early Assyrian monuments we do indeed find high seats depicted, which are very artistically worked, and provided with backs and arms, and some with the arms supported by figures of animals (see Layard's Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. p. 301), but none resembling Solomon's throne. It is not till a later age that the more splendid thrones appear (vid., Rosenmüller, A. u. N. Morgenland, iii. pp. 176ff.).
Verses 21-22
The drinking vessels of Solomon also were all of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon of costly gold (סגוּר: see at 1Ki 6:20). Silver was counted as nothing, because the Tarshish fleet arrived once in three years, bringing gold, silver, etc. (see at 1Ki 9:28).
In 1Ki 10:23-29 everything that had to be stated concerning the wealth, wisdom, and revenue of Solomon is summed up as conclusion (cf. 2Ch 9:22-28 and 2Ch 1:14-17).
Verses 23-25
1Ki 10:23-25 1Ki 10:23, 1Ki 10:24 point back to 1Ki 5:9-14. ויּגדּל: Solomon became greater, not was greater, on account of the Vâv consec. כּל־הארץ, all the world, corresponds to כּל־העמּים in 1Ki 5:14. The foreigners out of all lands, who came on account of his wisdom, brought Solomon presents: gold and silver vessels, clothes (שׂלמות, court dresses, which are still customary presents in the East), נשׁק, armour, spices, horses and mules.
Verses 26-27
1Ki 10:26-27 1Ki 10:26 is simply a repetition of 1Ki 5:6 (compare also 1Ki 9:19); and 1Ki 10:27 is merely a further extension of 1Ki 10:21. The words of 1Ki 10:27, “Solomon made silver like stones in Jerusalem, and cedars like the sycamores in the lowland for abundance,” are a hyperbolical description of his collection of enormous quantities of precious metals and costly wood. שׁקמים, sycomori, mulberry fig-trees, are very rare in Palestine in its present desolate state (see Rob. Pal. iii. 27), and are only met in any abundance in Egypt; but in ancient times they abounded in the lowlands of Palestine to such an extent, that they were used as common building wood (vid., Isa 9:9, on which Theodoret observes, τούτων (συκαμίνων) ἡ Παλαιστίνη πεπλήρωται). According to 1Ch 27:28, the sycamore forests in the lowland of Judah were royal domains.
Verses 28-29
1Ki 10:28-29 (cf. 2Ch 1:16-17). “And (as for) the going out of horses from Egypt for Solomon, a company of king's merchants fetched (horses) for a definite price.” This is the only possible explanation of the verse according to the Masoretic punctuation; but to obtain it, the first מקוה must be connected with סחרי in opposition to the accents, and the second must be pointed מקוה. This is the rendering adopted by Gesenius
