1 Kings 9:13

What citiesare these which thou hast given me? No doubt spoken with a tone of reproach and disappointment. The language of Josephus is -he said to Solomon that he did not want the cities." They are just alluded to in Chronicles (2 Chronicles 8:2) as -the cities which Huram restored to Solomon."

my brother This form of address between persons of royal rank has been always common. Cf. 1 Kings 20:32-33; 1Ma 10:18; 1Ma 11:30; 2Ma 11:22. It need not necessarily imply friendly feeling.

And he called them Or the Hebrew may mean -and one called them" which was a common form to signify -they were called." We need not therefore of necessity impute the contemptuous name to Hiram. Josephus gives προσηγορεύθησαν

the land of Cabul This appellation was given to indicate, what is stated in the text, that they were unsatisfactory. But it is not easy to know whence the name comes. There is a town so called in Joshua (Joshua 19:27) which was situated in the tribe of Asher. This tribe was in North Galilee but there would be no significance in the name, if it were already that of one of the twenty cities given to Hiram. The LXX. appears to have taken כבול (Cabul) to be the same as נבול (gebul) for they render the name Ὅριον, a boundary. Josephus transliterates by Χαβαλών, and adds that this word in Phœnician means -not pleasing," an interpretation, as it seems, which he evolved from the context. Some of the Hebrew commentators have connected the name with a verb which in Aramaic signifies -to bind," and have explained that the district was sandy or muddy, and that the feet were always deep sunk in the mire. A later derivation has taken the word to mean -worth nothing," as if from כ = as, and בול = בל = nothing. There are many other attempts at explanation but none that can be pronounced satisfactory.