds of gold.

15 This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon conscripted to build the LORD ’s Temple, the royal palace, the supporting terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and the cities of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.