[195] 1 Kings x. 26.
[196] 1 Kings ix. 18. Here the "Q'rî," the marginal, or "read" text, has Tadmor (i.e., Palmyra), as also in 2 Chron. viii. 4. But this Tamar (Ezek. xlvii. 19, xlviii. 28) is "in the land" on the south border. In the Chronicles Tadmor is the right reading, for the chronicler is speaking of Hamath-Zobah and the north. It is not at all unlikely that Solomon also built Tadmor (Josephus, Antt., VIII. vi. 1) to protect his commerce on the route to the Euphrates.
[197] The forty-fifth psalm is supposed by old interpreters to have been an epithalamium on this occasion, but was probably much later. Perhaps notices like 1 Kings iii. 1-3 (the Egyptian alliance), the admonition in 1 Kings ix. 1-9 and the luxury described in x. 14-29, are meant as warning notes of what follows in xi. 1-8 (the apostasy), 9-13 (the prophecy of disruption), and 14-43 (the concluding disaster).
[198] Gezer is Abu-Shusheh, or Tell-el-Gezer, between Ramleh and Jerusalem (Oliphant, Haifa, p. 253), on the lower border of Ephraim. Ewald identifies it with Geshur, the town of Talmai, Absalom's grandfather. See Lenormant, Hist. anc. de l'Orient., i. 337-43. The genealogy of this dynasty is thus given by Brugsch-Bey (Gen. Table iv.), Hist. of Egypt, vol. ii.:—
Hir-hor==Notem.
|
Piankhi.
|
Pinotem I.
|
+--------+---------+
| |
Pisebkhan I. Men-khepher-ra.
|
+-------------+----------+-----+
| | |
Pinotem II. Pisebkhan II. Ker'amat
(a daughter).
[199] See Deut. xxiii. 7, 8.
[200] Schwab's Berakhoth, p. 252; Hershon, Treasures of the Talmud, p. 25. In Sanhedrin, ff. 21, 22, there is another trace of the dislike with which the marriage (though not forbidden, Deut. xxiii. 7, 8) was regarded: "When Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh, Gabriel descended and fixed a reed in the sea. A sandbank formed around it on which Rome was subsequently built." In Shabbath, ff. 51, 52, we are told that "the princess brought with her one thousand different kinds of musical instruments, and taught Solomon the chants to his various idols."
[201] No trace of any such misgiving is found in the Book of Kings.
[202] "Seine Liebhaberei sind kostbare Bauten, fremde Weiber, reiche Prachtentfaltung" (Kittel, ii. 160).
[203] Perhaps rather "the grandson." He was the son of Ahimaaz (comp. Gen. xxix. 5; Ezra v. 1, where son = grandson).