📖WEB · 1 Kings 9:16
What does 1 Kings 9:16 mean?
"Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, taken Gezer, burned it with fire, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it for a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon’s wife."
— 1 Kings 9:16 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
He said, “What cities are these which you have given me, my brother?” He called them the land of Cabul to this day.
Hiram sent to the king one hundred twenty talents of gold.
This is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised, to build Yahweh’s house, his own house, Millo, Jerusalem’s wall, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.
Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, taken Gezer, burned it with fire, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it for a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.
Solomon built in the land Gezer, Beth Horon the lower,
Baalath, Tamar in the wilderness,
all the storage cities that Solomon had, the cities for his chariots, 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.
Explanation
1 Kings 9:16 records a brief historical note explaining how the city of Gezer came into Solomon's possession. In plain language, the verse tells us that Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had earlier launched a military campaign against Gezer, a Canaanite city. He conquered it, burned it to the ground, and killed the Canaanite inhabitants who lived there. Afterward, Pharaoh gave the ruined city as a dowry or wedding gift to his daughter when she married Solomon, king of Israel.
To understand the context, it helps to remember that Solomon had formed a political marriage alliance with Egypt, mentioned earlier in 1 Kings 3:1, where he married Pharaoh's daughter. Such marriages were common diplomatic tools in the ancient Near East, cementing peace treaties and trade relationships between kingdoms. This particular verse fills in a piece of background history: Gezer, a strategically important city located on the border between Egypt's sphere of influence and Israelite territory, had remained in Canaanite hands even after Joshua's conquests centuries earlier (see Joshua 16:10, which notes Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites living in Gezer). Pharaoh's conquest of Gezer finally removed that Canaanite population, and rather than keeping the city for Egypt, he handed it over to his daughter as a dowry, which meant it effectively became part of Solomon's kingdom.
Theologically, this verse is significant because it shows God's providence working through international politics
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