Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/81

 the overthrow of Moab, the plunder of Hadadezer, the garrisoning of Syria and of its chief city, Damascus, and the extortion of heavy tribute as the condition of peace, that David accumulated the enormous wealth which he proposed devoting to the building and decoration of the future Temple at Jerusalem: but God said, "Thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight."

To Solomon more strictly belongs the great commercial results of a long and peaceful reign, materially aided as this was by the king's personal superintendence, by his visits to Elath and Ezion-geber, by his treaty of amity, mutual forbearance, and important commercial arrangements with Hiram, King of Tyre, and last, not least, by the extraordinary fame he thus obtained, leading, to the memorable visit to him by the Queen of Sheba, and to the display of his wisdom and wealth, till she felt, on beholding them, that "there was no more spirit in her."

Dean Stanley, in his "Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church," has eloquently described the position of Solomon's chief port, where, he says, "Ezion-geber, the 'Giant's backbone,' so called, probably, from the huge range of mountains on each side of it, became an emporium teeming with life and activity; the same, on the eastern branch, that Suez has, in our own time, become on the western branch of the Red Sea. Beneath that line of palm trees which now shelters the wretched village of Akaba, was then