Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Kings 9:20
[And] all the people [that were] left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which [were] not of the children of Israel,
20. which were not of the children of Israel ] This clause is added because the people of Canaan had become much mixed up among the Israelite population, being still allowed to live in some cities from which at first it had been found impossible to dislodge them (see above, 1Ki 9:16). But a distinction was made between these people and the people of Israel, now that Solomon was powerful enough to enforce it, in the kind of service they must render and the tribute they must bear. It may be that the five nations here mentioned were most largely represented in the surviving population, and that the other two out of the seven nations of Canaan had by this time been more nearly exterminated.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And all the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites,…. Who were not destroyed in the times of Joshua, or since, but dwelt in several cities of the land of Israel from those times; see Jud 1:1, which were not of the children of Israel; not natives of the land of Israel, though they might be proselytes, at least some of them.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Commentary on 1Ki 9:20-28 AND 2Ch 8:7-18
Solomon found laborers for his public works from the ranks of the Canaanites, descendants of those whom Israel had failed to exterminate from the land, following the conquest under Joshua. No doubt their labor was a form of enforced servitude. Since the land belonged to Israel by grant from the Lord these Canaanite people were landless and, therefore, may have been blessed by the opportunity to earn a livelihood through Solomon’s works.
Solomon did not put Israelites into such service, but did draft them for more honorable work, such as soldiers, princes, captains over his chariots, horsemen and such. At best the people of Israel were still hard put under obligation to their king, of which Samuel warned them when they anointed Saul about a century earlier (1Sa 8:10-18). Solomon’s officers numbered two hundred and fifty, of five hundred fifty (Kings), a probable scribal error in one or the other account.
The reference to Pharaoh’s daughter is interesting. It appears that Solomon was well aware that it was not according to God’s will that he should have married this pagan woman. He respected the Lord enough that he would not allow Pharaoh’s daughter to dwell in the palace where once the ark of the Lord had been in the days of David. Instead of this he constructed for her a palace of her own.
This passage also stresses the greater faithfulness of Solomon in worshipping the Lord in the earlier part of his long reign of forty years. He carried out all the formalities of properly dedicating the temple when it was complete in every detail. The Levitical author of Chronicles is careful to fully account of Solomon’s piety. He gave a set rate daily of things for the sacrifice and offering.
He observed all the sabbaths, the new moons (first day of the months), the solemn feasts, just as Moses commanded Israel. The three special feasts (Exo 23:14-19) he was careful to keep. These were 1) the feasts of unleavened bread, which began with Passover; 2) weeks, or Pentecost as later known; 3) tabernacles, the autumn festival of joy.
The author of Chronicles continues to stress the temple ritual and service carried out by Solomon. He followed the program established by David, his father, for the priests and the Levites. They were required to serve according to their courses in their respective offices. These included, besides the priests themselves, the musicians and singers, the porters at the gates, and the overseers of the treasuries.
Solomon launched a navy with the aid of Hiram, king of Tyre, and his sailors. He constructed a deep sea port on the Elanitic Gulf of the Red Sea. This is the same area east of the Sinai peninsula known today as Sharm-el-sheik. It was then in the land of Edom, and was known as Ezion-geber and Eloth (sometimes Elath).
The experienced and knowledgeable sailors of Hiram accompanied the ships of Solomon and his servants as far as the land of Ophir. This place is believed to have been the southwestern corner of the Arabian peninsula at the southern end of the Red Sea, known today as Yemen. From this place the ships of Solomon brought four hundred fifty talents of gold (in today’s values about $450,000,000). God’s promise to make Solomon rich was abundantly coming to pass.
Some lessons to stress: 1) the warnings and admonitions of God’s word leave men totally without excuse when their sins bring His judgment on them; 2) the sins of Christian professors of faith bring shame and reproach on the Lord and His cause; 3) those who follow the Lord may leave after them a legacy of lasting good and testimony for Christ; 4) one may serve the Lord well in his youth, but grow weary in well-doing and forfeit his reward (2Jn 1:8).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(20) A tribute of bond service.This was probably not originated, but simply enforced and organised, by Solomon. It dated, in theory at least, from the Conquest. The most notable example of it is the case of the Gibeonites (Jos. 9:21-27); but there are incidental notices of similar imposition of serfship in Jdg. 1:28; Jdg. 1:30; Jdg. 1:33; Jdg. 1:35. Many of the dangers of the stormy age of the Judges were due to the uprising of these subject races; as in the revival of the northern confederacy at Hazor under Sisera (Judges 4), and the usurpation of Abimelech by aid of the Shecliemites (Judges 9). Probably their subordination to Israel varied according to the strength or weakness of each age; but, when the monarchy became organised under David and Solomon, it was fixed definitely and permanently, although, like the serfship of the Middle Ages, it might vary in its severity in different times and in different regions.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1Ki 9:20 [And] all the people [that were] left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which [were] not of the children of Israel,
Ver. 20. And all the people that were left. ] These and their posterity seem to be called Solomon’s servants, Ezr 2:55 ; Ezr 2:58 Neh 7:57 ; Neh 7:60 ; Neh 11:3 like as the Gibeonites were called Nethinims. Ezr 2:43
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
left: 2Ch 8:7, 2Ch 8:8-18
Amorites: Gen 15:19-21, Exo 23:23, Exo 23:28-33, Exo 34:11, Exo 34:12, Deu 7:1-3
Reciprocal: Gen 9:25 – a servant Jos 9:8 – General 1Ki 5:15 – threescore 1Ch 1:15 – Hivite 1Ch 22:2 – the strangers 2Ch 2:17 – numbered Psa 72:9 – They that Ecc 2:7 – servants
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Ki 9:20-21. All the people that were left of the Amorites Who, it is likely, by this time were become proselytes to the Jewish religion, as the Gibeonites were, or at least renounced their idolatry. Upon those did Solomon levy a tribute He used them as bond-men, and imposed bodily labours upon them. But why did not Solomon destroy them, as God had commanded, when now it was fully in his power to do so? The command to destroy them, (Deu 7:2,) did chiefly, if not only, concern that generation of Canaanites who lived in or near the time of the Israelites entering into Canaan. And that command seems not to have been absolute, but conditional, and with some exception for those who should submit and embrace the true religion, as may be gathered both from Jos 11:19, and from the history of the Gibeonites. For if Gods command had been absolute, the oaths of Joshua, and of the princes, could not have obliged them, nor dispensed with such a command.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
9:20 [And] all the people [that were] {h} left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which [were] not of the children of Israel,
(h) These were as bondmen and paid what was required, either labour or money.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Solomon’s forced labor 9:20-23
Solomon put the defeated native Canaanites to work on government projects (cf. Gen 9:25-26). Nevertheless this plan proved to be a source of major dissatisfaction in Israel (cf. 1Ki 12:4). There was a distinction in Solomon’s day between Israelites whom the king conscripted for temporary service and non-Israelites who were permanent slave laborers. The former served as military supervisors over civil forced labor gangs, for example. The latter were the native Canaanites who enjoyed no rights as free persons. [Note: J. Alberto Soggin, "Compulsory Labor Under David and Solomon," in Studies in the Period of David and Solomon and Other Essays, p. 266.]