Solomon

He was the son of a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a craftsman in bronze. Huram had great skill, understanding, and knowledge for every kind of bronze work. So he came to King Solomon and carried out all his work.

Additionally, Huram made the pots, shovels, and sprinkling bowls. So Huram finished all the work that he had undertaken for King Solomon in the house of the LORD:

and the pots, shovels, and sprinkling bowls. All the articles that Huram made for King Solomon in the house of the LORD were made of burnished bronze.

Solomon left all these articles unweighed, because there were so many. The weight of the bronze could not be determined.

Solomon also made all the furnishings for the house of the LORD: the golden altar; the golden table on which was placed the Bread of the Presence;

So all the work that King Solomon had performed for the house of the LORD was completed. Then Solomon brought in the items his father David had dedicated—the silver, the gold, and the furnishings—and he placed them in the treasuries of the house of the LORD.

At that time Solomon assembled before him in Jerusalem the elders of Israel—all the tribal heads and family leaders of the Israelites—to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD from Zion, the City of David.

And all the men of Israel came together to King Solomon at the feast in the seventh month, the month of Ethanim.

There, before the ark, King Solomon and the whole congregation of Israel who had assembled with him sacrificed so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered.

Then Solomon declared: “The LORD has said that He would dwell in the thick cloud.

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven,

Now when Solomon had finished praying this entire prayer and petition to the LORD, he got up before the altar of the LORD, where he had been kneeling with his hands spread out toward heaven.

And Solomon offered as peace offerings to the LORD 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the Israelites dedicated the house of the LORD.

So at that time Solomon and all Israel with him—a great assembly of people from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt—kept the feast before the LORD our God for seven days and seven more days—fourteen days in all.

Now when Solomon had finished building the house of the LORD and the royal palace, and had achieved all that he had desired to do,

the LORD appeared to him a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon.

Now at the end of the twenty years during which Solomon built these two houses, the house of the LORD and the royal palace,

King Solomon gave twenty towns in the land of Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, who had supplied him with cedar and cypress logs and gold for his every desire.

So Hiram went out from Tyre to inspect the towns that Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them.

This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon imposed to build the house of the LORD, his own palace, the supporting terraces, and the wall of Jerusalem, as well as Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.

So Solomon rebuilt Gezer, Lower Beth-horon,

as well as all the store cities that Solomon had for his chariots and horses—whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, and throughout the land of his dominion.

their descendants who remained in the land, those whom the Israelites were unable to devote to destruction—Solomon conscripted these people to be forced laborers, as they are to this day.

But Solomon did not consign any of the Israelites to slavery, because they were his men of war, his servants, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and cavalry.