1And Solomon was king over all Israel.
2And these are the names of the officials he had:
Azariah son of Zadok the priest.
3Elihoreph and Ahijah sons of Shisha, scribes.
Jehoshaphat son of Ehilud, recorder.
4And Benaiah son of Jehoiada, over the army.
And Zadok and Abiathar, priests.
5And Azariah son of Nathan, over the prefects.
And Zabud son of Nathan the priest, the king’s companion.
6And Ahishar, over the house,
and Adoniram son of Abda, over the forced labor.
7And Solomon had twelve prefects over all Israel, and they provisioned the king and his household—one month in a year each one had to provision. 8And these were their names: Ben-Hur, in the high country of Ephraim. 9Ben-Deker, in Makaz and in Shaalbim and Beth-Shemesh and Elon-Beth-Hanan. 10Ben-Hesed, in Arubboth, his was Socho and all the land of Hepher. 11Ben-Abinadab, all Naphath-Dor. Taphath daughter of Solomon became his wife. 12Baana son of Ahilud, Taanach and Megiddo and all Beth-Sheʾan, which is by Zarethon below Jezreel, from Beth-Sheʾan as far as Abel-Meholah, as far as the other side of Jokneam. 13Ben-Geber, in Ramoth-Gilead. His were the hamlets of Jair son of Manasseh that were in Bashan. His was the region of Argob which is in Bashan, sixty great towns with walls and bronze bolts. 14Ahinadab son of Iddo, at Mahanaim. 15Ahimaaz in Naphtali. He, too, took a daughter of Solomon, Bosmath, as wife. 16Baanah son of Hushi, in Asher and Bealoth. 17Jehoshaphat son of Paruah, in Issachar. 18Shimei son of Ela in Benjamin. 19Geber son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the land of Shihor king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan. And one prefect who was in the land of Judah. 20And Israel was multitudinous as the sand of the sea in multitude, eating and drinking and rejoicing.
CHAPTER 4 NOTES
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1. And Solomon was king over all Israel. This declaration of his sovereignty over the entire nation prefaces the catalogue of his royal bureaucracy.
2. And these are the names of the officials he had. Everything that follows in this chapter is another indication of the composite character of the Solomon narrative. First we have the story of his ascent to the throne, which is actually the last episode of the David story and manifestly written by its brilliant author. Then we are given the report of Solomon’s dream-vision in which he asks for the gift of wisdom, which is followed by the folktale of Solomon’s Judgment, illustrating the exercise of that wisdom. Now we are presented with two documents listing the royal bureaucracy. The first lists the members of his cabinet in the Jerusalem court, and the second the prefects overseeing the sundry regions of the country and making sure each supplies its due provision—a form of taxation—to the royal court. Both these sections may be old documents, though there are at least a few seemingly scrambled entries and probably some later additions.
son of Zadok. Zadok is the priest who sided with Solomon in his struggle for the throne. Not surprisingly, several of the members of the king’s inner circle listed here are either his supporters, or the sons of his supporters, in that struggle.
4. Benaiah. He is the man Solomon sent to kill Joab.
6. forced labor. Conscripted labor on behalf of the king was another instrument of taxation.
8. Ben-Hur. An oddity of the list of prefects is that many names are given with patronymic only and no first name.
19. And one prefect who was in the land of Judah. The Masoretic Text reads “And one prefect who was in the land.” The next verse then begins “Judah and Israel were multitudinous.” That division of the text is problematic for two reasons: it is unclear what a prefect “in the land,” with no specified territory to supervise, would be doing; beginning a new sentence without an introductory “and” (simply, “Judah”) diverges from the norm of biblical narrative style. The assumption of this translation is that in addition to the twelve prefects named, there was to be a thirteenth prefect, perhaps designated ad hoc by the king, over the king’s own tribal territory, which would also be obliged to make an annual contribution to the court.
20. eating and drinking and rejoicing. The last term of this series could also mean “making merry.” Although all the regions of the country have to make annual contributions to the court, the implication of this verse is that the prosperity—contrary to Samuel’s dire warnings about the monarchy in 1 Samuel 8—was shared by the entire country as its population swelled.