1 Kings 10:10

And she gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold Large presents of this nature are still the rule among Oriental princes when they visit one another. Josephus however, contrary to his wont, has a less sum here, making the gift only -twenty talents" (Ant. viii. 6, 6). According to our text, the queen's present was the same as that which Hiram gave (see above 1 Kings 9:14).

there came no more such abundance of spices Josephus adds to this statement -and they say that the root of the opobalsamum (i.e. the balsam tree), which our land still produces, came to us among her gifts."

And the navy also of Hiram This verse and the next are a parenthetic insertion, brought in by the mention of the spices in the previous verse. Hiram's fleet went to distant parts, and in the direction of Sheba, but for all that it brought back no such spicery among its imports. This navy is no doubt the same which was spoken of in the previous chapter (1 Kings 9:26-28). It is called Hiram's because he supplied the wood for building it, and the sailors for its manning.

great plenty of almug trees The name is spelt in the text of Chronicles -algum" (2 Chronicles 2:8; 2 Chronicles 9:10-11), and is probably a word adopted from the language of the country where the wood was produced, and about the spelling of which Hebrew writers were not very sure, as Englishmen were not in former days about tea, which may be found spelt -tcha." What the wood was is a question of some difficulty. It was clearly an imported article, for what is said 2 Chronicles 2:8, -Send me algum trees out of Lebanon," must be understood not of trees growing there, but of wood which the Tyrians procured in their trade, and would send along with the timber which grew on Lebanon. The Rabbinical writers use almugfor coral, and if this be an old Hebrew word, it may have been applied to these trees, because of the colour of their wood. But about the antiquity of the word we have no evidence. Most moderns incline to the opinion that sandal-wood is intended, though some, considering the words of 2 Chronicles 2:8 to imply a tree grown on Lebanon, prefer to regard it as a kind of cedar or cypress. Evidently the LXX. had no light on the subject, the renderings there given being πελεκητὰ (or ἀπελέκητα) and πεύκινα. The Vulgate renders it thyina, the wood of the θυία, which is akin to the Arbor vitœ. Some of the uses to which it was put, as mentioned in the next verse, seem to require a stouter material than sandal-wood.

Josephus (Ant.viii. 7, i) calls the trees ξύλα πεύκινα, but says it was unlike the wood which went by the name of pinein his day. -Let no one suppose," he says, -that this wood was like that called pine woodnow, and which sellers call so for the bewilderment of buyers. The wood spoken of here resembles the wood of the fig tree, but is whiter and glitters more."