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 previous question, whether 1Ki 10:22, “The king had a Tarshish fleet upon the sea with the fleet of Hiram; once in three years came the Tarshish fleet, bringing gold, silver,” etc., also applies to the voyage to Ophir. The expression “Tarshish fleet;” the word בּיּם (“on the sea”), which naturally suggests that sea to which the Israelites applied the special epithet היּם, namely the Mediterranean; and lastly, the difference in the cargoes, - the ships from Ophir bringing gold and algummim wood (1Ki 9:28 and 1Ki 10:11), and the Tarshish fleet bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks (1Ki 10:22), - appear to favour the conclusion that the Tarshish fleet did not sail to Ophir, but upon the Mediterranean Sea to Tarshish, i.e., Tartessus in Spain; to which we may add the fact that תרשׁישׁ אני is reproduced in 2Ch 9:21 by תּרשׁישׁ הלכות אניּות, “ships going to Tarshish.” Nevertheless, however plausible these arguments may appear, after a renewed investigation of the subject I cannot regard them as having decisive weight: for (1) the expression “Tarshish fleet” is used in 1Ki 22:49 in connection with ships that were intended to go to Ophir; (2) בּיּם (upon the sea) might receive its more precise definition from what precedes; and (3) the difference in the cargoes reduces itself to this, that in addition to the gold, which was the chief production of Ophir, there are a few other articles of trade mentioned, so that the account in 1Ki 10:22 is more complete than that in 1Ki 9:28 and 1Ki 10:11. The statement concerning the Tarshish fleet in 1Ki 10:22 contains a passing remark, like that in 1Ki 10:11, from which we must infer that both passages treat in the same manner simply of the voyage to Ophir, and therefore that the term “Tarshish ships,” like our Indiamen (Indienfahrer), was applied to ships intended for long voyages. If, in addition to the ships sailing to Ophir, Solomon had also had a fleet upon the Mediterranean Sea which sailed with the Phoenicians to Tartessus, this would certainly have been mentioned here (1Ki 9:27-28) at the same time as the Ophir voyage. On all