etc., supplies a more precise definition of the expression “all the people,” etc., in 1Ki 9:20.
Verses 22-23
Solomon did not make Israelites into tributary slaves; but they were warriors, ministers, and civil and military officers. עבדים are the king's servants; שׂרים, the heads of the military and civil service; שׁלשׁים, royal adjutants (see at 2Sa 23:8); וּפרשׁיו רכבּו שׂרי, captains over the royal war-chariots and cavalry. - For 1Ki 9:23 compare 1Ki 5:16.
Verses 24-25
1Ki 9:24-25 1Ki 9:24, 1Ki 9:25 contain two notices, with which the account of Solomon's buildings is brought to a close. Both verses point back to 1Ki 3:1-4 (viz., 1Ki 9:24 to 1Ki 3:1, and 1Ki 9:25 to 1Ki 3:2-4), and show how the incongruities which existed at the commencement of Solomon's reign were removed by his buildings. When Solomon married Pharaoh's daughter, he brought her into the city of David (1Ki 3:1), until he should have finished his palace and built her a house of her own within it. After this building was completed, he had her brought up from the city of David into it. עלה, came up, inasmuch as the palace stood upon the loftier summit of Zion. אך is to be connected with אז which follows, in the sense of only or just as: as soon as Pharaoh's daughter had gone up into the house built for her, Solomon built Millo.[1]
Verse 25
After the building of the temple, the practice of sacrificing upon the altars of the high places could be brought to an end (1Ki 3:2). Solomon now offered burnt-offerings and thank-offerings three times a year upon the altar which he had built to the Lord, i.e., upon the altar of burnt-offering in the temple, or as
- ↑ Nothing certain can be gathered from this notice as to the situation of this castle. The remark made by Thenius, to the effect that it must have joined that portion of the palace in which the harem was, rests upon the assumption that Millo was evidently intended to shelter the harem, - an assumption which cannot be raised into a probability, to say nothing of a certainty. The building of Millo immediately after the entrance of Pharaoh's daughter into the house erected for her, may have arisen from the fact that David (? Solomon - Tr.) could not undertake the fortification of Jerusalem by means of this castle till after his own palace was finished, because he had not the requisite labour at command for carrying on all these buildings at the same time.
