Solomon, king of cheapskates

Solomon traded land for gold and cedars he bought from the King Hiram of Tyre in what is now Lebanon. When Hiram saw the land, he renamed it: Cabul (1 Kings 9:13 NLT). First-century Jewish writer Josephus said it meant “unfruitful” in Hiram’s language of Phoenician. It works in Hebrew, too. It sounds like the word for “worthless.” Strange and Mysterious Stuff in the Bible, p. 20.