King Solomon appointed thousands of men to oversee the people working on building the temple in Jerusalem. Some were supervising the men working on building the temple itself and others were supervising the men working on the building materials outside the city. There are 6 relevant verses that explain the full picture.

1 Kings 5:16 says “beside the chief of Solomon’s officers which were over the ‎work, three thousand and three hundred, which ruled over the people that wrought ‎in the work.”‎

1 Kings 9:10 “And at the end of twenty years, after Solomon had built the two houses, the ‎house of the LORD and the king’s house.”‎

In 1 Kings 9:23 “These were the chief of the officers that were over Solomon’s work, five ‎hundred and fifty, which bare rule over the people that wrought in the work,”

2 Chronicles 2:2 says “And Solomon told out threescore and ten ‎thousand men to bear burdens, and fourscore thousand to hew in the mountain, ‎and three thousand and six hundred to oversee them.”

2 ‎Chronicles 2:10 “And others were chiefs of the officials of King Solomon: two hundred and ‎fifty, who ruled over the people.”‎

2 Chronicles 8:1 “And at the end of twenty years, after Solomon had built the house of the ‎LORD and his own house,”‎

Still, what is the reason for the difference in numbering – 300? The difference is in the ‎timing; within 20 years it took to finish building the temple (2 Chronicles 8:1; 1 Kings 9:10).

One plausible explanation is that there were 300 chiefs who moved from coordinating those outside Jerusalem to prepare building materials and joined those in the city at the temple site.

Chronologically:

‎The tally in Chronicles was taken right at the beginning of the project where the extra 300 men were at the worksite outside the city. At some stage of the process, those 300 men were recalled to the city to oversee the last portion of building the temple. This is when the workers at the outside worksite were counted by the author of Kings. When the building was completed, the 300 men were counted with the 250 that had been working at the temple site from the beginning.

Another explanation could be that the 300 were supervising along the route that the workers had to transport the building blocks that were being carved out of the mountain (2 Chronicles 2:2). The writer of Kings counted them with the overseers at the temple site and the Chronicler added them to the overseers at the site at the mountain outside the city.

Either way, all 3,850 overseers were accounted for. This is not a contradiction, this is a group of 300 of men who were counted as part of different groups.

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