Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Kings 5:16
Beside the chief of Solomon’s officers which [were] over the work, three thousand and three hundred, which ruled over the people that wrought in the work.
16. three thousand and three hundred ] This number differs by 300 from that given in the Chronicles. If the total of the census of the strangers there given be correct, then we ought to read 3600 as the number of the overseers. The LXX. has , and adds that they were employed for 3 years in preparing the stones and the wood.
The stone work was most probably given to the levy of strangers and the work of cutting and dressing timber to the 10,000 Israelites who came month and month about. The word rendered ‘hewers’ in 1Ki 5:15 is so regularly used of workers in stone, that the LXX. nearly always renders the verb by and its participle by (stone cutters).
which ruled over the people ] The root-sense of the verb, which is ‘to trample on,’ or ‘break down,’ gives the idea that the ruling was after the fashion of taskmasters.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Comparing this verse and 1Ki 9:23 with 2Ch 2:18; 2Ch 8:10, the entire number of the overseers will be seen to be stated by both writers at 3,850; but in the one case nationality, in the other degree of authority, is made the principle of the division.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 16. Besides – three thousand and three hundred which ruled over the people] In the parallel place, 2Ch 2:18, it is three thousand six hundred. The Septuagint has here the same number.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Whereof 3000 were set over the 150,000, expressed 1Ki 5:15, each of these over 50 of them, and the odd 300 were set ever these 3000, each of these to have the oversight of ten of them, to take an account of the work from them. But in 2Ch 2:18, these overseers are said to be 3600.
Answ. The 300 added in 2Ch 2 might be a reserve, to supply the places of the other 3000; yea, or of the 3300; as any of them should be taken off from the work by death, or sickness, or weakness, or necessary occasions; which was a prudent provision, and not unusual in such-like cases. And so there were 3600 commissioned for the work, but only 3300 employed at one time; and therefore both computations may fairly stand together. Some learned men add, that those 3600 were strangers, which indeed is manifest from 2Ch 2:17; and that those 3330 were a distinct number of men, and Israelites, which were set over all the rest, both strangers and Israelites; who therefore are here called the
chief of Solomons officers, and are said to rule over the workmen; whereas all that is said of those 3600, 2Ch 2:18, is, that they were overseers to set the people a work; which may deserve further consideration. Others say, that the 300 added in 2 Chron. were overseers of the Tyrian workmen in Mount Lebanon, and the rest in all other places; or that they were set over some particular and more curious and considerable parts of the work.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Besides the chief of Solomon’s officers which [were] over the work,…. Over the whole work, preparatory for the building of the temple; though it seems chiefly to have respect to that of hewing the stones, and bringing them to the city:
three thousand and three hundred which ruled over the people that wrought in the work; to keep them to their work, and to see that they performed it well: in 2Ch 2:18; they are said to be 3600, which is three hundred more than here; those three hundred are the chief officers mentioned in the former part of this verse, which were over the whole work, and even over the 3600 overseers, and with them made up the sum of 3600; so Jacob Leon h observes there were 3300 master workmen, and three hundred commanders over them all.
h Relation of Memorable Things in the Temple, ch. 3. p. 14.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“Beside ( ), i.e., without reckoning, the princes, Solomon’s officers, who were over the work (i.e., the chiefs appointed by Solomon as overlookers of the work), 3300, who ruled over the people who laboured at the work.” , as Thenius correctly observes, cannot be the chief of the overlookers, i.e., the head inspectors, as there is no allusion made to subordinate inspectors, and the number given is much too large for head inspectors. , which is governed by in the construct state, is to be taken as defining the substantive: principes qui praefecti erant (Vatabl.; cf. Ewald, 287, a.). Moreover, at the close of the account of the whole of Solomon’s buildings (1Ki 9:23), 550 more are mentioned as presiding over the people who did the work. The accounts in the Chronicles differ from these in a very peculiar manner, the number of overseers being given in 2Ch 2:17 and 3600, and in 2Ch 8:10 as 250. Now, however natural it may be, with the multiplicity of errors occurring in numerical statements, to assume that these differences have arisen from copyists’ errors through the confounding together of numerical letters resembling one another, this explanation is overthrown as an improbable one, by the fact that the sum-total of the overseers is the same in both accounts (3300 + 550 = 3850 in the books of Kings, and 3600 + 250 = 3850 in the Chronicles); and we must therefore follow J. H. Michaelis, an explain the differences as resulting from a different method of classification, namely, from the fact that in the Chronicles. the Canaanitish overseers are distinguished from the Israelitish (viz., 3600 Canaanites and 250 Israelites), whereas in the books of Kings the inferiores et superiores praefecti are distinguished. Consequently Solomon had 3300 inferior overseers and 550 superior (or superintendents), of whom 250 were selected from the Israelites and 300 from the Canaanites. In 2Ch 2:16-17, it is expressly stated that the 3600 were taken from the , i.e., the Canaanites who were left in the land of Israel. And it is equally certain that the number given in 1Ki 9:23 and 2Ch 8:10 (550 and 250) simply comprises the superintendents over the whole body of builders, notwithstanding the fact that in both passages (1Ki 5:16 and 1Ki 9:23) the same epithet is used. If, then, the number of overseers is given in 1Ki 9:23 and 550, i.e., 300 more than in the parallel passage of the Chronicles, there can hardly be any doubt that the number 550 includes the 300, in which the number given in our chapter falls short of that in the Chronicles, and that in the 3300 of our chapter the superintendents of Canaanitish descent are not included.
(Note: Ewald ( Gesch. iii. p. 292) assumes that “ by the 550 ( 1Ki 9:23) we are to understand the actual superintendents, whereas the 3300 (1Ki 5:13) include inferior inspectors as well; and of the 550 superintendents, 300 were taken from the Canaanaeans, so that only 250 (2Ch 8:10) were native Hebrews; ” though he pronounces the number 3600 (2Ch 2:17) erroneous. Bertheau, on the other hand, in his notes in 2Ch 8:10, has rather complicated than elucidated the relation in which the two accounts stand to one another.)
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(16) The chief of Solomons officers we should certainly have supposed to have been taken from the Israelites (as clearly were the 550 named in 1Ki. 9:23). But the passage in Chronicles (2Ch. 2:18)reckoning them at 3,600seems to imply that they were, like the overseers of Israel in the Egyptian bondage (Exo. 5:14-15), taken from the subject races.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. Besides the chief of Solomon’s officers Which numbered in all 550, (chap. 1Ki 9:23,) of which, however, 250 seem to have been Israelites, (2Ch 8:9-10,) and the other 300 foreigners. These last, added to the 3,300 mentioned in this verse, make up the 3,600 of 2Ch 2:18.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1Ki 5:16 Beside the chief of Solomon’s officers which [were] over the work, three thousand and three hundred, which ruled over the people that wrought in the work.
Ver. 16. Which ruled over the people. ] And three hundred more to rule over these rulers, 2Ch 2:2 and all little enough to make the work to go forward as it should.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
three thousand: In the parallel passage of Chronicles, it is “three thousand six hundred,” which is also the reading of the Septuagint here. 1Ki 9:23, 2Ch 2:2
Reciprocal: 1Ki 11:28 – he made 2Ch 8:10 – two hundred