1 Kings 4:20

Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
Judah	יְהוּדָ֤ה ye.hu.Dah	H3063	Jehudah (or Judah) · proper noun, a place name
Israel	וְיִשְׂרָאֵל֙ ve.Yis.ra.'El	H3478	Jisrael · conjunction + proper noun, a place name
many	רַבִּ֔ים ra.Bim	H7227	abundant (in quantity · adjective, masculine plural absolute
sand	כַּח֥וֹל ka.Chol	H2344	sand (as round or whirling particles) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
sea	הַיָּ֖ם hai.Yam	H3220	a sea (as breaking in noisy surf) or large body of water · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
multitude	לָרֹ֑ב la.Ro	H7230	abundance (in any respect) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
eating	אֹכְלִ֥ים 'o.khe.Lim	H398	to eat (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural absolute
drinking	וְשֹׁתִ֖ים ve.sho.Tim	H8354	to imbibe (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + verb, qal active participle, masculine plural absolute
merry	וּשְׂמֵחִֽים u.se.me.Chim	H8056	blithe or gleeful · conjunction + adjective, masculine plural absolute

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Genesis 22:17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon th…
1 Kings 3:8 And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude.
Genesis 32:12 And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.
Genesis 13:16 And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.
Genesis 15:5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him,…
1 Samuel 30:16 And when he had brought him down, behold, they were spread abroad upon all the earth, eating and drinking, and dancing, because of all the g…
1 Chronicles 12:39 And there they were with David three days, eating and drinking: for their brethren had prepared for them.
Job 1:18 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest broth…

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on 1 Kings 4:20-28

Such a kingdom, and such a court, surely never any prince had, as Solomon's are here described to be. I. Such a kingdom. Never did the crown of Israel shine so brightly as it did when Solomon wore it, never in his father's days, never in the days of any of his successors; nor was that kingdom ever so glorious a type of the kingdom of the Messiah as it was then. The account here given of it is such as fully answers the prophecies which we have concerning it in Ps. 72, which is a psalm for Solomon, but with reference to Christ. 1. The territories of his kingdom were large and its tributaries many; so it was foretold that he should have dominion from sea to sea, Psa 72:8-11. Solomon reigned not…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on 1 Kings 4:8

The son of Hur--or, as the Margin has it, Benhur, Bendekar. In the rural parts of Syria, and among the Arabs, it is still common to designate persons not by their own names, but as the sons of their fathers.

Adam Clarke on 1 Kings 4:20

Eating and drinking, and making merry - They were very comfortable, very rich, very merry, and very corrupt. And this full feeding and dissipation led to a total corruption of manners.

John Gill on 1 Kings 4:20

Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude,.... Being blessed with great fruitfulness in their families, and having no pestilential disease among them, nor wars to lessen their number, and so the promise to Abraham was fulfilled, Genesis 22:17; and which was an emblem of Christ's spiritual subjects, especially in the latter day, whom Solomon was a type of, see Hosea 1:10; eating, and drinking, and making merry; having a large increase of the fruits of the earth, and in no fear of any enemies; expressive of the spiritual joy of believers in the kingdom of Christ, and under the word and ordinances, Sol 2:3.

Keil & Delitzsch

Dictionary and topics

Holy Land · Prosperity of, in Solomon’s reign — Prosperity of, in Solomon’s reign
Tax · Paid in provisions — Paid in provisions

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

1 Kings 4:20

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on 1 Kings 4:20-28

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on 1 Kings 4:8

Adam Clarke on 1 Kings 4:20

John Gill on 1 Kings 4:20

Keil & Delitzsch

Dictionary and topics

1 Kings 4:20

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on 1 Kings 4:20-28

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on 1 Kings 4:8

Adam Clarke on 1 Kings 4:20

John Gill on 1 Kings 4:20

Keil & Delitzsch

Dictionary and topics

Tyndale Open Study Notes on 1 Kings 4:20-21

Rashi on 1 Kings 4:19