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1 Kings 5 · a question people ask

Did Solomon make Israelites into forced laborers?

In the text

This chapter says, "King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men" (5:13), who worked in Lebanon "for a month" and were "two months at home" (5:14). Chapter 9 says, "This is the reason of the forced labor which King Solomon conscripted: to build the LORD’s house, his own house, Millo, Jerusalem’s wall, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer" (9:15). Of the peoples left in the land, "of them Solomon raised a levy of bondservants to this day" (9:21). "But of the children of Israel Solomon made no bondservants" (9:22). In Hebrew 5:13 has mas, and 9:21 has mas 'oved, which the WEB gives as "a levy of bondservants" (tap levy). And after Solomon's death the people say to his son, "Your father made our yoke difficult" (12:4). 1 Kings doesn't say how these verses fit together, and these notes quote each one and leave them side by side.

The verses

“King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men. He sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses: for a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home; and Adoniram was over the men subject to forced labor.”
1 Kings 5:13-14 · World English Bible
“This is the reason of the forced labor which King Solomon conscripted: to build the LORD’s house, his own house, Millo, Jerusalem’s wall, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.”
1 Kings 9:15 · World English Bible
“As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel— their children who were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel were not able utterly to destroy—of them Solomon raised a levy of bondservants to this day. But of the children of Israel Solomon made no bondservants; but they were the men of war, his servants, his princes, his captains, and rulers of his chariots and of his horsemen.”
1 Kings 9:20-22 · World English Bible
““Your father made our yoke difficult. Now therefore make the hard service of your father, and his heavy yoke which he put on us, lighter, and we will serve you.””
1 Kings 12:4 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 1 Kings 5

1 Kings 5: A house for the name

Solomon's first step toward the LORD's house quotes the promise to David: "shall build the house for my name" (5:5), the Hebrew of "He will build a house for my name" (2 Samuel 7:13) with the for a. And when he says there is "no enemy" (5:4), the Hebrew word is satan, the word 1 Kings uses only three more times, for the adversaries God raises up against Solomon in chapter 11.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions