1 Kings 5 · a question people ask
Were there 3,300 overseers, or 3,600?
1 Kings says, "besides Solomon’s chief officers who were over the work: three thousand three hundred who ruled over the people who labored in the work" (5:16). 2 Chronicles, telling how "Solomon decided to build a house for the LORD’s name" (2 Chronicles 2:1), has "three thousand six hundred to oversee them" (2 Chronicles 2:2), and again, "He set seventy thousand of them to bear burdens, eighty thousand who were stone cutters in the mountains, and three thousand six hundred overseers to assign the people their work" (2 Chronicles 2:18). The seventy thousand and eighty thousand are the same in both books (5:15; 2 Chronicles 2:2, 2:18). 2 Chronicles also says who they were, which 1 Kings 5 doesn't: "Solomon counted all the foreigners who were in the land of Israel" (2 Chronicles 2:17), and "set seventy thousand of them" to bear burdens (2 Chronicles 2:18). The overseers differ: three thousand three hundred in 1 Kings, three thousand six hundred in 2 Chronicles. The Bible doesn't explain the difference, and these notes don't try to.
The verses
“Solomon had seventy thousand who bore burdens, and eighty thousand who were stone cutters in the mountains, besides Solomon’s chief officers who were over the work: three thousand three hundred who ruled over the people who labored in the work.”
“Now Solomon decided to build a house for the LORD’s name, and a house for his kingdom. Solomon counted out seventy thousand men to bear burdens, eighty thousand men who were stone cutters in the mountains, and three thousand six hundred to oversee them.”
“Solomon counted all the foreigners who were in the land of Israel, after the census with which David his father had counted them; and they found one hundred fifty-three thousand six hundred. He set seventy thousand of them to bear burdens, eighty thousand who were stone cutters in the mountains, and three thousand six hundred overseers to assign the people their work.”