_A.M. 2959. B.C. 1045._ Solomon appoints men to build the temple and his own house, 2 Chronicles 2:1; 2 Chronicles 2:2. His message to Huram, 2 Chronicles 2:3. Huram's obliging answer, 2 Chronicles 2:11.... [ Continue Reading ]
_And a house for his kingdom_ A royal palace for himself and his successors. The substance of this whole chapter is contained in 1 Kings 5., and is explained in the notes there, and the seeming differences between the contents of this and it reconciled.... [ Continue Reading ]
_And Solomon sent to Huram_ Or _Hiram_, as he is called in the first book of Kings where we learn that he first sent to Solomon to congratulate him on his accession to the throne, and then Solomon sent to him.... [ Continue Reading ]
_To dedicate it to him_ To his honour and worship. _For the continual show-bread_ So called here and Numbers 4:7, because it stood before the Lord continually, by a constant succession of new bread, when the old was removed. See Exodus 25:30; Leviticus 24:8.... [ Continue Reading ]
_The house which I build is great_ Though the temple, strictly so called, was small, yet the buildings belonging to it were large and numerous. _For great is our God above all gods_ Above all idols, above all princes. Idols are nothing, princes are little, and both are under the control of the God o... [ Continue Reading ]
_But who is able to build him a house_ No house, be it ever so great, can be a habitation for him. Behold, _the heaven and_ the _heaven of heavens cannot contain him_ Nor does he, like the gods of the nations, _dwell in temples made with hands._ When, therefore, I speak of building a great house for... [ Continue Reading ]
_Send me therefore a man cunning to work in gold_, &c. There were admirable artists, in all the works here referred to, at Tyre; some of whom Solomon desired to be sent to him, that they might assist those whom David had provided, but who were not so skilful as those of Tyre.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Behold, I will give thy servants twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat_, &c. Solomon would not feed his workmen with bread and water, but with plenty of provisions, and of the best kind. They that employ labourers ought to take care that they be not only well paid, but well provided for, with su... [ Continue Reading ]
_Huram answered, Because the Lord loved his people_, &c. Thus he congratulates the happiness of Israel in having such a king as Solomon was. And certainly a wise and good government is a great blessing to a people, and may well be accounted a singular token of God's favour. He does not say, _Because... [ Continue Reading ]
_Blessed be the Lord that made heaven and earth_ It seems Huram was not only a friend to the Jewish nation, but a proselyte to their religion, and that he worshipped Jehovah, the God of Israel, (who was now known by that name to the neighbour nations,) as _the God that made heaven and earth_, and th... [ Continue Reading ]
_The son of a woman of Dan, and his father a man of Tyre_ A good omen of uniting Jew and Gentile in the gospel temple. _With the cunning men of my lord David_ So he calls David here, and Solomon in the next verse, either out of singular respect to their greatness and worth, or because he was indeed... [ Continue Reading ]
_Solomon numbered all the strangers_ For David had not only numbered his own people, but afterward the strangers, that Solomon might have a true account of them, and employ them about his buildings. Yet Solomon numbered them again, because death might have made a considerable alteration among them s... [ Continue Reading ]
_To be hewers in the mountain_ He would not employ the free- born Israelites in this drudgery, but the strangers that were proselytes, who, having no lands, applied themselves to trades, and got their living by their industry or ingenuity.... [ Continue Reading ]