SOLOMON GIVES AWAY 20 CITIES IN GALILEE
TWO THINGS: A MAP AND A CORRECTION
(This is a cropped version of the map. To see the full map, visit the Casual English Bible, 1 Kings 9.)
From 1 Kings 9:10-14, Casual English Bible. Solomon spent 20 years building two houses. One house for God, the Temple. One house for himself, the palace. King Hiram of Tyre supplied Solomon with all the wood he needed for these building projects. Hiram sent gold along with cedar and cypress from the Lebanon forests. In return, Solomon gave him a bonus gift of 20 towns in Galilee, along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
Hiriam’s reaction: “Worthless”
But when Hiram saw the 20 villages he got as a gift for his 20 years of trouble, he felt cheated. He told Solomon, “My friend, you call these cities?” Hiram decided to call them “Worthless.” And that’s what he named the region. But Hiram felt obligated to give Solomon a gift in return. He sent a little less than four tons of gold.
Tallying the gold
Four tons of gold would be about 720 gold bars today, weighing a total of 9,000 pounds or 4,000 kilograms. In ancient Hebrew measurement, it was 120 talents, at an estimated 75 pounds or 34 kilograms per talent. The weight of a talent varied by era and location. To haul that much gold today, it would take about five of the half-ton pickup trucks or seven well-built minivans or 60 Radio Flyer classic red wagons. When the writer used the word “worthless” he wrote it in Hebrew, the language of the Israelites. And in Hebrew the word is Cabul. It seems that the name stuck. There’s an Israeli city called Kabul, near the northwest border with Lebanon. The population is mostly Arab. Some scholars suggest this was one of the 20 cities Solomon gave to Hiram. Israel captured the city in 1948 in Operation Dekel, an offensive that also led to the capture of Nazareth and about 30 other Arab towns in western Galilee.
Good Galilee
The fertile part of Galilee is south, at the Jezreel Valley. Solomon kept that for himself.
Now for the Correction
I asked those of you with Spotify accounts to Pre-Save a song I’m releasing on February 9. Then I gave you the wrong link.
Here’s the right link. I really could use your help.
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