Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Kings 4:31

"For he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in all the nations round about." — 1 Kings 4:31 (ASV)

He was wiser. —The wisdom of “Heman, Ethan, Chalcol, and Darda,” then rivals of Solomon’s fame, is now only known to us from this passage. In the genealogy of 1 Chronicles 2:6, “Ethan, Heman, Chalcol, and Dara” (or “Darda”) are found as sons of Zerah, the son of Judah; and the coincidence is remarkable enough to suggest identification. But this identification can hardly hold. This passage evidently implies that these rivals of Solomon were contemporary with him, not belonging, therefore, to a family many generations earlier. Now it happens that we know of a Heman and an Ethan (see 1 Chronicles 6:33 and 1 Chronicles 6:44) set by David over the service of song in the Tabernacle, and called Ezrahites in the titles of Psalm 88 and Psalm 89 ascribed to them.

Heman is, moreover, designated as the king’s seer in the words of the Lord (1 Chronicles 25:5); and his Psalm (Psalms 88:0) is singularly full of thought, moral speculation, and sense of mystery in life and death. Chalcol and Darda are described as sons of Machol. The word Machol may be a proper name. But it is curious that it signifies “dance,” or “music”; and it is at least possible that they also, like Heman and Ethan, may have been thus designated, as connected with the music of the Temple. However this may be, it can hardly be wrong, in spite of the repetition of the group of names, to refer this passage to this Heman and this Ethan, and hold Chalcol and Darda to be, like them, contemporaries with Solomon.