1 Kings 5:6

5:6 So now order some cedars of Lebanon to be cut for me. My servants will work with your servants. I will pay your servants whatever you say is appropriate, for you know that we have no one among us who knows how to cut down trees like the Sidonians.”

1 Kings 5:9-10

5:9 My servants will bring the timber down from Lebanon to the sea. I will send it by sea in raft-like bundles to the place you designate. ¹  There I will separate the logs ²  and you can carry them away. In exchange you will supply the food I need for my royal court.” ³ 

5:10 So Hiram supplied the cedars and evergreens Solomon needed, ⁴ 

1 Kings 5:18

5:18 Solomon’s and Hiram’s construction workers, ⁵  along with men from Byblos, ⁶  did the chiseling and prepared the wood and stones for the building of the temple. ⁷ 

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¹ tn Heb “I will place them [on? as?] rafts in the sea to the place where you designate to me.” This may mean he would send them by raft, or that he would tie them in raft-like bundles, and have ships tow them down to an Israelite port.

² tn Heb “smash them,” i.e., untie the bundles.

³ tn Heb “as for you, you will satisfy my desire by giving food for my house.”

⁴ tn Heb “and Hiram gave to Solomon cedar wood and the wood of evergreens, all his desire.”

⁵ tn Heb “builders.”

⁶ tn Heb “the Gebalites.” The reading is problematic and some emend to a verb form meaning, “set the borders.”

⁷ tc The LXX includes the words “for three years.”