Why does it say that silver and gold were like stones?
'Rashi': He had so much that he would make tables and chairs [of them] in the entire city.
'Rashi' citing Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 2:6: They were like big rocks of 10 Amos. Radak ? therefore they were not stolen.
Radak: They were found in Yerushalayim as much as stones. This is an exaggeration.
Here it says that silver and gold were like stones. Below (9:27) it says only that silver was like stones!
Malbim: Below discusses the beginning of his kingship, before he had so much money 1 .
Here it says that silver and gold were like stones. In Melachim I, 10:21, it says that silver had no importance at all!
Rashi (Melachim I, 10:27) and Malbim, both citing Sanhedrin 21b): It had no importance before he married Bas Pharaoh 1 ; after he married her, it was like stones 2 . Maharsha (21b) ? before, he engaged in Chachmah ? "u'Knos Binah Nivchar mi'Kasef" (Mishlei 16:16). After marrying her, he engaged less in Chachmah and increased his meals and worldly pleasures, so money had value in his eyes.
Below (9:20) discusses why he used only gold in his house, which he built after the Mikdash was finished. Bamidbar Rabah 10:4 says that he married her the night after he finished it, and Melachim I, 3:1 says that she stayed in Ir David until he finished the Mikdash [and his house], i.e. he married her before he built his house! Perhaps Shlomo began to decline once he married her, but only later, silver had importance. (PF')
