Tarshish: The Origins of Solomon’s Silver

The text reads,

^{מלכים א ז:מח} וַיַּעַשׂ שְׁלֹמֹה אֵת כָּל הַכֵּלִים אֲשֶׁר בֵּית יְ־הוָה אֵת מִזְבַּח הַזָּהָב וְאֶת הַשֻּׁלְחָן אֲשֶׁר עָלָיו לֶחֶם הַפָּנִים זָהָב. ^ז:מט וְאֶת הַמְּנֹרוֹת חָמֵשׁ מִיָּמִין וְחָמֵשׁ מִשְּׂמֹאול לִפְנֵי הַדְּבִיר זָהָב סָגוּר וְהַפֶּרַח וְהַנֵּרֹת וְהַמֶּלְקַחַיִם זָהָב. ^ז:נ וְהַסִּפּוֹת וְהַמְזַמְּרוֹת וְהַמִּזְרָקוֹת וְהַכַּפּוֹת וְהַמַּחְתּוֹת זָהָב סָגוּר וְהַפֹּתוֹת לְדַלְתוֹת הַבַּיִת הַפְּנִימִי לְקֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים לְדַלְתֵי הַבַּיִת לַהֵיכָל זָהָב.

^{1 Kgs 7:48} And Solomon made all the furnishings that were in the House of YHWH: the altar, of gold; the table for the bread of display, of gold; ^7:49 the lampstands—five on the right side and five on the left—in front of the Shrine, of solid gold; and the petals, lamps, and tongs, of gold; ^7:50 the basins, snuffers, sprinkling bowls, ladles, and fire pans, of solid gold; and the hinge sockets for the doors of the innermost part of the House, the Holy of Holies, and for the doors of the Great Hall of the House, of gold.

The text reads:

^{מלכים א י:טז} וַיַּעַשׂ הַמֶּלֶךְ שְׁלֹמֹה מָאתַיִם צִנָּה זָהָב שָׁחוּט שֵׁשׁ מֵאוֹת זָהָב יַעֲלֶה עַל הַצִּנָּה הָאֶחָת. ^י:יז וּשְׁלֹשׁ מֵאוֹת מָגִנִּים זָהָב שָׁחוּט שְׁלֹשֶׁת מָנִים זָהָב יַעֲלֶה עַל הַמָּגֵן הָאֶחָת וַיִּתְּנֵם הַמֶּלֶךְ בֵּית יַעַר הַלְּבָנוֹן. ^י:יח וַיַּעַשׂ הַמֶּלֶךְ כִּסֵּא שֵׁן גָּדוֹל וַיְצַפֵּהוּ זָהָב מוּפָז.

^{1 Kgs 10:16} King Solomon made 200 shields of beaten gold—600 shekels of gold to each shield—^10:17 and 300 bucklers of beaten gold—three minas of gold to each buckler. The king placed them in the Lebanon Forest House. ^10:18 The king also made a large throne of ivory, and he overlaid it with refined gold.

Here I follow the NRSV translation, since the NJPS doesn’t make the point that none of the vessels were made of silver clear enough.

The text reads:

^{מלכים א י:י} וַתִּתֵּן לַמֶּלֶךְ מֵאָה וְעֶשְׂרִים כִּכַּר זָהָב וּבְשָׂמִים הַרְבֵּה מְאֹד וְאֶבֶן יְקָרָה...

^{1 Kgs 10:10} She presented the king with one hundred and twenty talents of gold, and a large quantity of spices, and precious stones…

For some discussion, see Marian Feldman’s “Materiality, Luxury Goods, and Diplomatic Gifts” (=ch. 5) in, Marian H. Feldman, Diplomacy by Design: Luxury Arts and an “International Style” in the Ancient Near East, 1400–1200 BCE (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 105–114.

See the discussion of this verse and what it might mean historically in Barry J. Beitzel, “Was There a Joint Nautical Venture on the Mediterranean Sea by Tyrian Phoenicians and Early Israelites?” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 360 (2010): 37–66.

Perhaps they exported copper from Edom and spices from the Arabian Peninsula (among other things).

See William Foxwell Albright, “New Light on the Early History of Phoenician Colonization,” BASOR 83 (1941): 14–22.

See also the use of this term in Psalm 48:8.

Albright specifically argues for a Mesopotamian origin of the word:

The writer would explain the word as ultimately a loan from Accadian (Babylonian) meaning “smelting plant, refinery.”

In fn 31, he clarifies his suggestion:

I.e. Accad. *taršîšu, derived from rašašu, “to melt, be smelted” and connected with Arab. ršs, “to trickle, etc., of a liquid.”

Albright, “New Light on the Early History,” 21–22.

Mordechai Cogan, I Kings, Anchor Bible, (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 319.

Note the adjusted reading in Chronicles, which replaces Ophir as the destination point with Tarshish.

^{דברי הימים ב כ:לו} וְאַחֲרֵיכֵן אֶתְחַבַּר יְהוֹשָׁפָט מֶלֶךְ יְהוּדָה עִם אֲחַזְיָה מֶלֶךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל הוּא הִרְשִׁיעַ לַעֲשׂוֹת. ^כ:לו וַיְחַבְּרֵהוּ עִמּוֹ לַעֲשׂוֹת אֳנִיּוֹת לָלֶכֶת תַּרְשִׁישׁ וַיַּעֲשׂוּ אֳנִיּוֹת בְּעֶצְיוֹן גָּבֶר.

^{2 Chron 20:35} Afterward, King Jehoshaphat of Judah entered into a partnership with King Ahaziah of Israel, thereby acting wickedly. ^20:36 He joined with him in constructing ships to go to Tarshish; the ships were constructed in Ezion-geber.

(As we will see shortly, Chronicles elsewhere rewrites Tarshish fleet, as “fleet sailing to Tarshish.”) According to this, the ships were made in Etzion-geber, but they sailed to Tarshish, ostensibly in the Mediterranean. The idea that the fleet could be built in one port but sail from another, requiring the ships to be transported by land, is the basis for what might be the most elaborate attempt to interpret the term tarshish fleet as a reference to the Red Sea fleet. Yutaka Ikeda, emeritus professor of Bible in Japan’s Tsukuba University, argues that the tarshish fleet in Kings refers to a fleet built by the Phoenicians, that sailed to King Solomon’s Mediterranean port (likely in the area of Jaffa), which was then taken apart and transported to Etzion-gever, to be used in the Red Sea fleet. Yutaka Ikeda, “King Solomon and his Red Sea Trade,” in Near Eastern Studies: Dedicated to H.I.H. Prince Takahito Mikasa on the Occasion of His Seventy-Fifth Birthday, ed., Masao Mori, Hideo Ogawa, and Mamoru Yoshikawa, Bulletin of the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan (Wiesbaden, DE: Otto Harrassowitz, 1991), 113–132.

Die Vorlage lautet „eine Tarschisch-Flotte hatte der König auf der See“ dabei is „tarschisch-schiff“ ein Qualitätsbegriff... und bedeutet nicht, daß Schiff tatsächlich nach Tarschisch... fuhr, wie es hier der Chronist mißversteht, Gemeint sind gewiß die Ofirfahrten (vgl. die mitgebrachten Produkte). Wilhelm Rudolph Chronikbücher, Handbuch zum Alten Testament 21 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1955), 224.

The word אופז appears elsewhere only in MT Daniel 10:5, בְּכֶתֶם אוּפָז “in Upaz gold.” Here too it is generally assumed to be a scribal error for ופז or simply פז. The former would be a hendiadys, בְּכֶתֶם וּפָז “with gold and pure gold,” the latter appears in Song of Songs 10:11 כֶּתֶם פָּז “pure gold.” (This could reflect the Vorlage of the LXX, which reads φῶς (phos) “light,” perhaps transliterating an unfamiliar Hebrew term (paz) and rendering it into a similar sounding Greek one.)

This may have been the Vorlage of the LXX, which reads χρυσίον Μωφαζ, “Mophaz gold,” only the translator didn’t understand the term, so he merely transliterated it.

The comment appears in MS Lutzki 675a, and it was crossed out (the text below is taken from the AlHaTorah website):

ואין נ״ל לפרש כמשמעו שהכסף יובא מתרשיש כשהוא מרוקע, כי רחוק הדבר שיביאו הפַחים מרוקעים מתרשיש, באופן שלא יהיה הכסף ההוא מוכשר לעשות בו שאר מלאכות, ואם יצטרך הצורף לעשות כלי מה יצטרך להתיך את הפחים ותהיה מלאכת הרקוע לבטלה.

It doesn’t seem correct to me to explain this according to its simple meaning, that the silver (sic) was brought from Tarshish when it was already utilized as plate, for it makes little sense that they would have brought plated vessels from Tarshish in such a way that the silver (sic) would be unusable for other purposes, and that if a smelter wished to make a vessel, he would need to remove the plating such that the original plating work would have been in vain.

Shadal here talks about plated silver instead of plated gold, but this is likely just a slip of the pen.

Another example of this pairing can be found in Psalm 119:127.

This may be referring to Nebuchadnezzar’s 13-year siege of the city which damaged it economically.

For discussion of the stela, see Albright, “New Light on the Early History of Phoenician Colonization”; Frank Moore Cross, “An Interpretation of the Nora Stone,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 208 (1972): 13–19; Brian Peckham, “The Nora Inscription,” Orientalia 41.4 (1972): 457–468; Edward Lipiński, Itineraria Phoenicia, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 127, Studia Phoenicia XVIII (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 234–247.

This parsing follows Lipiński. Other scholars, such as Cross, divide the words differently here, and read it as a personal name with a patronymic מלכתן בן שבנ, Malkatin son of Shovna.

Lipiński understands this as the name of the ship, though it could be an unnamed reference to a queen. As noted above, other scholars parse this differently and see it as part of the official’s name, Malkatin.

Other scholars understand the text as thanksgiving for a successful military conquest of Sardinia (or this part of Sardinia).

Cross and others who read the previous words as the personal name Malkatin son of Shobna, read the last two words as a description of his position, the official of (king) Pumy, whom they identify with the well-known Phoenician king Pygmalion (831–785 B.C.E.).

These are just the most popular contenders; there are at least eight more. See discussion in Beitzel, “Was There a Joint Nautical Venture?”

This refining process, in which the ore is exposed to very high temperatures to separate the noble metal (silver in this case) from the base metal (lead) is called cupellation, from the medieval Latin term cupella, referring to the bowl in which the silver-lead alloy was placed. The process was known to humans as far back as the fourth millennium B.C.E. in Syria and Iran.

Tzilla Eshel, Ayelet Gilboa, Ofir Tirosh, Yigal Erel, and Naama Yahalom-Mack, “The Earliest Silver Currency Hoards from the Middle Bronze Age Southern Levant: A Hyksos Initiative?” (forthcoming)

See Tzilla Eshel, “How Silver Was Used for Payment,” TheTorah (2018).

See Tzilla Eshel, Ayelet Gilboa, Naama Yahalom-Mack, Ofir Tirosh, Yigal Erel, “Debasement of silver throughout the Late Bronze – Iron Age transition in the Southern Levant: analytical and cultural implications,” Journal of Archaeological Science 125 (2021): 1–24.

See Tzilla Eshel, Yigal Erel, Naama Yahalom-Mack, Ofir Tirosh, Ayelet Gilboa, “Lead Isotopes in Silver Reveal Earliest Phoenician Endeavors in the West,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116, (2019): 6007–6012.

See Tzilla Eshel, Yigal Erel, Naama Yahalom-Mack, Ofir Tirosh, Ayelet Gilboa, “From Iberia to Laurion: Interpreting Changes in Silver Supply to the Levant in the late Iron Age Based on Pb-Isotope Analysis,” (forthcoming).