1 When Solomon had finished the building of the LORD’s house, the king’s house, and all Solomon’s desire which he was pleased to do, 2 the LORD appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 The LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication, that you have made before me. I have made this house holy, which you have built, to put my name there forever; and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually. 4 As for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep my statutes and my ordinances; 5 then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised to David your father, saying, ‘There shall not fail from you a man on the throne of Israel.’ 6 But if you turn away from following me, you or your children, and not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods, and worship them; 7 then I will cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and I will cast this house, which I have made holy for my name, out of my sight; and Israel will be a proverb and a byword amongst all peoples. 8 Though this house is so high, yet everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss; and they will say, ‘Why has the LORD done this to this land, and to this house?’ 9 and they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold of other gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore the LORD has brought all this evil on them.’” 10 At the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the LORD’s house and the king’s house 11 (now Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedar trees and cypress trees, and with gold, according to all his desire), King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. 12 Hiram came out of Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him; and they didn’t please him. 13 He said, “What cities are these which you have given me, my brother?” He called them the land of Cabul to this day. 14 Hiram sent to the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold. 15 This is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised, to build the LORD’s house, his own house, Millo, Jerusalem’s wall, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. 16 Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, taken Gezer, burnt it with fire, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it for a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. 17 Solomon built in the land Gezer, Beth Horon the lower, 18 Baalath, Tamar in the wilderness, 19 all the storage cities that Solomon had, the cities for his chariots, the cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build for his pleasure in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion. 20 As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel; 21 their children who were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel were not able utterly to destroy, of them Solomon raised a levy of bondservants to this day. 22 But of the children of Israel Solomon made no bondservants; but they were the men of war, his servants, his princes, his captains, and rulers of his chariots and of his horsemen. 23 These were the five hundred and fifty chief officers who were over Solomon’s work, who ruled over the people who labored in the work. 24 But Pharaoh’s daughter came up out of David’s city to her house which Solomon had built for her. Then he built Millo. 25 Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar which he built to the LORD three times per year, burning incense with them, on the altar that was before the LORD. So he finished the house. 26 King Solomon made a fleet of ships in Ezion Geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. 27 Hiram sent in the fleet his servants, sailors who had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. 28 They came to Ophir, and fetched from there gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon.
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary, 1706
Verses 1–9
God warned Solomon, now he had newly built and dedicated the temple, that he and his people might not be high-minded, but fear. After all the services we can perform, we stand upon the same terms with the Lord as before. Nothing can purchase for us liberty to sin, nor would the true believer desire such a licence. He would rather be chastened of the Lord, than be allowed to go on with ease and prosperity in sin.
Verses 10–14
Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities. Hiram did not like them. If Solomon would gratify him, let it be in his own element, by becoming his partner in trade, as he did. See how the providence of God suits this earth to the various tempers of men, and the dispositions of men to the earth, and all for the good of mankind in general.
Verses 15–28
Here is a further account of Solomon’s greatness. He began at the right end, for he built God’s house first, and finished that before he began his own; then God blessed him, and he prospered in all his other buildings. Let piety begin, and profit follow; leave pleasure to the last. Whatever pains we take for the glory of God, and to profit others, we are likely to have the advantage. Canaan, the holy land, the glory of all lands, had no gold in it; which shows that the best produce is that which is for the present support of life, our own and others; such things did Canaan produce. Solomon got much by his merchandise, and yet has directed us to a better trade, within reach of the poorest. Wisdom is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold, Pr 3:14.