All the people that were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel,
Solomon is building cities, and the record pauses to name peoples still living in the land long after Israel arrived — survivors Israel never finished driving out. Why were they still there, and why does Scripture record their forced labour under Solomon?
The verse traces these peoples back to an incomplete conquest. One writer looks hard at the claim that Israel "could not" drive them out:
Their strength revealed the secret of their inability. They "could not" because they "would not" drive them out. They preferred to make a profit from these nations rather than obey God. In time Israel learned all the detestable practices of the Canaanites. They served them as a punishment for their sins. Making terms with the enemy, in disobedience to God, was short-sighted. It ended with the tribute-payers becoming thorns in their eyes and thorns in their sides, and at last their masters.
One writer sets Solomon's treatment of these survivors beside Saul's failure with the Gibeonites:
The people's weakness had spared all these Canaanites long ago. Now Solomon brings them into subjection, just as happened earlier to the Gibeonites. Solomon does not repeat Saul's mistake toward those Gibeonites (2 Sam. 21); instead he reduces to servitude the Canaanites who still remain among the people.
Solomon drew his labour gangs from these nations, and from no Israelite. One writer reads Israel's future place in it:
"But of the people of Israel Solomon made no slaves for his work." A very remarkable statement. He made the Gentiles servants. The Jews will then be lords upon the earth, not slaves.
The long compromise ends, and something new appears:
This glorious reign brings about something that had never existed before, because the people had been unfaithful. All their former mixing with the Canaanites has disappeared. From now on the Lord's people are a free people, and nothing can bring them into servitude.
Commentators read this arrangement as a preview of an age still ahead:
Solomon put all the strangers, the Canaanites living in the land, into subjection, and they had to pay tribute to him. They were the servants... It foreshadows the age in which all will be subject to Him who will be King to rule in righteousness (Isaiah 32:1; Heb. 2:8). Then His own people will serve Him, for "your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power" (Psalm 110:3).
The picture carries a warning too. Outward submission is not a changed heart:
Israel had not expelled all the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites from the land. Solomon conscripted those who were left as forced labour (vv. 20–21). So he had full control of the country. When the Lord Jesus takes His kingdom, people from the nations will submit to Him despite not having genuine faith (Ps. 18:43–45).
There is mercy running under this servitude. One writer links these forced labourers with people who later came back from exile with a heart for God's house:
Instead of being destroyed by the sword of the Lord's army, they were rescued. Centuries later they are found in honourable association with the Lord's people, and with a heart for the Lord's house too, since they returned from Babylon with their fellow captives... We read that Solomon levied a tribute of forced service, lasting to this day, from the children of the Amorites and the others left in the land, whom Israel was not able to destroy completely (1 Kings 9:19–21). It might have been the descendants of these who received the name "Solomon's servants." The lesson is again significant: the least connection with the Lord's people and the Lord's things becomes a means of blessing.
The same writer draws a practical rule for Christians today:
Like Solomon, Christians need not treat as valid the claims of the world that the unfaithful Church has let gain a foothold among her. On the other hand, they are not to drive them out. They themselves should walk in the liberty of the children of God and leave them to their yoke of bondage... Israel never knew such a complete separation before Solomon, but it can and should exist even in the worst days.
- Unfinished — An earlier generation "could not" drive these peoples out. That meant they would not: they chose profit over obedience.
- Subdued — Solomon brings under control what that weakness left behind. He settles an old failure without a battle.
- Free — The labour falls on the strangers, not on Israel. The Lord's people are no longer mixed in with Canaan, and no longer enslaved to it.
- Foreshadowed — The arrangement pictures the age when the true King rules every nation, and His own people offer themselves freely.
- Feigned — Forced service is not faith. Commentators warn that many will submit to Christ without believing hearts. Yet God's mercy still reaches some once marked for destruction.
their children that were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel were not able utterly to destroy, upon them did Solomon impose a tribute of bondservice until this day.
Solomon's building projects needed workers. He found them in the people Israel had never driven out of Canaan. It raises a hard question. How did a king's glory come to rest on a job earlier generations left unfinished?
The verse says Israel was unable to destroy them. One writer, looking at the same words in Joshua, says the problem was will, not strength.
"Now when the people of Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor" (Joshua 17:13). Their strength exposed the secret of their inability. They "could not" because they "would not" drive them out. They preferred to make a profit from these nations rather than obey God. And so, after a time, Israel learned all the detestable ways of the Canaanites, and served them as a punishment for their sins. Making terms with the enemy, in disobedience to God, was shortsighted: those who paid the tribute became thorns in Israel's eyes and in their sides, and at last their masters.
They chose profit over obedience, and the cost came later.
Under Solomon the relationship changes. The Canaanites no longer live mixed in among Israel; they serve. One commentator says this had never happened before.
The burden-bearers, the stone cutters, and the overseers all come from the Canaanites living among Israel, whom the people had failed to drive out: "But of the people of Israel Solomon made no slaves." So this glorious reign brings in a state of things that had never existed before, because the people had been unfaithful. All their former mingling with the Canaanites is gone. From now on the Lord's people are a free people, and no one can bring them into servitude.
The same writer links these survivors to the Gibeonites, an earlier people Israel had spared:
All the Canaanites, spared long ago because the people were weak, are now made subject, just as the Gibeonites were before. Solomon does not repeat Saul's mistake toward these people (2 Sam. 21). Instead he puts the Canaanites still left among Israel into servitude.
The phrase "to this day" reaches past Solomon's lifetime. Centuries later, the lists of those who came home from exile in Babylon name a group called "Solomon's servants." One writer traces them back to this forced labour.
We read that Solomon imposed forced labour "to this day" on the sons of the Amorites and others left in the land, whom the people of Israel had not been able to destroy completely (1 Kings 9:19-21). It may have been their descendants who received the name "Solomon's servants." However that may be, the lesson already drawn is again significant: the least connection with the Lord's people and the Lord's things becomes a means of blessing.
He says the same of the Nethinim, another group of servants tied to God's house. Their bondage, he writes, was "bondage in His mercy in connection with His house," and it turned the curse resting on them into a blessing. People spared from judgment ended up alongside the people of God.
Commentators read Solomon's reign as a small model of a greater one. One of them adds a warning about the submission it pictures.
Israel had not driven all the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites out of the land. Solomon drafted those who were left as forced labour (vs. 20-21). So he had full control of the country. When the Lord Jesus takes His kingdom, there will be people from the nations who submit to Him despite not having genuine faith (Ps. 18:43-45).
Outward submission is not the same as a changed heart.
One writer applies this to Christians. They are not to drive the world's claims out, and not to accept them either.
Like Solomon, Christians do not have to accept the claims of the world that the unfaithful Church has let gain a foothold among her. On the other hand, they are not to drive them out. They should walk themselves in the liberty of the children of God, and leave them to their yoke of bondage — the only religion that suits the flesh, and the one the flesh recognises.
- Failure. Israel "could not" drive out the Canaanites because they would not. They chose profit over obedience, and paid for it later.
- Inheritance. Solomon inherited that unfinished business and settled it. What years of unfaithfulness had tangled, one reign put in order.
- Separation. Under him the mingling stopped: strangers served, and the Lord's people were free.
- Mercy. The forced labour lasted "to this day." Descendants of those spared from judgment show up among the returning exiles. The smallest link with God's people proved a blessing.
- Preview. The picture points to Christ's kingdom, where the nations will submit. But some of that submission will be outward only, without genuine faith.