Add parallel Print Page Options

20 The Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites had been left ⌞in the land⌟ because the Israelites had not been able to claim them for God by destroying them.[a] They were not Israelites, 21 but they had descendants who were still in the land. Solomon drafted them for slave labor. (They are still ⌞slaves⌟ today.) 22 But Solomon didn’t make any of the Israelites slaves. Instead, they were soldiers, officials, officers, generals, and commanders of his chariot and cavalry units.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 9:20 “because the Israelites….” This clause from verse 21 (in Hebrew) has been placed in verse 20 to express the complex Hebrew paragraph structure more clearly in English.

20 There were still people left from the Amorites, Hittites,(A) Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites(B) (these peoples were not Israelites). 21 Solomon conscripted the descendants(C) of all these peoples remaining in the land—whom the Israelites could not exterminate[a](D)—to serve as slave labor,(E) as it is to this day. 22 But Solomon did not make slaves(F) of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 1 Kings 9:21 The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them.