1 Raja-raja 5:18

5:18 Solomon’s and Hiram’s construction workers, ¹  along with men from Byblos, ²  did the chiseling and prepared the wood and stones for the building of the temple. ³ 

Mazmur 83:7

83:7 Gebal, ⁴  Ammon, and Amalek,

Philistia and the inhabitants of Tyre. ⁵ 

Yehezkiel 27:9

27:9 The elders of Gebal ⁶  and her skilled men were within you, mending cracks; ⁷ 

all the ships of the sea and their mariners were within you to trade for your merchandise. ⁸ 

[5:18]  ¹ tn Heb “builders.”

[5:18]  ² tn Heb “the Gebalites.” The reading is problematic and some emend to a verb form meaning, “set the borders.”

[5:18]  ³ tc The LXX includes the words “for three years.”

[83:7]  ⁴ sn Some identify Gebal with the Phoenician coastal city of Byblos (see Ezek 27:9, where the name is spelled differently), though others locate this site south of the Dead Sea (see BDB 148 s.v. גְּבַל; HALOT 174 s.v. גְּבַל).

[83:7]  ⁵ map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[27:9]  ⁶ sn Another Phoenician coastal city located between Sidon and Arvad.

[27:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “strengthening damages.” Here “to strengthen” means to repair. The word for “damages” occurs several times in 1 Kgs 12 about some type of damage to the temple, which may have referred to or included cracks. Since the context describes Tyre in its glory, we do not expect this reference to damages to be of significant scale, even if there are repairmen. This may refer to using pitch to seal the seams of the ship, which had to be done periodically and could be considered routine maintenance rather than repair of damage.

[27:9]  ⁸ sn The reference to “all the ships of the sea…within you” suggests that the metaphor is changing; previously Tyre had been described as a magnificent ship, but now the description shifts back to an actual city. The “ships of the sea” were within Tyre’s harbor. Verse 11 refers to “walls” and “towers” of the city.