1 Kings 5:13-18

13 King Solomon conscripted forced labor out of all Israel; the levy numbered thirty thousand men.

14 He sent them to the Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts; they would be a month in the Lebanon and two months at home; Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor.

15 Solomon also had seventy thousand laborers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hill country,

16 besides Solomon's three thousand three hundred supervisors who were over the work, having charge of the people who did the work.

17 At the king's command, they quarried out great, costly stones in order to lay the foundation of the house with dressed stones.

18 So Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders and the Gebalites did the stonecutting and prepared the timber and the stone to build the house.

1 Kings 5:13-18 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST KINGS 5

This chapter relates Solomon's preparation for building the temple: on Hiram, king of Tyre, sending a congratulatory letter to him, he returned another to him, signifying his intention to build an house for God, and requesting him to supply him with timber, and men to work it, 1Ki 5:1-6; to which Hiram readily agreed, and sent him cedar and fir, and Solomon in return sent him food for his household; and things went on very amicably between them, 1Ki 5:7-12; the chapter concludes with an account of Solomon's workmen, where, how, and in what they were employed, 1Ki 5:13-18.