1 Kings 4

1King Solomon ruled as king over all Israel.

2These were his high officials: Azariah son of Zadok was the priest;

3Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha, served as secretaries; the recorder was Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud; 4Benaiah son of Jehoiada was commander of the army; Zadok and Abiathar were priests;

5Azariah son of Nathan was in charge of the district governors; Zabud son of Nathan was a priest and the king’s friend; 6Ahishar was in charge of the palace, and Adoniram son of Abda had charge of the forced labor.

7Solomon had twelve district governors over all Israel, who supplied food for the king and his household. Each of them had to provide for one month in the year.

8These are their names: Ben-hur, in the hill country of Ephraim;

9Ben-deker, in Makaz, Shaalbim, Beth-shemesh and Elon-beth-hanan;

10Ben-hesed, in Arubboth; Socoh and all the land of Hepher were his;

11Ben-abinadab, all Naphath-dor (Taphath, Solomon’s daughter, was his wife);

12Baana son of Ahilud, in Taanach and Megiddo and all Beth-shean beside Zarethan below Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah and on beyond Jokmeam;

13Ben-geber, in Ramoth-gilead. The villages of Jair son of Manasseh in Gilead were his, and so was the region of Argob in Bashan: sixty large cities with walls and bronze bars;

14Ahinadab son of Iddo, in Mahanaim; 15Ahimaaz, in Naphtali (he too had married a daughter of Solomon, Basemath); 16Baana son of Hushai, 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 territory of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan. In the land there was one governor. 20Judah and Israel were as many as the sand by the sea; they ate and drank and were glad.

21Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines and as far as the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon throughout his life.

22Solomon’s provisions for a single day were about 180 bushels of fine flour and about 360 bushels of meal, 23ten fattened cattle, twenty cattle from the pasture and a hundred sheep and goats, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks and fattened birds. 24For he had dominion over the whole region west of the Euphrates, from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all the kings west of the Euphrates, and he had peace on every side all around him. 25Judah and Israel lived in safety, everyone under their own vine and under their own fig tree, from Dan to Beersheba, all through Solomon’s lifetime.

26Solomon had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 horsemen. 27These officers provided for King Solomon and for everyone who came to King Solomon’s table, each in his month. They saw to it that nothing was lacking. 28They also brought barley and straw for the horses and the swift horses to the place where it was needed, each according to his assignment.

29God gave Solomon wisdom and very great understanding, and a breadth of mind as vast as the sand on the seashore. 30Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the peoples of the east and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. 31He was wiser than anyone else, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. His fame spread to all the surrounding nations. 32He spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs numbered 1,005. 33He spoke about trees, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop growing out of the wall, and he spoke about animals, birds, creeping things and fish. 34People came from all the nations to hear Solomon’s wisdom; they came on behalf of all the kings of the earth, who had heard how wise he was.