“But of the children of Israel did Solomon make no bondmen: but they were men of war, and his servants, and his princes, and his captains, and rulers of his chariots, and his horsemen.”
King James Version (KJV)
9:21 Those - He used them as bondmen, and imposed bodily labours uponthem. But why did not Solomon destroy them as God had commanded, whennow it was fully in his power to do so? The command of destroying them,#Deut 7:2|, did chiefly, if not only, concern that generation ofCanaanites, who lived in, or, near the time of the Israelitesentering into Canaan. And that command seems not to be absolute, butconditional, and with some exception for those who should submit andembrace the true religion, as may be gathered both from #Josh 11:19|,and from the history of the Gibeonites. For if God's command had beenabsolute, the oaths of Joshua, and of the princes, could not haveobliged them, nor dispensed with such a command.