CHAPTER 9 Aug. 14 
God Warns Solomon
It happened, when Solomon had finished the building of the house of Yahweh, and the king’s house, and all Solomon’s desire which he was pleased to do, 2that Yahweh appeared to Solomon the second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3Yahweh said to him, I have heard your prayer and your supplication, that you have made before Me. I have made this house holy, which you have built, to put My name there forever; and My eyes and My heart shall be there constantly. 4As for you, if you will walk before Me, as David your father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep My statutes and My ordinances; 5then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, according as I promised to David your father saying, ‘There shall not fail you a man on the throne of Israel’. 6But if you turn away from following Me, you or your children, and don’t keep My commandments and My statutes which I have set before you, but shall go and serve other gods, and worship them; 7then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all peoples. 8Though this house is so high, yet shall everyone who passes by it be astonished, and shall hiss; and they shall say, ‘Why has Yahweh done thus to this land, and to this house?’; 9and they shall answer, ‘Because they forsook Yahweh their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold of other gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore Yahweh has brought all this evil on them’. 10It happened at the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of Yahweh and the king’s house 11(now Hiram the king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar trees and fir trees, and with gold, according to all his desire), that then king Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. 12Hiram came out from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him; and they didn’t please him. 13He said, What cities are these which you have given me, my brother? He called them the land of Cabul to this day. 14Hiram sent to the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold. 
Solomon Strengthens His Kingdom
15This is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised, to build the house of Yahweh, and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer. 16Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, and taken Gezer, and burnt it with fire, and slain the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it for a present to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. 17Solomon built Gezer, and Beth Horon the lower, 18and Baalath, and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land, 19and all the storage cities that Solomon had, and the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build for his pleasure in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion. 20As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel; 21their children who were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel were not able utterly to destroy, of them Solomon raised a levy of bondservants to this day. 22But of the children of Israel Solomon made no bondservants; but they were the men of war, and his servants, and his princes, and his captains, and rulers of his chariots and of his horsemen. 23These were the chief officers who were over Solomon’s work, five hundred and fifty, who bore rule over the people who laboured in the work. 24But Pharaoh’s daughter came up out of the city of David to her house which Solomon had built for her: then he built Millo. 25Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar which he built to Yahweh three times a year, burning incense with them, on the altar that was before Yahweh. So he finished the house. 26King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion Geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. 27Hiram sent in the navy his servants, sailors who had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. 28They came to Ophir, and fetched from there gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon.

Commentary

9:1 Solomon’s desire which he was pleased to do- See on 7:1. Solomon’s building work was what he naturally desired to do, he built for his personal “pleasure” (:19); he didn’t understand that true service of God requires us to go against the grain of our natural desires.
9:3 God didn’t ideally want to have a physical temple, in the same way as He didn’t want Israel to have a system of human kings. But He made concessions to human weakness, as He does today, so eager is He for fellowship with us.
9:4 Notice all the time God uses the word “if” in this communication. There are times in our lives when like Solomon we need to be reminded that whatever successes we have had in spiritual life, our eternal future is always conditional upon our enduring to the end (Mt. 10:22). The sense of the eternity we might miss should in some form be ever in our consciousness.
9:7 I cut off Israel- A whole nation would suffer as the result of Solomon’s disobedience; our sins really can affect third parties, and this is the very sinfulness of sin.
9:22 Of the children of Israel Solomon made no bondservants- But he did later, and the people complained bitterly about the harshness he showed them (12:4). He began by being inhumane to unbelievers, and then came to treat God’s people with the same hardness he showed people in the world; and we can take a lesson from this.