Adam Clarke Bible Commentary

A horse for a hundred and fifty - Suppose we take the shekel at the utmost value at which it has been rated, three shillings; then the price of a horse was about twenty-two pounds ten shillings. On Solomon's multiplying horses, Bishop Warburton has made some judicious remarks: - "Moses had expressly prohibited the multiplying of horses, Deu 17:16, by which the future king was forbidden to establish a body of cavalry, because this could not be effected without sending into Egypt, with which people God had forbidden any communication, as this would be dangerous to religion. When Solomon had violated this law, and multiplied horses to excess, Kg1 4:26, it was soon attended with those fatal consequences that the law foretold: for this wisest of kings having likewise, in violation of another law, married Pharaoh's daughter, (the early fruits of this commerce), and then, by a repetition of the same crime, but a transgression of another law, having espoused more strange women, Kg1 11:1; they first, in defiance of a fourth law, persuaded him to build them idol temples for their use, and afterwards, against a fifth law, brought him to erect other temples for his own. Now the original of all this mischief was the forbidden traffic with Egypt for horses; for thither were the agents of Solomon sent to mount his cavalry. Nay, this great king even turned factor for the neighboring monarchs, Ch2 1:17, and this opprobrious commerce was kept up by his successors and attended with the same pernicious consequences. Isaiah denounces the mischiefs of this traffic; and foretells that one of the good effects of leaving it would be the forsaking of their idolatries, Isa 31:1, Isa 31:4, Isa 31:6, Isa 31:7." - See Divine Legation, vol. iii., p. 289 and Dr. Dodd's Notes.