📖WEB · 1 Kings 9:20
What does 1 Kings 9:20 mean?
"As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel;"
— 1 Kings 9:20 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
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.
As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel;
their children who were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel were not able utterly to destroy, of them Solomon raised a levy of bondservants to this day.
But of the children of Israel Solomon made no bondservants; but they were the men of war, his servants, his princes, his captains, and rulers of his chariots and of his horsemen.
These were the five hundred fifty chief officers who were over Solomon’s work, who ruled over the people who labored in the work.
Explanation
1 Kings 9:20 is a straightforward historical statement that begins a description of the non-Israelite peoples who remained in the land during Solomon's reign. The verse lists the various Canaanite peoples—Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—who had not been part of the Israelite tribes but were still living within the borders of Solomon's kingdom. This verse sets up the explanation in the following verse (9:21) of what happened to these peoples: Solomon conscripted them into forced labor for his building projects, since the Israelites themselves had not fully driven them out generations earlier.
The context is the broader account of Solomon's reign found in 1 Kings 9, which follows immediately after descriptions of his massive building program, including the Temple, his palace, and various fortified cities like Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. The author of Kings is explaining the labor force behind these ambitious projects. This connects back to the book of Joshua and Judges, where Israel was commanded to drive out the Canaanite nations from the Promised Land but failed to do so completely. These five (and sometimes more) peoples represent the remnants of the original inhabitants of Canaan who had survived the conquest generations earlier and continued to live alongside, or under the rule of, the Israelites.
Theologically, this verse quietly testifies to the long-term consequences of Israel's incomplete obedience during the conquest under Joshua. God had commanded Israel to remove these nations because of their idolatrous practices and to prevent
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