cheenc03a.pdf

SOLOMON
IIOL Tyre but the N. Arabian Muyri. Now it so
happens that, as Winckler too, with extreme moderation
holds. (Tyre?) is miswritten for am (Misur?)
in Am. lg and Ps.874 (cp TYRE). What, then, is
there to hinder us from ruppoaing (if other critical
considerations favour this view) that the same error
has occurred elrewhere? jl7.3, also, is undoubtedly
miswritten sometimes for ,ln or HOW, then, do
we know that 'king of the ~,i,,r' in I K. lasr should
not rather be 'king of the o.?ua,' in which case iy>n~
(cp iy>o.x) should of course be SiyO.'? The probability
that Ahab'r matrimonial connection was with Muyri,
not with Tyre, has been referred to under PnorHEr
($ 7. "01. 3862, wifh n. I) ; and when we take into
conriderarion a fact which will be referred to presently
-viz. tha Solomol~'~ principal wife war a Miyritr
princess-we shall see that if he went any,"here ontridr
the land of Israel proper for timber, political interests
would naturally impel him to go to the N. Arabian
Muyri. (We assume provisionally that the wooded
mountain districts of the Negeb were not in Solomon'$
porresrion.) Nor must we forget that 'Ahiram'
(whence' Hiram') is one of the most probable popular
corruptions of ' Jerahmeel:' Ahiram or Hiram might
indeed be the name of a king of Tyre; but it rnirht also
(cp Aholiah=Jerahmeel?) be that of a N. Arabian
artificer.
It would not bs critical to urge aeainrf this view of the seat
of Hiram's kingdom rhar Jose hvsz quotes n pasrage 6om the
Tyrijn h/rtorypf Menrnder of ~~h~~~~ md another from th?r
of Dms, xn whish Eipu~or, kmg of Tyrc, son of 'ABiSnAor, I?
raid to have hrd inlercourre wich 'Solomon, king of Jerualem.
The datr uf >lcnnndrr and Dior is rerum=bly in the recnnd.
ccnrury 8.". ~"d though we may crext them when they fell "5
of thc sUSCC;;O" of the kings dTyro, and of events nor lsggnd.
ary in ?haracrer which they can only havc known from ancient
huihonfler-i.r., from the Tyrian archives (which Joxfhur
PO~i,i"eiy nsrerts that Menilnder at last had inspected), we
crnnot venture to rrurt the., when ,hey touch upon mrtrerr
cloxly relaad to the then current Jewish history. Thur when
?lcnandci(in J?.Anf. viii. 131) fells us lhat there wnsadruught
1" Phenicir, whrcll lrrtcd for a yrar, and war closed through
the potant rnpplicatiqns of 'IB+Aw, king of Tyre, we divine
at once ,r*r this ir dlrccrrd agacnrt the Jewish rtiltcmenr that
a long droughl in the land of Israel war terminated throogh
the intcrccrrlonr of Elijah,A and when Eipvror is rmd by
?lcmnder and Dior Uor. Ant. vat. 53) to have hada mamh of
riddle-goerring 4th Solomon, we can see that thlr is bared on
the Jcwish rtory of Lh" riddles by whish the queen of Sheba
tested Solomon (I K. 10 r).
We have no extra-biblical authority for doubting
that if Solomon was indebted for buildinr materials and
artificers to any foreign king. it was the king of
Miyrim, not to the king of Tyre. According to the
most probable text of z S. 8% 1231 David had conquered
both Miysur and Jernhmeel (see Crir Rib., and
cp SAUL), so that if we hew of u king of Miyriur
in the reien of Solomon, we may assume that he for a
time at any rate owned the supremacy of the king of
Israel. If so, there is nothing inconsistent in the double
sfatenlent that Solomon had his own workmen in the
mourrtainr (I K.513 j? [z, j?]), and that Hiram rent
workmen to cut down wood at Solomon's reque~t.~
omi in ally, the mountain country of ~erahmeel (called.
as we shall see. Gehilbn) was a part of Solomon's
dominions, so that an suzerain he had a right to rend
1 Kittel (on r Ch. 14 1) prefers the farm HOram : Schrrder
(KATPI lo), Hirom, Cp HIRAM, end. The view taken
above reemr to the present wrirzr the beit. Ulvmilki is
arterfed rr a Phenician royal name in m inscription of Scnnacherib
(KA TF1 r85, cp also 7b,N, an ancestor of Yehaw.
melek, ClSi. no. I), and Urumilki probiibly=Jerahmeel.
1 Ant. viii.5j(%P 16+1+9): c. AP.lxi/. (gD irx-rso).
3 Dim, too. IIlYI Jo~ephur, wns lrurted for hi3 uxctnesr
(c. A$.;. 1711~).
4 Winckler (KATiJ12so) zivver a different explanation of
Menander's as