Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we open with a refresher on God's promise to Solomon. He reminds Solomon

that this covenant is conditional on both Solomon's and Israel's obedience.

Solomon spent 20 years building the temple and his house.

He also builds a separate house for his wife.

Second Chronicles 811 quotes Solomon as saying,

My wife shall not live in the house of David King of Israel,

for the places to which the arc of the Lord has come are holy.

When men in this day had multiple wives,

they usually had a different house or tent for each wife, but the first or main wife often lived

in the same house as the husband. But with Solomon, not even his main wife lives in the main house.

The house he built for her is in a different location

outside the city because she's a pagan and he doesn't want her near the Ark of the

Covenant. This whole arrangement sounds terrible, honestly. Then Solomon decides to build 20 cities, as one does.

These are probably supposed to be a gift for King Hiram, but he doesn't like them.

It's also possible that he gave them back to Solomon. These two chapters we read today weren't exactly clear on that.

In all of his empire building, Solomon uses a lot of forced labor. God's law forbids the

Israelites from enslaving other Israelites, so Solomon works with

the loophole and uses Canaanite laborers instead. They build things all throughout Israel and Lebanon

to the north, where his friend King Hiram lives.

He also builds a fleet of ships.

This guy is not afraid to branch out into new territory.

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