Did Solomon have five hundred fifty chief officers, or two hundred fifty?
Both books count the same 3,850 officers: Kings divides them by rank, Chronicles by nation, and the 300 strangers among the chief officers fall on different sides of the line.
The Passages
1 Kings 9:23
2 Chronicles 8:10
See Also
1 Kings 5:16
2 Chronicles 2:17-18
2 Chronicles 8:7-9
The Difficulty
“These were the chief of the officers that were over Solomon’s work, five hundred and fifty, which bare rule over the people that wrought in the work” (1 Kings 9:23). “And these were the chief of king Solomon’s officers, even two hundred and fifty, that bare rule over the people” (2 Chronicles 8:10).
The overseers under them differ too: “three thousand and three hundred, which ruled over the people that wrought in the work” (1 Kings 5:16), but “three thousand and six hundred overseers to set the people a work” (2 Chronicles 2:18).
The Answer
Add each book’s two numbers. Kings: 3,300 overseers and 550 chief officers, 3,850. Chronicles: 3,600 overseers and 250 chief officers, 3,850. The two books count the same men, and divide them on a different line.
Chronicles says what its line is. Its 3,600 overseers were strangers: “Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the land of Israel … and they were found an hundred and fifty thousand and three thousand and six hundred. And he set threescore and ten thousand of them to be bearers of burdens, and fourscore thousand to be hewers in the mountain, and three thousand and six hundred overseers” (2 Chronicles 2:17–18): 70,000, 80,000, and 3,600 make exactly the 153,600 strangers numbered. Its 250 were Israelites, named just after “of the children of Israel did Solomon make no servants for his work; but they were men of war, and chief of his captains” (8:9–10).
Kings divides by rank: the overseers “which ruled over the people that wrought in the work” (1 Kings 5:16), and above them the chief officers “over Solomon’s work” (9:23). Its 550 chief officers were 250 Israelites and 300 strangers of higher rank; Chronicles, counting by nation, puts those 300 strangers with the other 3,600 strangers. Haley: “In Kings authority, in Chronicles nationality, seems the principle of division.” Poole and the Geneva Bible’s notes give the same: the 250 were Israelites.
Gill, after the Jewish writers, gives the three ranks the same way: 3,300 in the lowest, 300 over them, and 250 highest; the 300 counted with the 3,300 make the 3,600 of Chronicles, and counted with the 250, the 550 of Kings.
Sources
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Officers, — chief, 550, 1 Kings ix. 23; 250, 2 Chron. viii. 10. Overseers, 3300, 1 Kings v. 16; 3600, 2 Chron. ii. 18 (the sum of the officers and overseers is the same, 3850, in each case. In Kings authority, in Chronicles nationality, seems the principle of division).
Checked against: Internet Archive scan of the 1874 edition, 2026-10-23 -
There were three sorts of those rulers; the lowest rank and order of them consisted of 3300, the next of 300, which were over the 3300, and being numbered with them made 3600, (2 Chronicles 2:18) and the highest rank of them were 250, and the middlemost and highest being joined together, as they are here, made 550.
Checked against: Internet Archive scan of the first edition, 2026-10-23 -
The two hundred and fifty were Israelites, who are therefore distinctly mentioned in that book, where many things are more exactly noted than in the former; and the other three hundred were strangers.
Checked against: Bible Hub, 2026-10-23 -
The overseers of Solomon’s works were divided into three parts: the first contained 3300, the second 300, and the third 250 who were Israelites. Here are the two last parts, which make 550.
Checked against: Bible Hub, 2026-10-23
