1st Kings Chapter 5 verse 13 Holy Bible
And king Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men.
read chapter 5 in ASV
Then King Solomon got together men for the forced work through all Israel, thirty thousand men in number;
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And king Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men.
read chapter 5 in DARBY
And king Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men.
read chapter 5 in KJV
And king Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men.
read chapter 5 in WBT
King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men.
read chapter 5 in WEB
And king Solomon lifteth up a tribute out of all Israel, and the tribute is thirty thousand men,
read chapter 5 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 13. - And King Solomon raised a levy [Marg., tribute of men, i.e., conscription] out of all Israel [i.e., the people, not the land - Ewald] and the levy was thirty thousand men. [That is, if we may trust the figures of the census given in 2 Samuel 24:9 (which do not agree, however, with those of 1 Chronicles 21:5), the conscription only affected one in forty of the male population. But even the lower estimate of Samuel is regarded with some suspicion. Such a levy was predicted (1 Samuel 8:16).
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(13) Levy out of all Israel.--This, though far from being onerous, appears to have been at this time exceptional. For in 1Kings 9:22 we read that "of the children of Israel did Solomon make no bondmen: but they were men of war, and his servants, and his princes, and his captains." Thus exceptionally introduced at first for the special service of God, it may have been the beginning of what was hereafter an oppressive despotism over the Israelites themselves. Probably even now the Israelite labourers were (under the chief officers) put in authority over the great mass of 150,000 bondmen, evidently drawn from the native races. (See 2Chronicles 2:17.) But the whole description suggests to us--what the history of Exodus, the monuments of Egypt, and the description by Herodotus of the building of the Pyramids confirm--the vast sacrifice of human labour and life, at which (in the absence of machinery to spare labour) the great monuments of ancient splendour were reared.
