[525]. See 1 Kings xii. 18. For the forced labour or corvée see 1 Kings v. 13, 14.
[526]. The Vatican manuscript of the Septuagint has a wholly different list from that of the Hebrew text, Baasha the son of Ahithalam taking the place of Azariah as Vizier, Abi the son of Joab being commander-in-chief, and Ahira the son of Edrei tax-master, while Benaiah remains commander of the bodyguard as in David’s reign. The list is perhaps derived from a document that belonged to the early part of Solomon’s reign. The Syriac reads Zakkur for Zabud, the royal chaplain; but Zabud is supported by the Vatican Septuagint, which makes him the chief councillor. For the reading ‘army’ or ‘bodyguard’ instead of the senseless πατριᾶς in iv. 6, see Field, Origenis Hexaplorum quæ supersunt, i. p. 598.
[527]. See Hommel, The Ancient Hebrew Tradition, pp. 252 sqq.
[528]. The papyrus in which the history of the expedition is recorded is preserved in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, and has not yet been published. Mr. Golénischeff, its discoverer, however, has given me a verbal account of it.
[529]. There is no gold in Southern Arabia, and consequently Ophir must have been an emporium to which the gold was brought for transhipment from elsewhere. The mines were probably at Zimbabwe and the neighbourhood, where Mr. Theodore Bent made important excavations. For the site of Ophir, which may have been near Gerrha in the Persian Gulf, see Sayce in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, June 1896, p. 174.
[530]. 1 Kings v. 16. These taskmasters must be distinguished from the 550 (or 250 according to 2 Chron. viii. 10) who superintended the work in Jerusalem itself (ix. 23), on which no Israelites were employed, but only native Canaanites (ix. 21, 22). The Chronicler makes the overseers of the preparatory work 3600 in number (2 Chron. ii. 18), the corvée itself consisting of 150,000 men.
[531]. See my article in the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1883, pp. 215-223, where I have staked the justification of my views on the discovery of the ‘stairs’ near the spot where the rock-cut steps have been found by Dr. Bliss (Ibid. 1896-97). Dr. Guthe first noticed that a shallow valley once existed between the Temple-hill and the so-called ‘Ophel.’
[532]. The columns were 18 cubits high (1 Kings vii. 15), though the Chronicler (2 Chron. iii. 15) makes them 35 cubits or 52-1/2 feet. The khammânîm or ‘Sun-pillars,’ dedicated to the Sun and associated with the worship of Asherah and Baal, are often referred to in the Old Testament (2 Chron. xxxiv. 4; Is. xvii. 8, etc.), and are mentioned in a Palmyrene inscription.
[533]. A translation of the hymn is given in my Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, pp. 495, 496; see also p. 63.
[534]. Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, i. plate 7A.