Solomon accumulated 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses, which he stationed in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as abundant as sycamore in the foothills. Solomon's horses were imported from Egypt and Kue; the royal merchants purchased them from Kue. A chariot could be imported from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. Likewise, they exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and to the kings of Aram.
But the king must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire more horses, for the LORD has said, 'You are never to go back that way again.' He must not take many wives for himself, lest his heart go astray. He must not accumulate for himself large amounts of silver and gold.
Significance
The Deuteronomic "law of the king" prohibits three specific excesses: acquiring many horses (especially from Egypt), taking many wives, and accumulating excessive silver and gold (לֹא יַרְבֶּה, lo yarbeh, "he must not multiply," repeated three times). 1 Kings 10:26-29 documents Solomon violating all three: 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses imported from Egypt, with silver made "as common in Jerusalem as stones". The narrator's itemized account of Solomon's wealth reads as a deliberate catalog of Deuteronomy 17 violations, inviting readers to measure the king's conduct against the Torah's standard. The contrast between the Deuteronomic ideal of a king who reads the law daily and the reality of Solomon's imperial accumulation exposes the monarchy's fundamental failure.
