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them under the regal government, in a progressive increase of 
wealth and population, until, at the conclusion of David’s reign, 
the men of Israel who drew the sword, were a thousand thousand, 
and an hundred thousand, and Judah was four hundred threescore 
and ten thousand men; all descended in a direct line from Abra- 
ham, the pastoral patriarch. In the reign of Solomon the temporal 
prophecies were completed; the wealth, power, and greatness, of 
that extraordinary monarch, surpassed all the kings of the earth: 
they sought his presence to hear his wisdom, and brought every 
one a present; vessels of silver, and vessels of gold; raiment, 
armour, and spices; horses and mules; until he made silver in 
Jerusalem as stones, and cedar trees as the sycamore trees in the 
plains: all the drinking vessels of king Solomon were of gold, and 
all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon of pure gold; 
none were of silver; it was not any thing accounted of in the days 
of Solomon. Lor the king’s ships which went to Tarshish with the 
servants of Hiram, king of 'lyre, returned every three years with 
gold and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. The queen of Sheba 
came from a far country to hear his wisdom, and to behold his 
glory, accompanied by a very great caravan of camels, that bare 
spices, and gold, and precious stones; and when she beheld his 
greatness, and the splendour of his court, there was no more spirit 
in her; on her return to her own land, she gave the king an hun- 
dred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices, and precious stones, 
great abundance: but far beyond all was the approbation of iris 
Maker, and his manifestation of his divine presence in the temple; 
where, after he had finished his prayer at the dedication, the fire 
visibly descended from heaven, and consumed the sacrifice: and 
