So king Solomon was king over all Israel (v. 1), and the narrator shows the new state by its officers, as he did David's (2 Samuel 8:15-18; 20:23-26). First comes Azariah the son of Zadok the priest. The Hebrew word order allows the priest to describe Azariah rather than Zadok, and many read it that way. 1 Chronicles 6:8-10 places an Azariah as Zadok's grandson, through Ahimaaz, and son in Hebrew lists can mean descendant; whether this is the same man the study cannot say. What the list shows is that the priestly line of Zadok, raised in 1 Kings 2:35, now stands at the head of the court.

The other names (vv. 3-4) show continuity. Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud, the recorder held the same post under David (2 Samuel 8:16). Elihoreph and Ahiah, the sons of Shisha, scribes — Shisha may be the Shavsha or Sheva who was David's scribe (1 Chronicles 18:16; 2 Samuel 20:25), though the study cannot prove it. Benaiah... over the host in Joab's place (1 Kings 2:35). Verse 4 then names Zadok and Abiathar as the priests, although Abiathar was sent to Anathoth in 1 Kings 2:27; readers suggest the list keeps his title, or reflects the very start of the reign. The study notes the difficulty and does not force it.

Azariah the son of Nathan was over the officers — the twelve of verse 7 — and Zabud the son of Nathan was principal officer, and the king's friend. Whether this Nathan is the prophet of chapter 1 or David's son of that name (2 Samuel 5:14), the text does not say; many think of the prophet, whose sons would then be rewarded with high office. Principal officer translates the Hebrew word usually rendered priest, the same word used of David's sons in 2 Samuel 8:18; here it seems to mean a royal minister. The king's friend was a title of trust, as Hushai was David's friend (2 Samuel 15:37; 16:16).

Verse 6 adds two posts that grew with the kingdom: Ahishar was over the household — a steward of the palace — and Adoniram the son of Abda was over the tribute. Tribute is the Hebrew mas, forced labour; Adoniram will be named again over the levy for the temple (1 Kings 5:14), and, as Adoram, he will be stoned by the northern tribes when the kingdom splits (12:18). The study notes it here because the narrator plants it here: in a list of honours, one office carries the weight that will in time break the kingdom. Samuel had warned that a king would take your sons for his work (1 Samuel 8:11-12).

Twelve officers over all Israel, which provided victuals for the king and his household: each man his month in a year made provision. Twelve districts, twelve months, one region feeding the court at a time. The list (vv. 8-19) partly follows tribal names — Ephraim, Naphtali, Asher, Issachar, Benjamin, Gilead — and partly cuts across them with cities and regions like Dor, Megiddo and Bethshean. Some readers see a deliberate reorganising of the land around the crown; the text gives the names without explaining the plan. Five of the officers are named only by their fathers — the son of Hur, the son of Dekar — perhaps from damage in an old record.

Personal ties run through the list. Two officers married daughters of Solomon: Taphath (v. 11) and Basmath (v. 15). Ahimaaz in Naphtali may be Zadok's son, the runner of 2 Samuel 18:19, and Baanah the son of Hushai in Asher (v. 16) may be the son of David's friend; the study offers both as possibilities only. Judah is not listed among the twelve. The last line, he was the only officer which was in the land (v. 19), is read by some as a separate officer over Judah, and by others as part of the Gilead entry. Whether Judah was spared the burden is debated, and it is one question behind the grievance of 1 Kings 12:4.

Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude — the language of the promise to Abraham, as the sand which is upon the sea shore (Genesis 22:17), and of Jacob's prayer (Genesis 32:12). The narrator wants the reader to see a promise come true: the people that were seventy souls in Egypt are now beyond counting. Solomon had called them a great people, that cannot be numbered (1 Kings 3:8), and here the narrator agrees. Both kingdoms are named — Judah and Israel — as they are again in verse 25; the union holds for now, though the two names hint at the split to come.

Eating and drinking, and making merry. The study reads this as a picture of blessing, not of excess: a people with food, safety and joy, as Ecclesiastes 2:24 commends eating and drinking as the gift of God. Readers should hold it beside the cost that the chapter also records — the court's daily provision (vv. 22-23) and the officers who gathered it month by month. Plenty for the many and burden for some are both in the text. The narrator does not set them against each other here; chapter 12 will show how the people came to feel about them.

Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt. The river is usually taken as the Euphrates. Readers have long heard here the boundaries promised to Abraham, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates (Genesis 15:18; cf. Exodus 23:31), and the study offers that as a likely echo. Note the kind of rule: they brought presents, and served Solomon — tribute from client kingdoms, not necessarily direct government. Verse 24 gives the span again, from Tiphsah even to Azzah — a crossing on the Euphrates to Gaza — and he had peace on all sides round about him.

The daily provision (vv. 22-23) shows the size of the court: thirty measures of fine flour, and threescore measures of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, besides deer and fowl. The study does not convert the measures; the point is abundance. Readers have noted that peace was the gift promised for this son: 1 Chronicles 22:9 says he shall be a man of rest, and many link Solomon's name with the Hebrew shalom, peace, though the study offers the link as a likely one, not a proven etymology.

Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon. The phrase became Israel's picture of peace: a family resting in the shade of its own vine and tree, on its own land, with no one to make it afraid. The prophets took it up for the age to come — Micah 4:4, they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid, and Zechariah 3:10. From Dan even to Beersheba is the whole land, north to south, the span of 2 Samuel 24:2. For a time, the narrator says, the promise of rest (Deuteronomy 12:10) was lived.

The study notes the qualifier all the days of Solomon: the peace belonged to a reign, and would not outlast it untroubled. Readers who know the end of the story will hear in the verse both a fulfilment and a longing — the peace was real, and it was not final. That is why the prophets, writing after the kingdom had broken and the vines were lost, could take Solomon's days as a pattern of what God would one day give for good. The verse invites readers to thank God for seasons of peace without mistaking them for the last word.

Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen. The parallel in 2 Chronicles 9:25 reads four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, and 1 Kings 10:26 counts a thousand and four hundred chariots. This is a well-known difference, and the study names it plainly. Many take four thousand as original and the larger number as an early copying slip, since Hebrew numbers were easily confused; others suggest the two figures count different things. The study does not decide, and notes that both books agree on the twelve thousand horsemen.

Readers should also hear Deuteronomy 17:16: the king shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt. The narrator records the horses here without comment, as he recorded Pharaoh's daughter in 1 Kings 3:1, and he will later note that Solomon's horses came out of Egypt (1 Kings 10:28). Verses 27-28 return to the officers, who supplied the king's table every man in his month and brought barley also and straw for the horses and dromedaries — the Hebrew of the last word may mean swift horses. The study lets the details stand; the reader is shown the glory and the warning together.

God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore (v. 29) — the same image as verse 20: as many as the people, so wide was the king's heart. His wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt (v. 30), the famous wisdom of the age (cf. Acts 7:22). He was wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda (v. 31); names like these appear among the sons of Zerah in 1 Chronicles 2:6, and an Ethan and a Heman are named in the titles of Psalms 89 and 88. Whether these are the same men, the study does not say.

He spake three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five. The book of Proverbs holds far fewer than three thousand sayings, and names Solomon in its headings (Proverbs 1:1; 10:1; 25:1); the Song of Solomon and two psalms (72; 127) carry his name in their titles. How much of these books comes from his hand is discussed, and the study does not claim more than the headings say. He spake of trees... of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes (v. 33) — wisdom drawn from the created world, in the order of Genesis 1, some note. There came of all people to hear (v. 34): the stage is set for the queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10:1).