1 Kings 10:14

Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) Talents.—The word properly signifies a “circle,” or “globe,” and the talent (among the Hebrews and other Orientals, as among the Greeks) denoted properly a certain weight. (a) The ordinary talent of gold contained 100 “manehs,” or “portions” (the Greek mna, or mina), and each maneh (as is seen by comparing 1Kings 10:17 with 2Chronicles 9:16) contained 100 shekels of gold. According to Josephus (Ant. xiv. 7, 1), each maneh contained 2½ Roman pounds, and the talent, therefore, 250 Roman pounds, or 1,262,500 grains; and this agrees fairly with his computation elsewhere (Ant. iii. 8, 10), that the gold shekel was equivalent to the daric, which is about 129 grains. (See Dictionary of the Bible: “WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.”) According to this calculation, 666 talents would give a weight of gold now worth £7,780,000. (b) On the other hand, the talent of silver is expressly given (by comparison of Exodus 30:13-15; Exodus 38:25-28) at 3,000 “shekels of the sanctuary,” and such a shekel appears, by the extant Maccabæan coins, to be about 220 grains. Of such talents, 666 would give a little more than half the former weight; hence, if the talent of gold here be supposed to be in weight the same as the talent of silver, the whole would give a weight of gold now worth about £4,000,000. Considering that this is expressly stated to be independent of certain customs and tributes, the smaller sum seems more probable; in any case, the amount is surprisingly large. But it should be remembered that at certain times and places accumulations of gold have taken place, so great as practically to reduce its value, and lead to its employment, not as a currency, but as a precious ornament. Making all allowance for exaggeration, this must have been the case among the Mexicans and Peruvians before the Spanish conquests. It is not improbable that the same may have occurred in the time of Solomon.

Benson Commentary

1 Kings 10:14. Now the weight of gold, &c. — The history of the queen of Sheba being ended, the writer returns to give an account of Solomon’s riches and magnificence, which he had begun to set forth before. And first he relates what a vast quantity of gold was brought into his kingdom every year, not only from Ophir, but from other countries, into which, perhaps, the queen of Sheba opened him a way, and particularly from Arabia and Ethiopia, which then were replenished with gold, though exhausted by the insatiable avarice of succeeding ages. Six hundred threescore and six talents — Which amount to about three millions of our money.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:14-29 Solomon increased his wealth. Silver was nothing accounted of. Such is the nature of worldly wealth, plenty of it makes it the less valuable; much more should the enjoyment of spiritual riches lessen our esteem of all earthly possessions. If gold in abundance makes silver to be despised, shall not wisdom, and grace, and the foretastes of heaven, which are far better than gold, make gold to be lightly esteemed? See in Solomon's greatness the performance of God's promise, and let it encourage us to seek first the righteousness of God's kingdom. This was he, who, having tasted all earthly enjoyments, wrote a book, to show the vanity of all worldly things, the vexation of spirit that attends them, and the folly of setting our hearts upon them: and to recommend serious godliness, as that which will do unspeakably more to make us happy, that all the wealth and power he was master of; and, through the grace of God, it is within our reach.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Six hundred threescore and six talents of gold - About 3,646, 350 of our money. Solomon's annual revenue exceeded that of Oriental empires very much greater in extent than his, and must have made him one of the richest, if not the very richest, of the monarchs of his time.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

1Ki 10:14-29. His Riches.

14, 15. Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year—666 talents, equal to £3,996,000. The sources whence this was derived are not mentioned; nor was it the full amount of his revenue; for this was "Beside that he had of the merchantmen, and of the traffic of the spice merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the country." The great encouragement he gave to commerce was the means of enriching his royal treasury. By the fortifications which he erected in various parts of his kingdom, (particularly at such places as Thapsacus, one of the passages of Euphrates, and at Tadmor, in the Syrian desert), he gave complete security to the caravan trade from the depredations of the Arab marauders; and it was reasonable that, in return for this protection, he should exact a certain toll or duty for the importation of foreign goods. A considerable revenue, too, would arise from the use of the store cities and khans he built; and it is not improbable that those cities were emporia, where the caravan merchants unloaded their bales of spices and other commodities and sold them to the king's factors, who, according to the modern practice in the East, retailed them in the Western markets at a profit. "The revenue derived from the tributary kings and from the governors of the country" must have consisted in the tribute which all inferior magistrates periodically bring to their sovereigns in the East, in the shape of presents of the produce of their respective provinces.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Which amounts to about two millions of our money. And this gold did not come from Ophir in India, or Tarshish; but from Arabia and Ethiopia, and other parts, which then were well replenished with gold, though since exhausted by the insatiable avarice of succeeding ages.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and sixty and six talents of gold. From Ophir and Tarshish, and wherever he traded; which was of our money, according to Berewood (k), 2,997,000 pounds; or as another learned man (l), who makes it equal to 5,138,520 ducats of gold.

(k) De Ponder. & Pret. c. 5. (l) Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 3. p. 580.

Geneva Study Bible

Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold,

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14–29. Solomon’s revenue, his magnificence and his traffic (2 Chronicles 9:13-24)

14. six hundred threescore and six talents of gold] Taking the gold shekel at the value of £2, and 3000 shekels in one talent, the sum here spoken of would amount to nearly four millions of our money, which for the time of Solomon appears a very enormous revenue, especially when there are additions to be made to it, such as those spoken of in 1 Kings 10:15; 1 Kings 10:22; 1 Kings 10:25. There can be no doubt that Solomon was one of the wealthiest monarchs in the East at that date. But the taxation must have been crushing, and with all this Oriental splendour and luxury there was rottenness within. Solomon was the Jewish Louis 14.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 14. - Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year [probably one particular and exceptional year, probably also the year of the queen's visit, not year by year (Wordsworth, al.), as the Vulgate (per singulos annos). One fleet only came home from its voyage after three years, and the gold would hardly weigh precisely 666 talents year by year] was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold. [The correspondence with the number of the Beast (Revelation 13:18; cf. Ezra 2:13) is in all probability not altogether accidental. It is possible, i.e., that the number of the beast is a reminiscence of this number of talents. For we may surely see in this statement of Solomon's prodigious wealth an indication of his worldliness, the turning point, perhaps, in his estrangement from God. "The love of money" may have been the root of all his evil. It is certainly remarkable that from this time forward his career is one of steady declension. It is also remarkable that while he is here represented to us as a "royal merchant," the mark of the beast is on the buyers and sellers (Revelation 13:17). But see "Expositor," May, 1881. It is, of course, possible that the number has been corrupted, but, on the other hand, it may have been recorded, partly because of the singularity of the sum total. The 666 talents include the receipts from all sources - taxes, tribute, and voyages - with the exception made presently (ver. 15). Rawlinson quotes Keil (in his earlier edition) as estimating this amount at £3,646,350. But in his later work, Keil puts it in round numbers at two and a half millions (17,000,000 thalers), while Mr. Peele calculates it at about £8,000,000. These widely varying figures are instructive, as showing that both estimates are little more than guesswork. We do not know the value of the Hebrew talent, nor, indeed, can it ever be rightly appraised until we know its purchasing power. The denarius, e.g., is generally valued at 8½ d. (or 7½ d.) because it contained some 58 grains of pure silver but its real value was nearer three shillings, inasmuch as it was a fair wage for a day's work on the land (Matthew 20:2). In any case, it is clear that this sum should hardly be compared with the annual revenue of other Oriental empires, as by Rawlinson (see above). 1 Kings 10:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Solomon's Wealth and the Use He Made of It (cf. 2 Chronicles 9:13-21). - 1 Kings 10:14. The gold which Solomon received in one year amounted to 666 talents, - more than seventeen million thalers (two million and a half sterling - Tr.). 666 is evidently a round number founded upon an approximative valuation. אחת בּשׁנה is rendered in the Vulg. per annos singulos; but this is hardly correct, as the Ophir fleet, the produce of which is at any rate included, did not arrive every year, but once in three years. Thenius is wrong in supposing that this revenue merely applies to the direct taxes levied upon the Israelites. It includes all the branches of Solomon's revenue, whether derived from his commerce by sea and land (cf. 1 Kings 10:28, 1 Kings 10:29) or from the royal domains (1 Chronicles 27:26-31), or received in the form of presents from foreign princes, who either visited him like the queen of Saba or sent ambassadors to him (1 Kings 10:23, 1 Kings 10:24), excepting the duties and tribute from conquered kings, which are specially mentioned in 1 Kings 10:15. הת מאנשׁי לבד, beside what came in (לשׁלמה בּא) from the travelling traders and the commerce of the merchants, and from all the kings, etc. התּרים אנשׁי (a combination resembling our merchantmen; cf. Ewald, 287, e., p. 721) are probably the tradesmen or smaller dealers who travelled about in the country, and רכלים the wholesale dealers. This explanation of תּרים cannot be rendered doubtful by the objection that תּוּר only occurs elsewhere in connection with the wandering about of spies; for רכל signified originally to go about, spy out, or retail scandal, and after that to trade, and go about as a tradesman. הערב מלכי are not kings of the auxiliary and allied nations (Chald., Ges.), but kings of the mixed population, and according to Jeremiah 25:24, more especially of the population of Arabia Deserta (בּמּדבּר השּׁכנים), which bordered upon Palestine; for ערב rof is a mixed crowd of all kinds of men, who either attach themselves to a nation (Exodus 12:38), or live in the midst of it as foreigners (Nehemiah 13:3), hence a number of mercenaries (Jeremiah 50:37). In 2 Chronicles 9:14, הערב is therefore correctly explained by the term ערב, which does not mean the whole of Arabia, but "only a tract of country not very extensive on the east and south of Palestine" (Gesenius), as these tribes were tributary of Solomon. הארץ פּחות, the governors of the land, are probably the officers named in 1 Kings 4:7-19. As they collected the duties in the form of natural productions and delivered them in that form, so also did the tradesmen and merchants pay their duties, and the subjugated pastoral tribes of Arabia their tribute, in natura. This explains in a very simple manner why these revenues are separated from the revenue of Solomon which came in the form of money. פּחה is a foreign word, which first found its way into the Hebrew language after the times of the Assyrians, and sprang from the Sanscrit paksha, a companion or friend, which took the form of pakkha in Prakrit, and probably of pakha in the early Persian (vid., Benfey and Stern, die Monatsnamen, p. 195).