1st Kings — 9
YAHUAH’s Response to Shalumah
1 So Shalumah finished building the Temple of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH, as well as the royal palace. He completed everything he had planned to do.
2 Then 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH appeared to Shalumah a second time, as he had done before at Gibaun.
3 Then 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH Dabar to Shalumah, “I have heard your prayer and your petition. I have set this Temple apart to be Qadash, this place you have built where my Name will be honored forever. I will always watch over it, for it is dear to my heart.
4 “As for you, if you will follow me with integrity and righteousness, as Daud your father did, obeying all my commandments, decrees, and regulations,
5 then I will establish the throne of your dynasty over Yashar'AL forever. For I made this promise to your father, Daud: ‘One of your descendants will always sit on the throne of Yashar'AL.’
6 “But if you or your descendants abandon me and disobey the commandments and decrees I have given you, and if you serve and worship other nations pagan idols,
7 then I will uproot Yashar'AL from this land that I have given them. I will reject this Temple that I have made Qadash to honor my Name. I will make Yashar'AL an object of mockery and ridicule among the nations.
8 And though this Temple is impressive now, all who pass by will be appalled and will gasp in horror. They will ask, ‘Why did 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH do such terrible things to this land and to this Temple?’
9 “And the answer will be, ‘Because his people abandoned 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH their 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH, who brought their ancestors out of Mitzraym, and they worshiped other nations idols instead and bowed down to them. That is why 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH has brought all these disasters on them.’”
Shalumah’s Agreement with Hiram
10 It took Shalumah twenty years to build 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH’s Temple and his own royal palace. At the end of that time,
11 he gave twenty towns in the land of Galilee to King Hiram of Tyra. (Hiram had previously provided all the cedar and cypress timber and gold that Shalumah had requested.)
12 But when Hiram came from Tyra to see the towns Shalumah had given him, he was not at all pleased with them.
13 “What kind of towns are these, my brother? he asked. So Hiram called that area Cabul (which means “worthless”), as it is still known today.
14 Nevertheless, Hiram paid Shalumah 9,000 pounds of gold.
Shalumah's Many Achievements
15 This is the account of the forced labor that King Shalumah conscripted to build 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH’s Temple, the royal palace, the supporting terraces, the wall of Yahushalam, and the cities of Hazur, Magiddu, and Gazar.
16 (Phar'uh, the king of Mitzraym, had attacked and captured Gazar, killing the Canaanite population and burning it down, Phar'uh gave the city to his daughter as a wedding gift when she married Shalumah.
17 So Shalumah rebuilt the city of Gazar.) He also built up the towns of Lower Bath-hurun,
18 Baalath, and Tamar in the wilderness within his land.
19 He built towns as supply centers and constructed towns where his chariots and horses could be stationed, he built everything he desired in Yahushalam and Labanun and throughout his entire realm.
20 There were still some people living in the land who were not Yasharalym, including Amurites, Hittites, Parizzites, Hibites, and Yabusites.
21 These were descendants of the nations whom the people of Yashar'AL had not completely destroyed. So Shalumah conscripted them as slaves, and they serve as forced laborers to this day.
22 But Shalumah did not conscript any of the Yasharalym for forced labor. Instead, he assigned them to serve as fighting men, government officials, officers and captains in his army, commanders of his chariots, and charioteers.
23 Shalumah appointed 550 of them to supervise the people working on his various projects.
24 Shalumah moved his wife, Phar'uh’s daughter, from the City of Daud to the new palace he had built for her. Then he constructed the supporting terraces.
25 Three times each year Shalumah presented burnt offerings and Shalum offerings on the altar he had built for 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH, he also burned incense to 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH. And so he finished the work of building the Temple.
26 King Shalumah also built a fleet of ships at Aziun-gabar, a port near Alath in the land of Adum, along the shore of the Red Sea.
27 Hiram sent experienced crews of sailors to sail the ships with Shalumah’s men.
28 They sailed to Uphir and brought back to Shalumah some sixteen tons of gold.