When did Solomon's reign begin?
Kings places Solomon's temple construction within 480 years of the exodus, while the periods supplied by Acts and Chronicles already exceed that interval before his reign.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Major
- A major event or claim with wider implications.
The chronological totals disagree when the periods are read as successive. The argument depends on the period covered by the 450 years in Acts 13 and whether the stated intervals overlap.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Solomon's fourth year falls in the four hundred eightieth year after the exodus
And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord.
The listed periods before Solomon already total about five hundred seventy years
The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought he them out of it. And about the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness. And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he divided their land to them by lot. And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet. And afterward they desired a king: and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years. And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will.
Thus David the son of Jesse reigned over all Israel. And the time that he reigned over Israel was forty years; seven years reigned he in Hebron, and thirty and three years reigned he in Jerusalem.
Sequence in each account
- Kings: Exodus → Solomon's fourth year and temple work in the four hundred and eightieth year after the Exodus (1 Kings 6:1)
- Acts: Exodus → About forty years in the wilderness → Land divided → About four hundred and fifty years of judges → Saul reigns forty years → David becomes king (Acts 13:17-22)
- David's reign in Chronicles: Seven years in Hebron → Thirty-three years in Jerusalem (1 Chronicles 29:26-27)
Understanding the contradiction
1 Kings 6:1 dates the temple's beginning to Solomon's fourth year and the 480th year after Israel left Egypt. Acts 13:17-22 assigns about forty years to the wilderness, about 450 to the judges after the land division, and forty to Saul. Those periods alone total about 530 years.
1 Chronicles 29:26-27 adds David's forty-year reign, bringing the supplied pre-Solomon sequence to about 570 years. This exceeds Kings' 480 before even adding Solomon's opening years or an interval for conquest. The approximate wording in Acts does not supply a specific adjustment, and the discrepancy is far larger than an ordinary difference in inclusive counting. The quoted chronological sequences therefore cannot both furnish the same elapsed span as written.