Five-minute study · Day 273 · 1 Kings 5
1 Kings 5:6
A word worth stopping on: cedar trees אֶרֶז erez
Solomon needed cedar. He wrote to Hiram, king of Tyre, and asked for erez, the cedars of Lebanon. 'Command thou that they hew me cedar trees out of Lebanon.' The cedars of Lebanon were the most prized building material in the ancient Near East. They grew to 130 feet tall, with trunks six feet in diameter, and their wood resisted rot and insects for centuries. Pharaoh Sneferu of Egypt imported 40 shiploads of Lebanese cedar around 2600 BCE, a thousand years before Solomon's letter. The Palermo Stone records the shipment. Everyone who wanted to build something that would last wanted erez. Solomon was building a house for God. He reached for the best wood on earth.
Word study: cedar trees
- Hebrew
- אֶרֶז
- Pronounced
- erez
- Strong's
- H0730
- Definition
- Cedar, specifically the cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani). A large coniferous tree prized in antiquity for its height, durability, fragrance, and resistance to decay. Used throughout the ancient Near East for temple construction, palace building, and shipbuilding.
Erez appears over 70 times in the Hebrew Bible. BDB defines it as 'cedar' and notes its consistent association with Lebanon. The cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani) was the prestige timber of the ancient Near East for over three millennia. Meiggs's 'Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World' documents its use from the Early Bronze Age through the Roman period. The wood is aromatic, naturally resistant to insect damage, slow to decay, and straight-grained enough for architectural beams of considerable length. These properties made it the default choice for monumental construction.
Solomon's request to Hiram in 1 Kings 5:6 initiates the timber transaction that supplied the Jerusalem temple. The arrangement was commercial: Solomon provided Hiram with wheat and olive oil in exchange for cedar and cypress logs (5:10-11). The logs were floated as rafts along the Mediterranean coast from Tyre to Joppa (2 Chronicles 2:16), then transported overland to Jerusalem. DeVries's commentary on 1 Kings in the Word Biblical Commentary series notes that the Hiram-Solomon timber trade followed established patterns of Phoenician commerce. Tyre controlled access to the Lebanese forests and had built a lucrative export trade with Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Aegean world. Solomon was tapping into an existing supply chain.
The archaeological evidence for cedar use in Israelite construction includes carbonized wood fragments recovered from Iron Age sites. Excavations at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer (the three cities Solomon is recorded as building in 1 Kings 9:15) have yielded evidence of monumental construction consistent with the biblical accounts. The use of cedar in the Jerusalem temple is described in extraordinary detail: cedar beams for the roof (1 Kings 6:9), cedar planks covering the interior walls from floor to ceiling (6:15), cedar carved with gourds and flowers (6:18). The interior of the temple was entirely clad in cedar. No stone was visible (6:18). The building smelled like a Lebanese forest.
The symbolic dimension of cedar runs through the prophetic literature. Ezekiel 31 compares Assyria to a cedar of Lebanon: tall, beautiful, the envy of all the trees in Eden, and ultimately felled by God. The cedar represents grandeur that can become pride. Psalm 92:12 reverses the image: 'The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.' The cedar represents endurance, rootedness, vertical growth over centuries. Solomon chose erez for the temple because it was the most durable, most beautiful, most costly wood available. The house of God would be built with the best the earth produced.
Historical context · Pharaoh Sneferu's cedar imports approximately 2600 BCE; the Phoenician timber trade spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages; Solomon's reign approximately 970-930 BCE; the construction of the Jerusalem temple approximately 966-959 BCE
The Lebanese Cedar Trade and Solomon's Temple
The cedar forests of Lebanon were among the most valuable natural resources in the ancient world. The mountains of Lebanon, rising to over 10,000 feet above the Mediterranean coastal plain, supported dense stands of Cedrus libani at elevations between 4,000 and 7,000 feet. The trees grew slowly, lived for over a thousand years, and produced timber of exceptional quality. Meiggs documents that every major civilization in the ancient Near East sought Lebanese cedar: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and the Phoenician city-states that controlled access to the forests.
The earliest documented cedar import is Pharaoh Sneferu's expedition around 2600 BCE, recorded on the Palermo Stone (a fragmentary royal annal now in the Palermo Archaeological Museum). The text records 'bringing forty ships filled with cedar logs.' The logs were used for shipbuilding, temple doors, and royal construction. Egyptian demand for Lebanese cedar continued for over two thousand years. The Amarna Letters (14th century BCE) include correspondence between Egyptian pharaohs and the rulers of Byblos regarding timber shipments. Rib-Hadda, king of Byblos, writes repeatedly to Pharaoh about cedar: it was the commodity that kept Byblos relevant in the geopolitical landscape.
The Phoenicians, based in the coastal cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, controlled the cedar trade during the Iron Age. They developed sophisticated logging and transport techniques. Trees were felled in the mountain forests, dragged to rivers, floated downstream to the coast, lashed into rafts, and towed along the Mediterranean to their destination. Hiram of Tyre's arrangement with Solomon followed this established procedure. 1 Kings 5:9: 'My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea: and I will convey them by sea in floats unto the place that thou shalt appoint me.'
Archaeological evidence for monumental construction at Solomonic-era sites includes the six-chambered gate structures at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer, which match the description in 1 Kings 9:15. While the dating of these structures has been debated (Finkelstein proposes a later date; Mazar defends the traditional Solomonic attribution), the architectural ambition they represent is consistent with a regime that had access to imported timber and skilled Phoenician labor. The temple itself has not been excavated (the Temple Mount in Jerusalem remains inaccessible to archaeological investigation), but the detailed architectural description in 1 Kings 6-7 matches known temple typology from the Levantine world.
For reflection
Erez. Cedar of Lebanon. The prestige material of the ancient world, traded for three thousand years before Solomon wrote his letter to Hiram. Forty shiploads to Egypt in 2600 BCE. Rafts floated down the Mediterranean coast. Trees that took centuries to grow, felled and shipped to build something that would last. Solomon lined every interior wall of the temple with cedar. No stone visible. The entire building smelled like a mountain forest. He gave God the best material available on earth. Consider what you bring to worship. The song you half-sing, the prayer you rush through, the tithe you calculate to the penny. What would it look like to bring the erez, the best of what you have, and let God have all of it?
Erez: cedar, specifically Cedrus libani. BDB notes its consistent association with Lebanon. Meiggs documents its use from the Early Bronze Age onward. Solomon's temple was entirely clad in cedar: beams, walls, carvings. The best wood on earth for the house of God.
Sources: BDB; Meiggs, 'Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World'