Treasure Cities

The treasure-cities of the older English are rendered in the UPDV as store-cities — fortified-storage centers built to hold the king's substance. They appear at two strata of Israel's history: the forced-labor build under Pharaoh in Egypt, and the kingdom-wide network built under Solomon.

Pharaoh's Store-Cities

The Egyptian oppression begins with a building project. Slave masters drive the Israelites to construct supply-depots for Pharaoh: "Therefore they set over them slave masters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Raamses" (Ex 1:11).

Solomon's Store-Cities

Under Solomon the same kind of installation is built across his dominion. The Kings register collects the construction summary: "and all the store-cities that Solomon had, and the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build for his pleasure in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion" (1Ki 9:19).

The Chronicler's parallel locates a portion of the network in the north and pairs the store-cities with the chariot- and horseman-cities: "And he built Tadmor in the wilderness, and all the store-cities, which he built in Hamath" (2Ch 8:4); "and Baalath, and all the store-cities that Solomon had, and all the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and all that Solomon desired to build for his pleasure in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion" (2Ch 8:6).