Matthew Henry on 1 Kings 5:10–end
Here is, I. The performance of the agreement between Solomon and Hiram. Each of the parties made good his engagement. 1. Hiram delivered Solomon the timber, according to his bargain, Kg1 5:10. The trees were Solomon's, but perhaps - Materiam superabat opus - The workmanship was of more value than the article. Hiram is therefore said to deliver the trees. 2. Solomon conveyed to Hiram the corn which he had promised him, Kg1 5:11. Thus let justice be followed (as the expression is, Deu 16:20), justice on both sides, in every bargain.
II. The confirmation of the friendship that was between them hereby. God gave Solomon wisdom (Kg1 5:12), which was more and better than any thing Hiram did or coul…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 1 Kings 5:11
food to his household--This was an annual supply for the palace, different from that mentioned in Ch2 2:10, which was for the workmen in the forests.
Adam Clarke on 1 Kings 5:11
And Solomon gave Hiram, etc. - The information in this verse of the annual stipend paid to Hiram, is deficient, and must be supplied out of Ch2 2:10. Here twenty thousand measures of wheat, and twenty measures of pure oil, is all that is promised: there, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, twenty thousand measures of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil, is the stipulation; unless we suppose the first to be for Hiram's own family, the latter for his workmen. Instead of twenty measures of oil, the Syriac, Arabic, and Septuagint, have twenty thousand measures, as in Chronicles. In 2 Chron., instead of cors of oil, it is baths. The bath was a measure muc…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on 1 Kings 5:11
And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household,.... This measure was the Hebrew measure "cor", or "corus", and, according to Bishop Cumberland (e), its contents were 17,477 solid inches; it was equal to ten ephahs, each of which held two gallons and an half, and the cor held seventy five wine gallons five pints, and somewhat more; according to some (f), what it held was equal to six hundred forty eight Roman pounds; so that twenty thousand of them contained 12,960,000 pounds of wheat:
and twenty measures of pure oil; squeezed out of the olives without breaking them; the same kind of measure is here expressed as before, and the quantity answered to 12,960…
