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Study Number Seventeen – 1 Kings 10:14-29 1 Kings 10:14-29 v.14 The weight of the gold that Solomon received yearly was 666 talents, v.15 not including the revenues from merchants and traders and from all the Arabian kings and the governors of the land. v.16 King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold; six hundred bekas of gold went into each shield. v.17 He also made three hundred small shields of hammered gold, with three minas of gold in each shield. The king put them in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon. v.18 Then the king made a great throne inlaid with ivory and overlaid with fine gold. v.19 The throne had six steps, and its back had a rounded top. On both sides of the seat were armrests, with a lion standing beside each of them. v.20 Twelve lions stood on the six steps, one at either end of each step. Nothing like it had ever been made for any other kingdom. v.21 All King Solomon"s goblets were gold, and all the household articles in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Nothing was made of silver, because silver was considered of little value in Solomon"s days. v.22 The king had a fleet of trading ships at sea along with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons. v.23 King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. v.24 The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. v.25 Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift—articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules. v.26 Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. v.27 The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills. v.28 Solomon"s horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue—the royal merchants purchased them from Kue. v.29 They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. They also exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the Arameans. Questions: 1. Read 1 Kings 10:14-29 and in your own words pull out the main thought of this passage. 2. What was part of Solomon"s yearly income, according to verse 14? 3. Describe what Solomon does in verses 16 & 17. 4. Describe King Solomon"s throne, according to verses 18-20. 5. What do we learn about Solomon"s household goods in verse 21? 6. What cargo is carried by Solomon"s trading ships, according to verse 22? 7. What two things are said about King Solomon in verse 23? 8. Why are the leaders of the world seeking an audience with Solomon, according to
verse 24? 9. What verse in the study has meant the most to you? 10. What lesson have you learned from this study? Lessons from the Passage: What are some of the lessons we can learn from this particular study? LESSON #1: "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life" (Proverbs 4:23). LESSON #2: Jesus Christ and our desire to please Him should be our single focus. LESSON #3: God is in the business of blessing the obedient heart. LESSON #4: Find your joy in His Word rather than in your bottom line. LESSON #5: Satan uses the snare of accumulating wealth to destroy the things that are most precious to us. LESSON #6: Those things that are most precious to us are our family, our marriage, our physical health, and our spiritual well-being. LESSON #7: One of the temptations of wealth is to make a statement by becoming overly extravagant. LESSON #8: Solomon is totally focused on material things and is caught up in the bigness of his projects. LESSON #9: The fall of great men usually starts with rationalizing small things. LESSON #10: "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew 6:24). LESSON #11: "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many a pang" (1 Timothy 6:10). LESSON #12: "Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life, according to your word " (Psalm 119:37). Additional Notes:
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