Chapter Text
4:1 So King Solomon was king over all Israel.
4:2 These were his officials: Azariah the son of Zadok was the priest;
4:3 Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha were scribes; Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the recorder;
4:4 and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the army; and Zadok and Abiathar were priests;
4:5 and Azariah the son of Nathan was over the deputies; and Zabud the son of Nathan, a priest, was the king’s friend;
4:6 and Ahishar was over the household; and Adoniram the son of Abda was over the men subject to forced labor.
4:7 Now Solomon had twelve deputies over all Israel, who sustained the king and his household; each man had to sustain them for a month in the year.
4:8 These are their names: Ben-hur, in the hill country of Ephraim;
4:9 Ben-deker in Makaz and Shaalbim and Beth-shemesh and Elonbeth-hanan;
4:10 Ben-hesed, in Arubboth (Socoh was his and all the land of Hepher);
4:11 Ben-abinadab, in all the height of Dor (Taphath the daughter of Solomon was his wife);
4:12 Baana the son of Ahilud, in Taanach and Megiddo, and all Beth-shean which is beside Zarethan below Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah as far as the other side of Jokmeam;
4:13 Ben-geber, in Ramoth-gilead (now Havvoth-Jair—Jair being the son of Manasseh—which is in Gilead was his: the region of Argob, which is in Bashan, sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars were his);
4:14 Ahinadab the son of Iddo, in Mahanaim;
4:15 Ahimaaz, in Naphtali (he also married Basemath the daughter of Solomon);
4:16 Baana the son of Hushai, in Asher and Bealoth;
4:17 Jehoshaphat the son of Paruah, in Issachar;
4:18 Shimei the son of Ela, in Benjamin;
4:19 Geber the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan; and he was the only deputy who was in the land.
4:20 Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance; they were eating and drinking and being glad.
4:21 Now Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt; they brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.
4:22 And Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty kors of fine flour and sixty kors of meal,
4:23 ten fat oxen, twenty pasture-fed oxen, one hundred sheep besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fattened fowl.
4:24 For he had dominion over everything west of the River, from Tiphsah even to Gaza, over all the kings west of the River; and he had peace on all sides around about him.
4:25 So Judah and Israel lived in security, every man under his vine and his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.
4:26 Solomon had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 horsemen.
4:27 And these deputies sustained King Solomon and all who came to King Solomon’s table, each in his month; they left nothing lacking.
4:28 They also brought barley and straw for the horses and swift steeds to the place where it should be, each according to the legal judgment for him.
4:29 And God gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment and breadth of understanding in his heart, like the sand that is on the seashore.
4:30 And Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the sons of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt.
4:31 And he was wiser than all men, than Ethan the Ezrahite, Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and the renown of his name was in all the surrounding nations.
4:32 He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005.
4:33 And he spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that grows on the wall; he spoke also of animals and birds and creeping things and fish.
4:34 And men came from all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom.