>> Jen: Well, hello and good morning friends and faithful listeners and happy November. Thank you for tuning in to the Bible explained this morning. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a happy Halloween and that the first days in November have been going well for you. They have for me. On November 1, we did a big youth group event for the kids, like a half nighter. And it
was a lot of fun. I set up four escape rooms in the church and, uh, the kids, I think, had a lot of fun with it and I had a. Well, I was going to say I had a lot of fun making the puzzles and setting it up, but in hindsight it was a lot of work and I didn't have a whole lot of fun setting up the puzzles, but I did have fun watching the kids try to figure out the puzzles. That was very funny. I mean, man, some of the things
they think up is just amazingly hilarious. So that was a lot of fun watching them try to figure out the escape rooms. So I hope you guys have had a wonderful weekend so far and tell me what you did over the weekend. I really love to hear from all of you guys. So contact me and tell me how you found the podcast and uh, what the weather is, where you live and just introduce yourself to me. You'll find my contact information listed in the description of the episode.
Let's go ahead and read First Kings, chapter 10, 14-29. We're finishing up this chapter and we're learning about the prosperity of Israel during the reign of Solomon. I've definitely talked about it quite a bit, but now Scripture is describing all of the amazing things and accomplishments that Solomon was able to do during his career. So let's get into this. I'll be reading out of web as I almost always do, but feel free to pause the podcast
and grab the version of the Bible that you prefer to read out of. Whether it's the NLT or the niv, it doesn't matter. You don't have to read out, of the web with me, but also grab your cup of coffee or your cup of tea this morning. And once again, let's read it first. Kings 10, 14- 29.
Now, the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold, in addition to that which the traders brought and the traffic of the merchants and of all the kings of the mixed people and of the governors of the country. King Solomon made 200 bucklers of beaten gold. 600 shekels of gold went into one buckler. He made 300 shields of beaten gold. 3 Minas of gold went into one shield, and the king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon. Lebanon.
Moreover, the king made a great throne of ivory and overlaid it with the finest gold. There were six steps to the throne, and the top of the throne was round behind. And there were armrests on either side by the place of the seat, and two lions standing beside the armrests. Twelve lions stood there on the one side, and on the other on the six steps. Nothing like it
was made in any kingdom. All King Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. None were silver because it was considered of little value in the days of Solomon. For the king had a fleet of Tarshish at sea with Hiram's fleet. Once every three years, the fleet of Tarshish came, bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks. So King Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom.
All the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom which god had put in his heart. Year after year, every man brought his tribute vessels of silver, vessels of gold, clothing, armor, spices, horses and mules. Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen. He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen that he kept in the chariot cities and with the king at Jerusalem. The king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem, and cedars as common as the sycamore trees that are
in the lowland. The horses which Solomon had were brought out of Egypt. The king's merchants received them in droves. Each drove at a price. A chariot came up and went out of Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and a horse for 150 shekels. And so they exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and to the kings of Syria. So now we see the evidence of the prosperity of the days of
King Solomon. We've been talking about it for several chapters about how rich Solomon's kingdom has become, how the Israelites were very well off under Solomon, and just how prosperous everything was in Israel in these days. It says that King Solomon was so rich. It says that the gold that came to him alone in one year was 666 talents of gold. So 666. I don't think that has any correlation necessarily. But, uh, for those of you who know what 666 is, it's the mark of the
beast in Revelation. But I don't think that has any correlation here. But he receives 666 talents of gold every single year. And that is Solomon's payment alone. Now, 66 talents of gold would be about 20 metric tons of gold. That is how much gold Solomon received in a year. And that's not it. That's just the
gold he received. Here's all these other things he received in addition to that which the traders brought and the traffic of the merchants and of all the kings of the mixed people and of the governors of the country. So Solomon was also receiving tribute from merchants, from traders, from kings, and from governors of other nations. They were sending tribute every single year to Solomon. Solomon. So we have no clue how much Solomon received on a year to year
basis. But it was an enormous, enormous amount of money with all this gold that King Solomon's kingdom now has. It says that he made 200 bucklers of beaten gold. 600 shekels of gold went into one buckler. So 600 shekels is about 13.2 pounds. Now, typically, a buckler which is like a little round shield, was usually made out of leather. And I think it was the shields that the archers would use. And it was a smaller shield to like protect themselves.
But Solomon, instead of making it out of just mere leather, decides to make it out of solid gold. And so he made 200 of these bucklers made of this gold. And then he also made some larger shields is what it said. He made 300 normal sized shields of beaten gold. And three Minas of gold went into one shield. So three Minas, one Mina is approximately 1.3 US pounds. So three of those would be what, like close to five pounds of gold went into one of these
shields. And once Solomon was done making these 500 shields, he put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon. So you remember a couple chapters ago we talked about the different houses that Solomon had built. The palace, the temple to god, the courtyards, and all of these other things. Well, he also built this house called the Forest of Lebanon. And the reason it was called that is because it was made from
trees that came from the Forest of Lebanon. And there were so many pillars inside of this house, just of these tree trunks basically, that it looked like a forest on the inside. And it basically became an armory, or at least part of it became an armory, it looks like right here. So after Solomon's done making all these shields and putting them all over the walls of the Forest of Lebanon, it says he also made himself a great throne of ivory and overlaid it with the
finest gold. Now, we know that ivory comes from elephants. And, uh, it's not the nicest thing to do to elephants. But regardless, his throne was made of ivory and then overlaid with the finest gold. It says there are also six steps ascending up to the throne. And the top of the throne had this like big rounded portion. It looks like, I can't exactly imagine what that looks like, but it says that the top of the throne was round behind. And then there were also some
armrests on either side. But right next to the armrests were these beautiful golden lions standing next to the armrests. So whoever made these lions had to make 14 identical lions because not only were there two golden lions up near the armrests of the throne, but every single step had a lion going down it. And there was, there was a lion on either side of the steps. So there were six steps, 12 lions, and then the two that were next to the armrests, 14
lions total. It says that this throne was so elaborate and so amazing looking that nothing was ever made like it ever again. Nothing like it was made in any other kingdom. It says all King Solomon's drinking vessels were made of gold and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. Now we don't know what these vessels were, but we know that Solomon's eating and drinking utensils were of solid gold. Also nothing was made of silver, it says, because it was such
little value in the days of Solomon. So silver was like a dime a dozen. Actually, later on it says that silver was so plentiful it was like the rocks on the street. That is how rich Israel was with silver. Everyone had silver. It like lost its value because of how prosperous Israel became. So nothing in Solomon's house was made of silver. Not only did Solomon have nothing but gold basically in his house, including his eating and drinking utensils, but also the king had a fleet of ships,
it says a fleet of Tarshish. And I think this is the first time we're going to see the word Tarshish, but we're going to see it a lot after that. So I looked up where Tarshish was located. Nobody knows. Some people actually think Spain, because there is a port in Spain called Tarsus, I think, if I'm remembering correctly. But, uh, there's a port in Spain with a very similar name. And so some people think that Tarshish was actually located in Spain,
but. But then of course other people think India, some people think that Tarshish was Carthage. So nobody knows where Tarshish was located. But we do know something About Tarshish, just based upon scripture, Tarshish was the best of the best boats that you could get. They were boats, ships rather, made for long distance travel. So these ships of Tarshish, if you ever see that come up in scripture, which you will, ships of Tarshish meant excellent ships that could go and travel long distances.
King Solomon had a fleet of these Tarshish ships at sea, as well as with Hiram's fleet, which was King Solomon's friend. Hiram, uh, was the king of Tyre. And apparently Hiram and Solomon together had all of these ships of Tarshish that would travel the world and go find rare and wonderful things. So it says once every three years, the fleet of Tarshish would come back home bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes and
peacocks. So all of these really rare items that weren't in Israel because Israel doesn't have apes or peacocks or ivory, but these ships would be bringing it back from, like the farthest regions of the earth in the ancient days. And you can imagine how impressive this is when there was very little understanding of the map of the world and it was hard to navigate these seas. So this is extremely impressive and way beyond Solomon's time period,
if you think about it. So because of all of these things, King Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. It says all the earth really wanted to listen to Solomon's wisdom. And Solomon, like I said a couple episodes ago, he'd like host his own TED Talks. He'd stand there and people from all over the world would come and listen to Solomon's TED Talks. And he'd talk about everything from seafaring to
farming to spirituality. He would talk about every single thing and he loved sharing his wisdom with other people. It says all the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which god had put into his heart. So the world knew that Solomon was blessed by god. The world knew that Yahweh was the one who had given Solomon the wisdom and put Solomon in the place that he was in. Not only that, there's more verse 25, year after year, every man brought
his tribute. Vessels of silver, vessels of gold, clothing, armor, spices, horses and mules. So the people themselves would bring gifts to Solomon. There was like a tribute to Solomon. So Solomon had so much wealth, you can't even imagine. It said that Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen. He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen that he kept in the chariot cities and with the
king at Jerusalem. So in the chariot cities that Solomon Designed which these cities were literally for the chariots and for the horses and the horsemen. That's what these cities were for. Solomon had thousands of horses and thousands of riders. Tens of thousands, actually. So not only was Solomon the richest man on earth, but he was the most secure king for Israel. Israel had very little to worry about because of the amount of weapons and horses and chariots that
Israel had then. Verse 27, it says the king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem. Cedar's as common as the sycamore trees that are in the lowland. So as you know, cedar was one of the most valuable trees in the days of Solomon. And he made them so plentiful that it was like the wood of the sycamore tree. You know, the sycamore tree that just is everywhere, all over Israel. That is what the cedar trees became like. The horses which Solomon had brought were out of Egypt. Uh oh,
now we see some problems here. Because if you go to Deuteronomy chapter 17, which I always like to do whenever we talk about Solomon and read verse 16, it says the king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them. For the LORD has told you, you are not to go back that way again. So why, why does God say, no, you are not allowed to get horses for yourself out of Egypt?
Well, because the people came from Egypt and Egypt was a temptation for the people because the people, after they got out of Egypt from God's amazing miracles bringing them out, they were slaves there for 400 years. The people wandered around the desert because they were just constantly disobeying God. They wandered for 40 years in the desert, constantly saying, let's go back to Egypt, let's go back to Egypt. We'll just worship all the gods of Egypt. We'll eat
all the delicious food of Egypt. Let's just go back to Egypt. It was better there than in this wilderness or whatever god has for us in the future. So Egypt was always a huge temptation for the people. And God was so clear, do not go back to Egypt. Don't go back to get horses from Egypt. Because the Egyptian horses were like the best of the best. And Solomon knew this, everybody knew it. So the Egyptian horses were the best. And God said,
don't go back to Egypt. Even though the horses are very tempting for you, don't acquire a lot of them and do not go back to Egypt to get the ones that you do acquire. Solomon disobeyed. He goes back to Egypt to get those Horses. It says the king's merchants received them in droves and each drove at a price. A, uh, chariot came up and went out of Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and a horse for 150 shekels. A shekel is about, uh, 35
ounces, or 10 grams. So Solomon's merchants were going to Egypt to get these horses, and then they were bringing them from Egypt and selling them to different kings all over the place. For a big prophet, it looks like. So maybe Solomon was trying to get around the whole law in the Old Testament that said kings should not go back to Egypt to get their horses by saying, oh, I'm not going and getting them for myself. You know, I'm just getting them, um, to sell them to other people.
That might have been what Solomon was thinking and just getting around that rule, but it doesn't matter because Solomon disobeyed god and he did send his merchants to Egypt to acquire these horses. Maybe not for himself, but they did acquire them, um, and resell them to all of these other people, which they shouldn't have been. Why are they, you know, helping other kings, Enemy kings, by getting them horses? It said they exported these horses to all the kings
of the Hittites and to the kings of Syria. These were enemies of Israel and Solomon should not have been helping them in this way. So we can see that Solomon is having some trouble here. Just every single chapter, it seems that he's doing something to break another law of God. And in the next chapter, we're gonna really see how God starts to respond to Solomon's blatant disobedience. I cannot believe that it's already November and that Advent is only four weeks
away as of yesterday. And your teenage daughter is going to need an Advent devotional, which good news, I wrote one. It's called Adore the Teen Girl's Guide to Advent. It is available on Amazon and it's a four week Advent study teaching teenage girls about the importance of Advent and what Advent represents. So check those out. Those are listed in the description of this episode. You'll find that linked under books in the description
of this episode. All right, faithful listeners, I'll see you guys tomorrow. Tune in 6am or whenever you choose to wake up for an episode from First uh, Corinthians. Until then, happy listening and God bless.