2 Chronicles8chapter 8

A store city was a fortified depot — granaries, oil and wine stores, and stabling — placed on a trade route or a frontier. Chariot cities held the horses and vehicles, which needed flat approaches and large stables. Tadmor, out in the desert north-east, was a caravan oasis on the route toward the Euphrates, and holding it meant holding a trade corridor.

The record about the cities Huram had given raises a difference with the account in Kings, where Solomon gives cities to Huram. The most common explanation is that they were pledged against the Tyrian loan and handed back after the account was settled, which Kings notes Huram was unhappy about.

The labor policy is stated carefully: the remaining Canaanite peoples were levied for the heavy work, but Solomon made no Israelites servants for his work — they were the soldiers, officers, and commanders instead. The distinction mattered enormously in Israelite law and would be the flashpoint of the next generation.

The fleet is the most striking item. Israel had no seafaring tradition and no natural harbor on the Mediterranean, so Solomon built ships at Ezion-geber on the Gulf of Aqaba, and Huram sent Phoenician crews who knew the sea. They sailed to Ophir and brought back gold.

Pharaoh's daughter is moved out of the house of David to a separate palace, because 'the places are holy where the ark of the LORD has come.' The marriage was a political alliance; the housing arrangement was a religious ruling on it.