Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
This is given as the reason of the great plentifulness of silver in the time of Solomon. The "navy of Tharshish" (not the same as the navy of Ophir, I Kings 9:26) must therefore have imported very large quantities of that metal. Tharshish, or Tartessus, in Spain, had the richest silver mines known in the ancient world, and had a good deal of gold also; apes and ivory were produced by the opposite coast of Africa; and, if north Africa did not produce "peacocks," which is uncertain, she may have produced the birds called here "tukkiyim," which some translate "parrots," others "guinea-fowl" - the latter being a purely African bird. The etymology of the Hebrew words here rendered "ivory," "apes," and "peacocks," is uncertain; but even if of Indian origin, the Jews may have derived their first knowledge of ivory, apes, and peacocks, through nations which traded with India, and may thus have got the words into their language long before the time of Solomon. The names once fixed would be retained, whatever the quarter from where the things were procured afterward.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing 1 Kings 10:22:
Genesis 10:21-32
1 Kings 11:1
1 Kings 22:48
Job 39:13
Ecclesiastes 2:4
Isaiah 2:16
Isaiah 13:12
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