Commentaria in II Paralipomenon
Chapter 8
Solomon builds his palace and many cities; he subdues the remnants of the Chanaanites; he appoints the appointed victims to be sacrificed at the king’s expense; he distributes the offices of the priests and Levites according to David’s ordinance; a fleet being sent to Ophir, he receives from there four hundred and fifty talents of gold.
1. And at the end of twenty years, after Solomon had built the house of the Lord and his own house: 2. he built the cities which Hiram had given to Solomon, and made the children of Israel dwell there. 3. He went also into Emath Suba, and took it. 4. And he built Palmira in the desert, and other strong cities he built in Emath. 5. And he built Bethoron the upper, and Bethoron the nether, walled cities, having gates, and bars, and locks: 6. Balaath also, and all the strongest cities that were Solomon’s, and all the cities of the chariots, and the cities of the horsemen, all that Solomon desired and designed he built in Jerusalem and in Libanus, and in all the land of his dominion. 7. All the people that were left of the Hethites, and the Amorrhites, and the Pherezites, and the Hevites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the stock of Israel: 8. of their children, and of their posterity, whom the children of Israel had not slain, Solomon made tributaries unto this day. 9. But of the children of Israel he made no bondmen for the king’s works: for they were men of war, and chief captains, and rulers of his chariots and horsemen. 10. And all the chief officers of king Solomon’s army were two hundred and fifty, who instructed the people. 11. And he removed the daughter of Pharao out of the city of David, to the house which he had built for her. For the king said: My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, because it is sanctified: for the ark of the Lord hath come into it. 12. Then Solomon offered holocausts to the Lord upon the altar of the Lord, which he had built before the porch, 13. that it might be offered thereon every day according to the commandment of Moses, on the sabbaths, and on the calends, and on the festival days, three times a year, that is, on the solemnity of the unleavened bread, and on the solemnity of weeks, and on the solemnity of tabernacles. 14. And he appointed, according to the ordinance of David his father, the offices of the priests in their ministries: and the Levites in their order, to praise and to minister before the priests, according to the rite of every day: and the porters in their divisions, at gate and gate: for so David the man of God had commanded. 15. And neither priests nor Levites departed from the king’s commandments in any thing that he had commanded, and in the keeping of the treasures. 16. Solomon had all the expenses prepared, from the day that he founded the house of the Lord until the day that he finished it. 17. Then Solomon went to Asiongaber, and to Ailath, on the shore of the Red Sea, which is in the land of Edom. 18. And Hiram sent him by the hands of his servants ships, and sailors who had knowledge of the sea, and they went with the servants of Solomon to Ophir, and took from thence four hundred and fifty talents of gold, and brought them to king Solomon.
I explained this chapter in 3 Kings IX, 10 and following.
Verse 2. The cities which Hiram had given (that is, had restored) to Solomon.
Verse 17. Solomon went (either in person or by his ministers and officers) to Asiongaber.—This is a port of the Red Sea, from which the passage to the East Indies is easy and near; whence you may gather that Ophir was in the East Indies, not the West, namely in Pegu, not in Peru. For not in Peru, but in Pegu are found apes, peacocks, ivory, gems, spices, and thyine wood, which this fleet of Ophir brought to Solomon. This port is called Berenice by Josephus, Antiquities, book III, chapter VI, and Elath by St. Jerome; today it is called Suez.