ADONIRAM ADORAM, HADORAM ăd’ ə nī’ rəm (אֲדֹנִירָ֥ם, the Lord is exalted); alternately: ă dôr’ am (אֲדֹרָ֖ם) (2 Sam 20:24; 1 Kings 12:18; hă dôr’ am (הֲדֹרָמ׃֙) (2 Chron 10:18). The official in charge of Solomon’s corvée, or the Department of Forced Labor (1 Kings 4:6; 5:14) and identified with the official at the end of David’s reign and the opening of Rehoboam’s reign who functioned in the same office and bore, apparently, a contracted form of the same name: Adoram (2 Sam 20:24; 1 Kings 12:18). He is described as the son of Abda and the overseer of thirty thousand men of Israel serving in three relays of ten thousand each as they went to Lebanon to secure cedar and firm timbers (1 Kings 5:8, 13, 14). This system may have been adapted by David from the prevailing Canaanite system of requiring the labor of men as a form of taxation. The Ugaritic (Ras Shamra) administrative texts testify to this point.

The Israelites found this forced labor very distasteful, and when Rehoboam refused to relax this policy, the northern tribes split from Judah and Benjamin (1 Kings 12:1-16 and 2 Chron 10:1-11). In an esp. stupid move, Rehoboam sent the arch symbol of this hated corvee, Adoram, and the people promptly stoned him to death (1 Kings 12:18; 2 Chron 10:18).

Bibliography I. Mendelsohn, “Samuel’s Denunciation of Kingship in the light of the Akkadian Documents from Ugarit,” BASOR, 143 (1956), 17-22.