1st Kings Chapter 4 Bible in Basic English

1st Kings 4:1

Now Solomon was king over all Israel.

1st Kings 4:2

And these were his chief men: Azariah, the son of Zadok, was the priest;

1st Kings 4:3

Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha, were scribes; Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, was the recorder;

1st Kings 4:4

Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was head of the army; Zadok and Abiathar were priests;

1st Kings 4:5

Azariah, the son of Nathan, was over those in authority in the different divisions of the country; Zabud, the son of Nathan, was priest and the king's friend;

1st Kings 4:6

Ahishar was controller of the king's house; Adoniram, the son of Abda, was overseer of the forced work.

1st Kings 4:7

And Solomon put twelve overseers over all Israel, to be responsible for the stores needed for the king and those of his house; every man was responsible for one month in the year.

1st Kings 4:8

And these are their names: ... the son of Hur in the hill country of Ephraim;

1st Kings 4:9

... the son of Deker in Makaz and Shaalbim and Beth-shemesh and Elonbeth-hanan;

1st Kings 4:10

... the son of Hesed in Arubboth; Socoh and all the land of Hepher were under his control;

1st Kings 4:11

... the son of Abinadab in all Naphath-dor; his wife was Taphath, the daughter of Solomon.

1st Kings 4:12

Baana, the son of Ahilud, in Taanach and Megiddo, and all Beth-shean which is by the side of Zarethan, under Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah, as far as the far side of Jokmeam;

1st Kings 4:13

... the son of Geber in Ramoth-gilead; he had the towns of Jair, the son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead, and the country of Argob, which is in Bashan, sixty great towns with walls and locks of brass.

1st Kings 4:14

Ahinadab, the son of Iddo, in Mahanaim;

1st Kings 4:15

Ahimaaz in Naphtali; he took Basemath, the daughter of Solomon, as his wife;

1st Kings 4:16

Baana, the son of Hushai, in Asher and Aloth;

1st Kings 4:17

Jehoshaphat, the son of Paruah, in Issachar;

1st Kings 4:18

Shimei, the son of Ela, in Benjamin;

1st Kings 4:19

Geber, the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan; and one overseer had authority over all the overseers who were in the land.

1st Kings 4:20

Judah and Israel were as great in number as the sand by the seaside, and they took their food and drink with joy in their hearts.

1st Kings 4:21

And Solomon was ruler over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, and as far as the edge of Egypt; men gave him offerings and were his servants all the days of his life.

1st Kings 4:22

And the amount of Solomon's food for one day was thirty measures of crushed grain and sixty measures of meal;

1st Kings 4:23

Ten fat oxen and twenty oxen from the fields, and a hundred sheep, in addition to harts and gazelles and roes and fat fowls.

1st Kings 4:24

For he had authority over all the country on this side of the River, from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all the kings on this side of the River; and he had peace round him on every side.

1st Kings 4:25

So Judah and Israel were living safely, every man under his vine and his fig-tree, from Dan as far as Beer-sheba, all the days of Solomon.

1st Kings 4:26

And Solomon had four thousand boxed-off spaces for horses for his carriages, and twelve thousand horsemen.

1st Kings 4:27

And those overseers, every man in his month, saw that food was produced for Solomon and all his guests, they took care that nothing was overlooked.

1st Kings 4:28

And they took grain and dry grass for the horses and the carriage-horses, to the right place, every man as he was ordered.

1st Kings 4:29

And God gave Solomon a great store of wisdom and good sense, and a mind of wide range, as wide as the sand by the seaside.

1st Kings 4:30

And Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt.

1st Kings 4:31

For he was wiser than all men, even than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman and Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and he had a great name among all the nations round about.

1st Kings 4:32

He was the maker of three thousand wise sayings, and of songs to the number of a thousand and five.

1st Kings 4:33

He made sayings about all plants, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop hanging on the wall; and about all beasts and birds and fishes and the small things of the earth.

1st Kings 4:34

People came from every nation to give ear to the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had word of his wisdom.