I Kings 7: 13 going on 7

In chapter six, the texts states that the building of the temple took seven years. According to chapter 7, Shlomo took 13 years to build his palace. The commentators are almost unanimous explaining that this discrepancy is meant to praise Shlomo. While he took 13 years to build his palace, which is extensively detailed in this chapter, he rushed the building of the Temple to make sure it was completed in a much shorter seven years. Abarbanel is the lone dissenter, but not on the praise part, just that the 13 years encompassed the building of all of Shlomo’s palaces. But why would the text go to such a detail about Shlomo’s house? On its face it may be to show his wealth. Like an HGTV design show, the text goes in meticulous detail about all the extravagant design elements in Shlomo’s palace. However, it is also possible that the text describes this to Shlomo’s detriment. That is, Shlomo only took seven years to build a Temple, but when it came to his own house, he was very meticulous taking 13 years to build it. In the description of his wealth in chapter 5, the text brings up his many stables, and in chapter 7 that he built a whole separate palace for the daughter of Pharaoh. Both hint at the violation of the Torah prohibition for kings not to have too many wives and to many horses. In fact, these will also end up being part of Solomons downfall later on.