1 Kings 9 · a question people ask
Did Solomon make Israelites into forced laborers?
Chapter 5 asked this too, and the verses still stand side by side. This chapter 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) (tap levy). "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" (9:22) (tap bondservants). Chapter 5 said, "King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men" (5:13). Later Solomon put Jeroboam "in charge of all the labor of the house of Joseph" (11:28), and after Solomon's death the people say to his son, "Your father made our yoke difficult" (12:4). 2 Chronicles tells 9:22 in its own words: "But of the children of Israel, Solomon made no servants for his work" (2 Chronicles 8:9). 1 Kings doesn't say how these verses fit together, and these notes quote each one and leave them side by side.
The verses
“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.”
“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.”
“King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men.”
“The man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor; and Solomon saw that the young man was industrious, and he put him in charge of all the labor of the house of Joseph.”