Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

OPHIR (Place)

Place to which Solomon sent a fleet of merchant ships to bring back gold and all sorts of precious and exotic products. The location of Ophir is not certain; most scholars place it in southwest Arabia. There may be a relationship between the place and the man named Ophir who appears in the table of nations as a son of Joktan (Gn 10:29; cf. 1 Chr 1:23), a descendant of Shem. The names of Joktan and his sons are connected with the southern and western parts of Arabia.

First Kings 9:26-28 reports that Solomon built a fleet of merchant ships at Ezion-geber, which was near Elath on the Gulf of Aqaba. Hiram, king of Tyre, provided seamen to accompany those of Solomon. This expedition returned with 420 talents of gold for Solomon. First Kings 10:11 adds that the fleet of Hiram brought from Ophir a great amount of almug wood and precious stones.

Later, Jehoshaphat built “ships of Tarshish” to go to Ophir for gold, but the ships were wrecked at Ezion-geber. Then Ahaziah, the son of Ahab of Israel, offered to send his men with the seamen of Judah, but Jehoshaphat refused (see 1 Kgs 22:48-49).

The premier product of Ophir was fine gold. Eliphaz the Temanite comments that the Almighty should be one’s gold rather than the gold of Ophir (Jb 22:24). Job himself declares that wisdom is far more valuable than all the gold of Ophir (28:16). In his description of the glories of the king, the psalmist describes his queen at his right hand as wearing jewelry of finest gold from Ophir (Ps 45:9).

Some suggest that the ships of Tarshish mentioned (1 Kgs 10:22) were those ships that went to Ophir and returned every three years with gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. Traders brought the products, some from as far away as India, to the ports of Ophir, where Solomon’s representatives bought them.