What Does I Kings 9:20 Mean?

All the people who are left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who are not of the children of Israel—these are the surviving non-Israelite populations in the land: the remnants of the Canaanite peoples whom Israel failed to exterminate during the conquest. The five-nation list repeats the standard catalogue of pre-Israelite inhabitants, and their continued presence testifies to the incompleteness of the original mandate to drive out the nations.

The survival of these populations creates a practical problem and a theological tension: practically, the surviving Canaanites provide a labor force that Solomon will exploit; theologically, their presence represents unfulfilled divine command. The nations that should have been removed according to God's directive have become the workforce that builds God's temple—a morally complex arrangement that entangles Israel's worship with the exploitation of condemned peoples.

Paul writes that God "has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth" (Acts 17:26). Solomon's exploitation of the surviving Canaanite populations reflects the Old Testament's complex engagement with non-Israelite peoples. The Son of David whose gospel dissolves the wall between Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14) offers the Canaanite descendants not forced labor but full inclusion in the people of God—and the exploitation that Solomon practiced is replaced by the invitation that Christ extends to every nation, tribe, and tongue.