Chapter 8

A detailing of all that Solomon built.  Restoring destroyed cities, building cities for storage, for his chariots and for his men.

This verse:

2 Solomon rebuilt the cities that Hiram had given to him, and settled the people of Israel in them. [2Ch 8:2 ESV]

I don't remember Hiram giving him cities.  That would be good to look up, along with the Geographical and national defense implications.  In light of the above, Hiram apparently didn't think what Solomon gave him was equivalent.  National defense may have been the main reason.

2021 - These verses:

7 All the people who were left of the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of Israel, 8 from their descendants who were left after them in the land, whom the people of Israel had not destroyed--these Solomon drafted as forced labor, and so they are to this day. [2Ch 8:7-8 ESV]

This is how the wisest man who ever breathed handled foreigners in his country.  He made forced labor out of them, had them work, had them build for the natives.  All these peoples had been conquered by war, and there is no talk of paying them reparations or returning their lands.  They lost.  They are nothing.  They are to be treated humanely, but they work for us.  Perhaps the founding fathers of this country missed this principle in their reading?  One would need to see whether there is anything in the NT that would prohibit this.

This verse:

18 And Hiram sent to him by the hand of his servants ships and servants familiar with the sea, and they went to Ophir together with the servants of Solomon and brought from there 450 talents of gold and brought it to King Solomon. [2Ch 8:18 ESV]  This is 33,750 lbs of gold.  At $2000/oz tr, that is $67.5 million in gold.

2022 - But...Ophir didn't just "give" gold to anyone who came looking for it?  What did you trade for gold in those days?  How did Solomon have $67.5 million dollars worth of anything that he could take aboard ships and send to Ophir.  Where is Ophir???

Googled it, and we don't really know where it was.  There was a quotation saying that the King of Ophir built the walls of golden stones.  There was apparently a ton of it available...which would reduce its value in the eyes of those in Ophir.  Maybe they had gold but not food, not salt, not leather, and so on.  I'm sure they were picky, but they still had to eat.

Both 1 Kings 9 and this chapter say that the Canaanites left in the land - Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, and so on, were all drafted as forced labor and used to build these things.  How would that fly in the US today, if we started drafting illegal immigrants and putting them to forced labor to improve the infrastructure of this country?  Imagine the howls!  Imagine the decline in illegal immigration!  Now there is a plan to earn citizenship!  Second time...this would still work.  Illegal immigrants drafted as forced labor - or minimum wage labor - for infrastructure projects, maintenance and restoration.  A Civilian Immigration Corp.