1st Kings Chapter 10 verse 29 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 29. - And a chariot [including perhaps the two or three horses (see note on 1 Kings 5:6) usually attached to a chariot, and the harness. רֶכֶב is used (2 Samuel 8:4; 2 Samuel 10:18; Ezekiel 39:20) for chariot and horses] came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver [about £80 (Wordsworth, £35), but, as these figures show, the precise value cannot be ascertained with certainty. But it is quite clear that these amounts cannot have been the custom duty, or the profits after reckoning all expenses (Ewald) paid on chariots and horses, but must represent the actual price], and an horse for an hundred and fifty: and so for all the kings of the Hittites. [We can hardly see in these Hittites representatives of the seven nations of Canaan (Wordsworth, al.), though the term "Hittite" is sometimes undoubtedly used as a nomen generale for Canaanites (Joshua 1:4; Ezekiel 16:3), for the Canaanitish bes had been reduced to bond service, the Hittites amongst them (1 Kings 9:20). The word is probably used somewhat loosely of the semi-independent tribes bordering on Palestine, the Khatti of the Assyrian inscriptions (Dict. Bib. 1:819), with whom Solomon had a sort of alliance. It is a curious coincidence that we find horses and chariots associated in popular estimation with the Hittites, at a later period of the history (2 Kings 7:6). Nor are we justified in supposing that these horses and chariots were furnished as cavalry to "Solomon's vassals, whose armies were at his disposal, if he required their aid" (Rawlinson), for the kings of Syria are mentioned presently, and some of these at least were enemies to Solomon. Probably all we are to understand is that neighbouring nations received their supply of horses from Egypt - the home of horses and chariots (Exodus 14:6; Exodus 15:1; Deuteronomy 17:16; Isaiah 31:1; Jeremiah 46:2-4) - largely through the instrumentality of Solomon's merchants], and for the kings of Syria ["who became the bitterest enemies of Israel" (Wordsworth): one fruit of a worldly policy], did they bring them out by their means. [Heb. by their hand they brought them out, i.e., they exported them through Solomon's traders.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(29) A chariot.--This is the chariot and its team of two or three horses; the "horse" is the charger. The price (though so far considerable as to indicate a large expenditure on the whole) shows that the supply was large, and the commerce regular.The kings of the Hittites, and the kings of Syria--evidently allies or tributaries of Solomon, who were allowed, or compelled, to purchase their horses and chariots through his merchants. Of all the earlier inhabitants of Palestine the Hittites alone are mentioned as having existed in power after the conquest (as here and in 2Kings 7:6); and this statement is curiously confirmed by both Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions, describing a powerful confederacy of Hittites in the valley of the Orontes in Syria, not far from Ph?nicia, with whom both empires waged war. The possession of horses and chariots by the northern confederacy round Hazor is especially noted in the history of the Conquest (Joshua 11:4-6).