1 Kings 4:32

32 Solomon also spoke three thousand parables: and his poems were a thousand and five.

1 Kings 4:32 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 4:32

And he spake three thousand proverbs
Wise sayings, short and pithy sentences, instructive in morality and civil life; these were not written as the book of Proverbs, but spoken only, and were taken from his lips, and spread by those that heard them for the use of others, but in process of time were lost; whereas the above book, being written under divine inspiration, is preserved: and

his songs were a thousand and five;
some things that were useful to improve the minds and morals of men he delivered in verse, to make them more pleasant and agreeable, that they might be the more easily received and retained in memory; but of all his songs, the most: excellent is the book of Canticles, called "the Song of Songs", being divine and spiritual, and dictated by the inspiration of the Spirit of God: he was both a moral philosopher and poet, as well as a botanist and naturalist, and well-skilled in medicine, as the following words suggest, ( 1 Kings 4:33 ) .

1 Kings 4:32 In-Context

30 And the wisdom of Solomon surpassed the wisdom of all the Orientals, and of the Egyptians;

31 And he was wiser than all men: wiser than Ethan, the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Dorda, the sons of Mahol, and he was renowned in all nations round about.

32 Solomon also spoke three thousand parables: and his poems were a thousand and five.

33 And he treated about trees, from the cedar that is in Libanus, unto the hyssop that cometh out of the wall: and he discoursed of beasts, and of fowls, and of creeping things, and of fishes.

34 And they came from all nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who heard of his wisdom.