Facts in Judaism
Jewish Records: Who Prepared the Most Expensive and Largest Banquet in the World?
Luxurious feasts aren't just a modern phenomenon - the Bible notes that King Shlomo hosted an enormous, abundant, and extremely expensive feast
(Illustration photo: shutterstock)In your mind, what constitutes a large and fancy meal? Several meat dishes, salads, and dessert?
The Bible describes Shlomo's feast as follows: "And Shlomo's provision for one day was thirty kor (measures) of fine flour, and sixty measures of meal. Ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and a hundred sheep, beside harts, and gazelles, and roebucks, and fatted fowl."
And what is a "kor" (measure)? It depends who you ask.
According to the Chazon Ish, a kor equals 439 liters. Apparently, each of Shlomo's wives would prepare a feast like this for the king every single day under the assumption that he would come to dine with her.
And what about Avraham's feast? The Midrash states that his banquet was even larger. Avraham prepared one whole ox for each guest, whereas at King Shlomo's banquets many people ate each day, and therefore the quantity of food was divided among a large group of diners.
