Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Kings 5:9

"My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea; and I will make them into rafts to go by sea unto the place that thou shalt appoint me, and will cause them to be broken up there, and thou shalt receive them; and thou shalt accomplish my desire, in giving food for my household." — 1 Kings 5:9 (ASV)

Shall bring them. —The timber was to be carried down, or, perhaps, let down on slides along the face of the mountain towards the sea, and brought around by rafts to Joppa (2 Chronicles 2:16), to save the enormous cost and difficulty of land transport. The grant of food for his household in return (instead of hire) brings out what is recorded much later in Acts 12:20—that the country of the Tyrians was nourished by Palestine.

The commerce and wealth of the Tyrians sustained a large population; the narrow slip of land along the coast, backed by Lebanon, must have been, in any case, insufficient to maintain them; and, moreover, all their energies were turned, not to agriculture, but to seamanship. In the grand description in Ezekiel 27 of the imports of Tyre from all parts of the world, Judah and Israel are named as supplying wheat, and honey, and oil, and balm.