Solomon’s conquest of Hamath Zobah in a later part of his reign, after which he built Tadmor in the wilderness and raised a line of fortresses along his frontier to the Euphrates, is probably connected with these hostilities.[26] The justice of Solomon was proverbial.  Among his first acts after his accession, it is related that when he had offered a costly sacrifice at Gibeon, the place where the Tabernacle remained, God had appeared to him in a dream, and offered him whatever gift he chose:  the wise king requested an understanding heart to judge the people.  God not merely assented to his prayer, but added the gift of honor and riches.  His judicial wisdom was displayed in the memorable history of the two women who contested the right to a child.  Solomon, in the wild spirit of Oriental justice, commanded the infant to be divided before their faces:  the heart of the real mother was struck with terror and abhorrence, while the false one consented to the horrible partition, and by this appeal to nature the cause was instantaneously decided.

[Footnote 26:  I Kings, xi., 23; I Chron., viii., 3.]

The internal government of his extensive dominions next demanded the attention of Solomon.  Besides the local and municipal governors, he divided the kingdom into twelve districts:  over each of these he appointed a purveyor for the collection of the royal tribute, which was received in kind; and thus the growing capital and the immense establishments of Solomon were abundantly furnished with provisions.  Each purveyor supplied the court for a month.  The daily consumption of his household was three hundred bushels of finer flour, six hundred of a coarser sort; ten fatted, twenty other oxen; one hundred sheep; besides poultry, and various kinds of venison.  Provender was furnished for forty thousand horses, and a great number of dromedaries.  Yet the population of the country did not, at first at least, feel these burdens:  Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry.

The foreign treaties of Solomon were as wisely directed to secure the profound peace of his dominions.  He entered into a matrimonial alliance with the royal family of Egypt, whose daughter he received with great magnificence; and he renewed the important alliance with the king of Tyre.[27] The friendship of this monarch was of the highest value in contributing to the great royal and national work, the building of the Temple.  The cedar timber could only be obtained from the forests of Lebanon:  the Sidonian artisans, celebrated in the Homeric poems, were the most skilful workmen in every kind of manufacture, particularly in the precious metals.

[Footnote 27:  After inserting the correspondence between King Solomon and King Hiram of Tyre, according to I Kings, v., Josephus asserts that copies of these letters were not only preserved by his countrymen, but also in the archives of Tyre.  I presume that Josephus adverts to the statement of Tyrian historians, not to an actual inspection of the archives, which he seems to assert as existing and accessible.]