Wood-Cutters

1 Kings 10-16; 2Ch_2:10; 2Ch_2:15-18

Cedar was not the only timber which
Solomon required from the forests of
Lebanon. Firs are also named among the
trees which Hiram supplied to Solomon. In
Chronicles almug-trees are added; but as
this wood is in 1Ki_10:12 described as being
brought from distant parts by Hirams ships
in the famous voyage to Ophir, it is not
credible that it was also found in Lebanon;
for in that case it could not be said, as is
said in Kings, that no such algum-trees
(so written in Kings) had been seen in Israel
as those which the navy of Hiram brought.
As the author of Chronicles does not name
the products of this expedition, he was
probably led to introduce it here (as he had
occasion to mention the use to which the
wood was applied), as it was equally with
the cedars from Lebanon obtained through
Hiram, without thinking it needful to
specify the separate source from which it
was derived. We mention this timber to
obviate a seeming difficulty, which has
perplexed many; but have no present
intention to inquire into the nature of the
almug-tree.
We are more interested in inquiring into the
system organized for the cutting and
squaring the wood in the mountains, and
the removal of it to Joppa.
Solomon allowed that some of his people
were skilful to cut timber, like the
Zidonians; and it was therefore arranged,
that Hiram was to supply a certain number
of workmen to direct the proceedings, and
perform the more difficult parts of the
work; for it is to be remembered, that all the
timber was fully prepared and fitted for its
final use, on the spot, not only to facilitate
the work at Jerusalem, but that no labor
might be wasted in the transport of the
superfluous parts. So small and busy a state
as that of Tyre, could not, however, supply
all the numerous hands required for the
ruder labor, such as trimming the wood,
and dragging it down through the defiles of
the mountains to the coast. For this
Solomon undertook to find laborers. How
were they to be found? David had, it seems,
subdued all the remnants of the
Canaanitish tribes, and at so late a period,
when they were no longer dangerous, and
national animosities had abated, considered
himself exempted from the obligation of
extirpating them. He had therefore spared
them, on the condition, not of reducing
them to personal slavery, but of their being
liable to be called out for service on any
public works that might need their aid.
They were now therefore numbered, and
the adult males were found to amount to
153,600. Of these 70,000 were made
hewers of wood, 80,000 bearers of burdens,
and 3,600 overseers of the others. A levy of
30,000 Israelites was also made for this
service, and there were 550 Israelites as
overseers of the whole work. They were not
all employed at once, but in relays of one
third at a time, so that every man spent four
months at home and two in the mountains.
This, and the great numbers employed,
must have rendered the obligation less
onerous than has been represented. These
arrangements were continued for several
years on a well organized plan. The wood
prepared by these multitudes was taken
down to the sea, there made up into large
rafts, and floated down along the shore to
Joppa, whereby the land-carriage was
reduced to about twenty-five miles to
Jerusalem. To support these laborers, and
to remunerate Hiram for the aid of his
people, Solomon agreed to supply the king,
year by year, with 20,000 measures of
wheat, 20,000 baths of wine, and 20,000
baths of oil.
It may not be known, that something of the
same kind of operations were going on,
upon a smaller scale indeed, in Lebanon,
during the time Syria was in possession of
the Pasha of Egypt, who had great need of
timber for various uses, and whose
proceedings in procuring it seem to us to
illustrate, in many particulars, those of
Hiram and Solomon for the same purpose
especially as to the manner in which
laborers were obtained for the service, and
the mode in which they were supplied with
food.
Most of the wood destined for Egypt was
embarked at Scanderoon, and was of course
obtained as near as might be from the
mountains by which the bay is bordered.
The timber chiefly procured was yellow oak,
green oak, whitish-yellow pines or fir,
beech, and linden. The last is the largest,
but it is scarce; next to that the yellow oak,
then the beech. Note: The following are the
sizes of the different kindsYellow Oak, 80
feet long by 18 to 20 inches square; Green
Oak, 18 to 20 feet by 7 to 9 inches; Beech,
30 to 35 feet by 14 to 15 inches; Pine, 30 feet
by 16 to 20 inches; Linden, 40 to 50 feet by
25 to 27 inches. The oak of both kinds is
straight-grained, like the American; the
pine is very knotty and full of turpentine;
the beech is of a good, close-grained quality,
but not nearly so plentiful as the other two.
In the year 1887, about 750 men were
employed in the mountains, of whom 250
were occupied in cutting down the trees,
and the rest, twice that number, in
trimming and dressing the same; and to
bring down these to the sea, required the
labor of 1,200 men, with practicable roads,
and with buffaloes and bullocks. If obtained
from parts of the mountains remote from
the coast, with difficult roads, and without
the help of animals, the number required
for the transport would of course be
proportionally greater. We thus see the
comparatively small number of Phoenician
fellers, whose work would suffice to supply
labor to the large levies of Solomon. By the
Pashas men, about 60,000 trees were cut
down, trimmed, and brought down to the
coast in one year, besides about 5,000
abandoned on the road from the difficulty
of transport. Of these, 40,000 were fit for
ship-building purposes, and the remainder
far house-purposes. The wood was freighted
for Alexandria in thirty-nine vessels,
collectively of 14,120 tons burden, besides
eight or nine small craft of eighty or ninety
tons, which received cargoes of fire-wood.
From this statement, it is not difficult to
discover one of the causes which has made
the mountain forests of Syria a covetable
possession to the rulers of Egypt, from the
Pharaohs and Ptolemies down to the
Moslem sultans and to Mehemet Ali. It also
enables us to see the extent to which the
nearer forests of Lebanon must have been
denuded of their trees to meet the large
wants of a country so void of timber as
Egypt.
But let us turn to the laborers employed in
these operations. They were, like the
laborers of Solomon, and probably of
Hiram, pressed into the service. In this case
they are however, more oppressively, taken
from the immediate neighborhood, all the
effective men being forced into the service,
leaving not a sufficient number to till the
ground for their own maintenance. But
grain was imported by the government (as
by king Hiram from Palestine) from other
parts of Syria and from Egypt, and issued to
the men as a portion of their pay. This pay
was nominally three piasters, or seven
pence half-penny a-day; but which came
short fully one third, by their being obliged
to take a fixed portion in grain, without
reference to their actual wants, and more
than they required, at a fixed price, which is
so enhanced in various ways, and under
various pretences, as to be much higher
than it could be procured for in the
neighborhood. It is very likely, the system
being an old one, that Hiram dealt thus
with the corn he obtained from Solomon,
unless the interests of the Hebrew subjects
employed were protected by the presence of
the kings own officers.
The men employed in transporting the
timber to the coast, receive each a pair and
a half of bullocks, which are valued to them
at from 700 to 1000 piasters a pair, which
sum they are debited with, and must make
good in case of loss, accident, or death. The
effect of this is, that when a man meets with
such a misfortune before he has the means
of repairing it, which he can rarely hope to
do, he has no resource but flight.
The season for working the timber is but
eight months, from the middle of March till
the middle of November. During the
remaining four months, the people are left
in a great measure to themselves; but being
winter months, they cannot turn them to
much account, unless to prepare and sow a
little land for the most pressing exigencies
of their families; but a few of them who
have trades, find some employment in the
neighboring villages. Independently of such
resources, their yearly earnings may be
thusThe cutters get two and a half
piasters a-day, for 224 working days; which
makes in all about four pounds eight
shillings, after deducting about twelve
shillings for contingencies. The trimmers
get three piasters a-day, or six pounds for
the whole term, which, after deducting
about sixteen shillings for contingencies,
leaves about five pounds four shillings. The
transporters have three and a half piasters
a-day, making in all about seven pounds;
but from this must be deducted more than
half for the keep of animals, leaving them
less than four poundsso that they remain
in a worse condition than even the cutters,
although their nominal wages are one third
higher.
In regard to the last branch of employment,
it seems to us likely that the arrangement
was different in the time of Solomon; for,
considering the great quantity of timber
secured by the comparatively small number
of men employed by the Egyptian
government in 1837, it is difficult to account
for the employment of such vast numbers in
the earlier time, but by supposing that the
labor of men was employed instead of that
of cattle, in dragging the timber down from
the mountains to the shore.