דברי הימים ב, פרק ח׳, פסוק י״ח

A joint sea voyage was launched by King Solomon and Huram, the King of Tyre, to acquire gold and further expand Solomon's massive wealth. For this journey, Huram provided the necessary vessels [מצודת ציון]. He supplied the physical ships themselves, not merely the manpower [מלבי״ם]. Alongside these ships, Huram sent experienced sailors who were deeply familiar with the sea routes [מצודת דוד, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Because Solomon likely lacked his own maritime experts at the time, he relied on the skilled men from the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon. These sailors were joined by Solomon's own servants, who functioned as the military guard and the official managers of the expedition [ביאור שטיינזלץ].

The fleet sailed to Ophir, a region famous for its rich deposits of gold ore [מצודת דוד]. The mission was highly successful, returning with four hundred and fifty talents of gold. An account of this same journey in the Book of Kings records a yield of only four hundred and twenty talents. Commentators offer practical explanations for this thirty-talent difference. One approach suggests that the missing gold was simply deducted from the total sum to cover the travel expenses of the voyage [רד״ק]. Alternatively, those thirty talents were paid directly to Huram's men as wages for their expert labor at sea [מלבי״ם].