John Gill Commentary 1 Kings 5:11

"And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and twenty measures of pure oil: thus gave Solomon to Hiram year by year." — 1 Kings 5:11 (ASV)

And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat [for]
food to his household
This measure was the Hebrew measure "cor", or "corus", and, according to Bishop Cumberland^F5, its contents were 17,477 solid inches; it was equal to ten ephahs, each of which held two gallons and an half, and the cor held seventy five wine gallons five pints, and somewhat more; according to some^F6, what it held was equal to six hundred forty eight Roman pounds; so that twenty thousand of them contained 12,960,000 pounds of wheat:

and twenty measures of pure oil ;
squeezed out of the olives without breaking them; the same kind of measure is here expressed as before, and the quantity answered to 12,960 Roman pounds; another writer^F7 reckons a cor to contain 1080 Roman pounds; so that Hiram had every year 21,600 pounds of oil. In (2 Chronicles 2:10) , it is twenty thousand baths of oil; note that the measures are different, a bath was but the tenth part of a cor, reference is had to different things; here the writer relates what was given to Hiram for his own family, there what was given to the workmen, where several other things are mentioned besides these:

thus gave Solomon to Hiram year by year :
as long as the building lasted, and the workmen were employed; but Abarbinel thinks he gave it to him as long as he lived, out of his great munificence and liberality.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F5: Scripture Weights and Measures, c. 3. p. 86.
• F6: Vid. Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. p. 517.
• F7: Van Till in Cantic. Mosis, p. 54.