1 Kings 4:7

_AND SOLOMON HAD TWELVE OFFICERS OVER ALL ISRAEL, WHICH PROVIDED VICTUALS FOR THE KING AND HIS HOUSEHOLD: EACH MAN HIS MONTH IN A YEAR MADE PROVISION._ Twelve officers over all Israel. The royal revenues were raised according to the ancient, and still existing in many parts, usage of the East, not in money payments, but in the produce of the soil. There would always be a considerable difficulty in the collection and transmission of these tithes (1 Samuel 8:15); and therefore, to facilitate the work, Solomon appointed twelve officers, who had each the charge of a tribe or particular district of country, from which, in monthly rotation, the supplies for the maintenance of the king's household were drawn, having first been deposited in 'the store cities' which were erected for their reception (1

1-19 In the choice of the great officers of Solomon's court, no doubt, his wisdom appeared. Several are the same that were in his father's time. A plan was settled by which no part of the country was exhausted to supply his court, though each sent its portion....

Verse 1 Kings 4:7. _TWELVE OFFICERS_] The business of these twelve officers was to provide daily, each for a month, those provisions which were consumed in the king's household; see 1 Kings 4:22-11. And the task for such a daily provision was not an easy one....

The requirement of a portion of their produce from subjects, in addition to money payments, is a common practice of Oriental monarchs. It obtained in ancient, and it still obtains in modern, Persia....

EXPOSITION SOLOMON'S STATE AND COURT OFFICIALS.—The account of Solomon's marriage and entry upon his religious and judicious functions is appropriately followed by a description of his court, of the great functionaries of the realm, of his royal state and magnificence, and, lastly, of his varied and unprecedented wisdom. It must not be supposed, however, from the occurrence of the lists in this particular place, that they necessarily represent the appointments of the early part of Solomon's reign. The mention of two of the married daughters of the king (1 Kings 4:11, 1 Kings 4:15) has been generally thought to prove that the record belongs to a much later period, and it certainly affords a powerful presumption

AND SOLOMON HAD TWELVE OFFICERS OVER ALL ISRAEL,.... Not with respect to the twelve tribes of Israel, for it does not appear that they had each of them a tribe under them, but some particular places in a tribe; but with respect to the twelve months of the year, in which each took his turn: WHICH PROVIDED VICTUALS FOR THE KING AND HIS HOUSEHOLD: EACH MAN HIS MONTH IN A YEAR MADE PROVISION; furnished food of all sorts out of the country in which they presided for the space of one month in a year; by which means there was always a plenty of provisions at court for the king's family, and for all strangers that came and went, and no one part of the land was burdened or drained, nor the price of provisions raised; these seem to be the twelve "phylarchi", or governors of tribes, Eupolemus r, an Heathen writer, speaks of, before whom, and the high priest, David delivered the kingdom to Solomon;...

3. SOLOMON'S PRINCES AND OFFICERS THE PROSPEROUS KINGDOM AND THE KING'S GREAT WISDOM CHAPTER 4 _ 1. The Princes (1 Kings 4:1)_ 2. The Officers (1 Kings 4:7) 3. The prosperous kingdom (1 Kings 4:20) 4. Solomon's great wisdom (1 Kings 4:29) “So King Solomon was king over all Israel.” A list of the princes and the twelve officers is given first. Their names fit in perfectly with the character of the kingdom, foreshadowing the coming and better kingdom of our Lord. We give the names of the princes with their meaning. Azariah, “Jehovah is help”; Elihoreph, “my God is reward”; Ahiah, “Brother of Jeho

1 KINGS 3:1 TO 1 KINGS 4:34. EARLY DAYS, REIGN, AND WISDOM OF SOLOMON. The sources of this section are various, and the arrangement of the narrative in the LXX should be noticed. There are (_a_) a statistical account of Solomon s reign, referred to, apparently in 1 Kings 11:41, as the book of the acts of Solomon; (_b_) a number of narratives about this reign; (_c_) several Deuteronomic additions_ e.g._ 1 Kings 3:6; 1 Kings 3:14, etc.: and (_d_) some very late passages, possibly originally explanatory notes. The history of Solomon's reign

TWELVE OFFICERS. Compare David's twelve captains (lChron. 1Ki 27:2-15)....

_twelve officers_ The stations of these men were in different parts of the country, and each for his month had to gather from the district assigned to him contributions in kind for the royal household....