NOTES for Ch2 8:1-18

Before us is a list of some of Solomon’s orders. We see that they mostly concern construction and economic needs, but above all the care of the Temple. True, the war for Hamath-zobah is also mentioned here in passing, but the mention is lost amid the description of daily economic concerns. This is no accident: war is not Solomon’s chief occupation.

That Solomon made the descendants of the peoples conquered by the Israelites liable to forced labor appears in our day to be an expression of social and national inequality and oppression. It is pointless to deny this. Even so, the situation in Solomon’s kingdom should be compared not with present-day ideas of social justice, which humanity would need centuries to reach, but with the customs prevailing at that time. Solomon did not exterminate them or even turn them into slaves; he merely imposed economic duties on them. Let us recall at least:

“The yoke of ancient forced labor
He replaced with lighter rent,
And the slave blessed his lot...”

In time Solomon would make many wrong choices. But while the Temple is being built, he remembers for whose sake the building is undertaken.