5:11 Hiram king of Tyre. Tyre was a Phoenician port city about thirty-five miles north of Mount Carmel and twenty-five miles south of Sidon. Hiram’s generosity to David may have been motivated by the impressiveness of David’s recent accomplishments, but it also involved an element of self-interest. Tyre needed the inland trade routes now controlled by David and the agricultural produce of central Palestine (cf. Ezra 3:7). Hiram’s friendship with Israel continued well into Solomon’s reign (1 Kin. 5:1–12; 9:11; etc.).