1 Kings 4:23

1Ki 4:23 Ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and fallowdeer, and fatted fowl.

Ver. 23. Ten fat oxen … and fatted fowl.] Lectissima quaeque altilia; yet not with such luxury and gormandise as sundry Roman emperors. Anthony, who contended with Cleopatra in prodigal spending upon a banquet, and wrote, or rather vomited out a book of his own intemperances. Geta the emperor would have his dishes served in by the alphabet, viz., anserem, anatem, aprum; aliquando fasianum, farra, ficus; aliquando pullum, pavunem, perdicem, &c. {a} Caligula would have his bread gilded. Well might Nasica say of Rome, when nothing so luxurious, Stant moenia, ruunt mores; The walls indeed stand, but good manners are fallen to the ground and abolished. Not so at Jerusalem in Solomon’s days.

{a} Bruson., lib. iii. cap. 1.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(23) On this side the river.—This translation, although it expresses the true reference, viz., to the country west of the Euphrates, is literally incorrect. The words mean, “on the further side of the river,” considered from the point of view of Babylon (see the use in the later books, or in Ezr_4:6; Ezr_6:6, &c.); and accordingly indicate composition at the time of the Exile, or, at any rate, at a period when the Babylonish empire was so established in supreme sovereignty as to determine the geographical nomenclature of the East.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

23. roebucks] The Hebrew word (צבי) is rendered δορκὰς by the LXX. i.e. a gazelle. It is akin to the proper name Tabitha, i.e. Δορκὰς (Act_9:36). The rendering roebuck is better suited to the description of the next kind of animals mentioned and which A. V. translates fallow deer.

fatted fowl] The word rendered ‘fowl,’ is found only in this passage. The Chaldee paraphrase, as well as the Syriac and the Vulgate interpret it thus, so that we have full support from Jewish tradition. Kimchi thinks common fowls are meant. Gesenius, connecting the word with a root signifying pure, thinks geese or swans may be intended.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And Solomon had forty thousand stalls for horses,.... In Ch2 9:25; it is only four thousand; and therefore some think that here is a mistake of the copier, of "arbaim", forty, for "arbah", four; which it is thought might be through divine permission, in such lesser matters, without any prejudice to the authority of the Scriptures in matters of faith and practice; but without supposing this, a reconciliation may be made, by observing, that here the writer, as Ben Gersom notes, gives the number of the horses that were in the stables, which were forty thousand, there the stables themselves, which were four thousand, ten horses in a stable; or here he numbers the stalls, which were forty thousand, and there the stables, which were four thousand, there being ten stalls in each; and the word there has the letter "yod" in it more than here, which is the numerical letter for "ten", and may point thereunto; or here the writer speaks of all the stalls for horses Solomon had throughout the kingdom, there of those only he had in Jerusalem. Benjamin of Tudela (g) affirms, that these stalls, or stables, which Solomon built very strong of large stones, are still in being in Jerusalem, and that there is no building to be seen like it any where; but no other writer speaks of them; nor is it at all probable that they should remain:

for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; some of the said stalls of horses were for his chariots, to draw in them for various uses, of which had 1400, Kg1 10:26; and others to mount twelve thousand horsemen, who were placed in various parts, to defend kingdom.

(g) Itinerar. p. 43.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Harts ... - The exact sorts of wild land animals here intended are very uncertain. Perhaps it would be best to translate “wild-goats, gazelles, and wild oxen,” which abounded in the wilder parts of Syria, from where Solomon would be supplied. (See 1Ki 4:24.) (Yahmur, or the “roebuck,” gives its name to a valley in a wooded district, south of Carmel (Conder).) The use of game at the royal banquets of Assyria appears in the sculptures.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Buffaloes. Yachmur means also a sort of wild-goat, like a stag, Deuteronomy xiv. 5. (Bochart, Anim. i. B. iii. 22.) --- Fowls. Some Rabbins explain barburim, (or borbrim) of capons, or birds from Barbary; as if this name had been known in the days of Solomon. (Calmet) --- There was an ancient Ethiopian Barbary on the Persian gulf, (Bochart) with which the Rabbins were not acquainted. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Ten fat oxen, fitted in stalls.

Out of the pastures; well fleshed, tender, and good, though not so fat as the former.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

23. Twenty oxen out of the pastures — Such as had been taken immediately from the field, in distinction from such as had been stallfed. It is said that one hundred oxen were daily slaughtered for the kings of Persia; and Tavernier relates that as many as five hundred sheep and lambs were daily consumed at the court of the Sultan.

Harts… roebucks… fallow deer — Various species of the genus cervus, or deer family. See Deu_12:15; Deu_14:5.

Fatted fowl — Domesticated poultry.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ten fat Heb. fatted, i.e., for table oxen, and twenty fat oxen out of the pastures, and a hundred sheep, beside harts and roebucks or gazelles and fallowdeer Roebucks. The name Yahmur is still current in Palestine in this sense (Conder, p. 91), and fatted fowl This word ( occurs nowhere else. The meaning most in favour is geese.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Fat - Fatted in stalls. Out of pastures - Well fleshed, tender and good, though not so fat as the former.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.