Making Arrangements
So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees according to all his desire.
11 And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and twenty measures of pure oil: thus gave Solomon to Hiram year by year.
12 And the LORD gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him: and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and they two made a league together.
1 Kings 5:10-12
It looks like we've finally come across the payment for all the building that had been going on. You may know this or not, but when you do a lot of building as Solomon did, you'll need to do one of two things. The materials and people to do the work are needed as at first. Unless of course, you have people doing it of their own free will. That certainly is not the case here. Solomon was just blessed enough to get it all done. Let's look at how much it cost and how exactly he did so. The materials are easy, it seems, with their being free. Well, technically, they aren't really for free. These required payment of food and oil to be given in exchange for cedar and fir. I mean, if you think about it, these natural resources were likely all that country of Hiram's had. They needed some food so it seemed. Solomon could easily make off on the good side with this in exchange for some yearly support. That way, since he didn't have everything Hiram did, he soon would. They'd do what's called a trade you see so everyone soon would be filled. Imagine being without something which you really wanted or needed to make you happy. Solomon had houses to live in aplenty. One thing though he lacked was what with all to build his father's dream, a house for the Lord. Then on the other hand, Hiram was hungry you see. Economically speaking, it meant a good deal. Let's look at the apparent value of the cedar and fir in addition to lifetime friendship and support gained in this trade. It was worth approximately 20,000 measures of wheat and 20 measures of oil in perpetuity to be given as long as he lived. Let's say one measure of wheat cost five dollars. That would be 20,000 times 5.
20,000
5
_______
100,000
Don't forget to put all your zeros in place there. There's four of them counting from right to left with the addition of the one there on the end of the ten. That would be 100,000 dollars which is a lot of money in this currency. Let's try to convert to another currency besides the American dollar. Suppose one dollar equals 100 in another currency. Let's make up a name for it and give it a value. I'll call it the byte. Sure, that's another name for computer data storage, but let's forget about that for just a minute and see what ends up. I'll need to multiply 100,000 dollars by another 100 in the newly minted byte.
100,000
100
__________
000,000
0,000,000
10,000,000
__________
10,000,000
That would be wheat worth 10,000,000 bytes to you. I'm just gonna get a bunch of investors to back this really quick if you don't mind. That'll make my new byte value real. Can you see that this is not a very good to do markets or anything else? Sooner or later, everything will run out of value and probably funds to back it up. Then, we're gonna do just the opposite with the oil. Let's say the oil is worth more in that day which is why he gave less. It's gonna be oh, I don't know, about 10 dollars in value. There are 20 measures of oil which needs to be multiplied by 10 dollars to see how much Solomon paid.
20 measures
10 dollars
__________
00
200
__________
200
There you have it, a nice round sum of 200 dollars a year in oil. Let's try converting the dollars to Hiram's economy. The sum of choice in that day was probably just that, a measure which is what gave it the name. It's like saying I'd like a cup of something today. It doesn't matter what it is I'm asking for as long as the cup stays the same. However, if it's flour I'll get more and if it's oil, there'll be less. Although technically speaking it's all the same since it's filling the same size of cup. If all we knew was the 200 dollar value and the 10 dollars exchange rate to make a measure, we'd divide 10 into 200 to come out with 20.