1 Kings 5:13-18 - Solomon's Work Force

¹³ Then King Solomon drafted forced laborers from all Israel; the labor force numbered 30,000 men. ¹⁴ He sent 10,000 to Lebanon each month in shifts; one month they were in Lebanon, two months they were at home. Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor. ¹⁵ Solomon had 70,000 porters and 80,000 stonecutters in the mountains, ¹⁶ not including his 3,300 deputies in charge of the work. They ruled over the people doing the work. ¹⁷ The king commanded them to quarry large, costly stones to lay the foundation of the temple with dressed stones. ¹⁸ So Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders, along with the Gebalites, quarried the stone and prepared the timber and stone for the temple’s construction.

¹⁷ Solomon took a census of all the foreign men in the land of Israel, after the census that his father David had conducted, and the total was 153,600. ¹⁸ Solomon made 70,000 of them porters, 80,000 stonecutters in the mountains, and 3,600 supervisors to make the people work.