Revenue

The umbrella collects three different uses of "revenue" — a royal income figure, a colonial-administration argument about lost tax receipts, and the personified voice of Wisdom valuing her own yield above precious metal.

Solomon's Annual Revenue

Chronicles records the Solomonic intake as a single yearly weight: "Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and threescore and six talents of gold, besides that which the traders and merchants brought: and all the kings of Arabia and the governors of the country brought gold and silver to Solomon" (2 Chr 9:13-14). Two streams are named — the talents that come in directly, and the supplement from traders, merchants, and tributary rulers. The "besides" is the Chronicler's way of noting the separate streams without summing them.

Tribute, Custom, and Toll

The opposing argument appears in the Aramaic letter sent against the rebuilding of Jerusalem. The complaint to the Persian king names the loss in three categories: "Be it known now to the king, that, if this city is built, and the walls finished, they will not pay tribute, custom, or toll, and in the end it will be hurtful to the kings" (Ezra 4:13). The triplet — tribute, custom, or toll — is the standard imperial revenue vocabulary, and the case rests on the prediction that a fortified Jerusalem will withhold all three.

Wisdom's Yield

Proverbs uses the same noun in a wholly different register. The personified voice of Wisdom describes what she returns to the one who finds her: "My fruit is better than gold, yes, than fine gold; And my revenue than choice silver" (Pr 8:19). The two-line parallel sets fruit against gold and revenue against silver. The point of the comparison is not that wisdom yields metal but that what she yields is to be ranked above the metal — the produce of wisdom outranks the highest-grade silver in any treasury.