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| This is the New King James text of the passages. |
I Kings 5-6; II Chronicles 2-3
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Gonna build the Temple (I Kings 5; II Chronicles 2)
I Kings 5 |
II Chronicles 2 |
| 1 Now Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon, because he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father, for Hiram had always loved David. 2 Then Solomon sent to Hiram, saying: 3 You know how my father David could not build a house for the name of the LORD his God because of the wars which were fought against him on every side, until the LORD put his foes under the soles of his feet. 4 But now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor evil occurrence. 5 And behold, I propose to build a house for the name of the LORD my God, as the LORD spoke to my father David, saying, “Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, he shall build the house for My name.” 6 Now therefore, command that they cut down cedars for me from Lebanon; and my servants will be with your servants, and I will pay you wages for your servants according to whatever you say. For you know there is none among us who has skill to cut timber like the Sidonians. 7 ¶ So it was, when Hiram heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly and said, Blessed be the LORD this day, for He has given David a wise son over this great people! 8 Then Hiram sent to Solomon, saying: I have considered the message which you sent me, and I will do all you desire concerning the cedar and cypress logs. 9 My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon to the sea; I will float them in rafts by sea to the place you indicate to me, and will have them broken apart there; then you can take them away. And you shall fulfill my desire by giving food for my household. 10 ¶ Then Hiram gave Solomon cedar and cypress logs according to all his desire. 11 And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand kors of wheat as food for his household, and twenty kors of pressed oil. Thus Solomon gave to Hiram year by year. 12 ¶ So the LORD gave Solomon wisdom, as He had promised him; and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty together. 13 ¶ Then King Solomon raised up a labor force out of all Israel; and the labor force was thirty thousand men. 14 And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts: they were one month in Lebanon and two months at home; Adoniram was in charge of the labor force. 15 Solomon had seventy thousand who carried burdens, and eighty thousand who quarried stone in the mountains, 16 besides three thousand three hundred from the chiefs of Solomon’s deputies, who supervised the people who labored in the work. 17 And the king commanded them to quarry large stones, costly stones, and hewn stones, to lay the foundation of the temple. 18 So Solomon’s builders, Hiram’s builders, and the Gebalites quarried them; and they prepared timber and stones to build the temple. |
1 Then Solomon determined to build a temple for the name of the LORD, and a royal house for himself. 2 Solomon selected seventy thousand men to bear burdens, eighty thousand to quarry stone in the mountains, and three thousand six hundred to oversee them. 3 ¶ Then Solomon sent to Hiram king of Tyre, saying: As you have dealt with David my father, and sent him cedars to build himself a house to dwell in, so deal with me. 4 Behold, I am building a temple for the name of the LORD my God, to dedicate it to Him, to burn before Him sweet incense, for the continual showbread, for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the Sabbaths, on the New Moons, and on the set feasts of the LORD our God. This is an ordinance forever to Israel. 5 And the temple which I build will be great, for our God is greater than all gods. 6 But who is able to build Him a temple, since heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him? Who am I then, that I should build Him a temple, except to burn sacrifice before Him? 7 Therefore send me at once a man skillful to work in gold and silver, in bronze and iron, in purple and crimson and blue, who has skill to engrave with the skillful men who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom David my father provided. 8 Also send me cedar and cypress and algum logs from Lebanon, for I know that your servants have skill to cut timber in Lebanon; and indeed my servants will be with your servants, 9 to prepare timber for me in abundance, for the temple which I am about to build shall be great and wonderful. 10 ¶ And indeed I will give to your servants, the woodsmen who cut timber, twenty thousand kors of ground wheat, twenty thousand kors of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil. 11 ¶ Then Hiram king of Tyre answered in writing, which he sent to Solomon: Because the LORD loves His people, He has made you king over them. 12 ¶ Hiram also said: Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, for He has given King David a wise son, endowed with prudence and understanding, who will build a temple for the LORD and a royal house for himself! 13 And now I have sent a skillful man, endowed with understanding, Huram my master craftsman 14 (the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre), skilled to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, purple and blue, fine linen and crimson, and to make any engraving and to accomplish any plan which may be given to him, with your skillful men and with the skillful men of my lord David your father. 15 Now therefore, the wheat, the barley, the oil, and the wine which my lord has spoken of, let him send to his servants. 16 And we will cut wood from Lebanon, as much as you need; we will bring it to you in rafts by sea to Joppa, and you will carry it up to Jerusalem. 17 ¶ Then Solomon numbered all the aliens who were in the land of Israel, after the census in which David his father had numbered them; and there were found to be one hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred. 18 And he made seventy thousand of them bearers of burdens, eighty thousand stonecutters in the mountain, and three thousand six hundred overseers to make the people work. |
Solomon knows where to go to get the best lumber at the best value...from a friend, of course. He goes to King Hiram of Tyre, a long-time family friend and cuts a deal for the massive amounts of lumber needed for the building of the temple. David had done much of the planning for this temple project before his death. He would have built it himself, but was denied the privilege by God (II Samuel 7:1-17; I Chronicles 17:1-15 - see notes). Solomon explains that reality to King Hiram in verses 3-4; David was a warring king (by necessity) and because of that, was not permitted by God to build the house of God. Those Sidonians are quite the lumberjacks, huh? They were descendants of Canaan's first son, Sidon; he was Noah's grandson. They were, thus, Canaanites, but were never driven from the land by Israel (Judges 1:31, see notes). They resided within the boundaries of the Tribe of Asher. In Israel's history during the period of the Judges, these Sidonians had shown hostility toward Israel (Judges 10:12, see notes), but now they turn out to be Solomon's best friends. Sidon itself was about 20 miles up the coast from Tyre. The two cities were big commerce port cities throughout the Old Testament. Location is everything. What about the massive manpower needed to build the temple! Solomon assigned 150,000 workmen to the project as full-time, non-Hebrew slave laborers and 3,600 supervisors (I Kings says 3,300 but doesn't count the supervisors over the supervisors); that's big! These slave laborers were resident foreigners with another 250 Israelite managers over them according to II Chronicles 8:10 (see notes). As mentioned, Solomon taps into the relationship his Dad had with the King of Tyre again for the wood. How much is wood? Here Solomon offers 120,000 bushels of crushed wheat, 120,000 bushels of barley, 120,000 gallons of wine and 120,000 gallons of oil; the King of Tyre accepts. They cut the wood in Lebanon and bring it down in barges along the sea shore (see map). For this project, they had a draft of Israelites - 30,000 of them. These worked in Lebanon one month at a time as timber jacks - 10,000 on each team. These Israelites, thus drafted, worked four months each year for Solomon and the remaining eight months each year on their own crops. The building of the temple was a massive undertaking. Incidentally, Solomon's excessive use of conscripted Israeli labor would later become the stated reason for the split of his kingdom after his death. Jeroboam (superintendent of conscripted labor) later heads the movement (I Kings 12:1-15, see notes) to seek some reasonable relief from Solomon's labor expectations after his death, or they'll split and start their own country. Rehoboam (Solomon's son and King of Israel after his death) refuses the relief, resulting in the split of 10 tribes who follow Jeroboam in what becomes known as the Northern Kingdom. However, it should be noted, the real reason for the split of the kingdom was Solomon's tolerance of paganism brought about by his excessive marrying to heathen women as indicated by the prophet in I Kings 11 (see notes) - "excessive marrying" being based upon the premise that if one wife is sufficient and two is too many, then surely 1,000 is somewhere waaaaay over on the too-many-nuptials scale. |
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Let's get started (I Kings 6; II Chronicles 3)
I Kings 6 |
II Chronicles 3 |
| 1 And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD. 2 Now the house which King Solomon built for the LORD, its length was sixty cubits, its width twenty, and its height thirty cubits. 3 The vestibule in front of the sanctuary of the house was twenty cubits long across the width of the house, and the width of the vestibule extended ten cubits from the front of the house. 4 And he made for the house windows with beveled frames. 5 ¶ Against the wall of the temple he built chambers all around, against the walls of the temple, all around the sanctuary and the inner sanctuary. Thus he made side chambers all around it. 6 The lowest chamber was five cubits wide, the middle was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide; for he made narrow ledges around the outside of the temple, so that the support beams would not be fastened into the walls of the temple. 7 And the temple, when it was being built, was built with stone finished at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built. 8 The doorway for the middle story was on the right side of the temple. They went up by stairs to the middle story, and from the middle to the third. 9 ¶ So he built the temple and finished it, and he paneled the temple with beams and boards of cedar. 10 And he built side chambers against the entire temple, each five cubits high; they were attached to the temple with cedar beams. 11 ¶ Then the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying: 12 “Concerning this temple which you are building, if you walk in My statutes, execute My judgments, keep all My commandments, and walk in them, then I will perform My word with you, which I spoke to your father David. 13 And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake My people Israel.” 14 ¶ So Solomon built the temple and finished it. 15 And he built the inside walls of the temple with cedar boards; from the floor of the temple to the ceiling he paneled the inside with wood; and he covered the floor of the temple with planks of cypress. 16 Then he built the twenty-cubit room at the rear of the temple, from floor to ceiling, with cedar boards; he built it inside as the inner sanctuary, as the Most Holy Place. 17 And in front of it the temple sanctuary was forty cubits long. 18 The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with ornamental buds and open flowers. All was cedar; there was no stone to be seen. 19 ¶ And he prepared the inner sanctuary inside the temple, to set the ark of the covenant of the LORD there. 20 The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He overlaid it with pure gold, and overlaid the altar of cedar. 21 So Solomon overlaid the inside of the temple with pure gold. He stretched gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, and overlaid it with gold. 22 The whole temple he overlaid with gold, until he had finished all the temple; also he overlaid with gold the entire altar that was by the inner sanctuary. 23 ¶ Inside the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high. 24 One wing of the cherub was five cubits, and the other wing of the cherub five cubits: ten cubits from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other. 25 And the other cherub was ten cubits; both cherubim were of the same size and shape. 26 The height of one cherub was ten cubits, and so was the other cherub. 27 Then he set the cherubim inside the inner room; and they stretched out the wings of the cherubim so that the wing of the one touched one wall, and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall. And their wings touched each other in the middle of the room. 28 Also he overlaid the cherubim with gold. 29 ¶ Then he carved all the walls of the temple all around, both the inner and outer sanctuaries, with carved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. 30 And the floor of the temple he overlaid with gold, both the inner and outer sanctuaries. 31 ¶ For the entrance of the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood; the lintel and doorposts were one-fifth of the wall. 32 The two doors were of olive wood; and he carved on them figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold; and he spread gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees. 33 So for the door of the sanctuary he also made doorposts of olive wood, one-fourth of the wall. 34 And the two doors were of cypress wood; two panels comprised one folding door, and two panels comprised the other folding door. 35 Then he carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers on them, and overlaid them with gold applied evenly on the carved work. 36 ¶ And he built the inner court with three rows of hewn stone and a row of cedar beams. 37 ¶ In the fourth year the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid, in the month of Ziv. 38 And in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its details and according to all its plans. So he was seven years in building it. |
1 Now Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 2 And he began to build on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign. 3 ¶ This is the foundation which Solomon laid for building the house of God: The length was sixty cubits (by cubits according to the former measure) and the width twenty cubits. 4 And the vestibule that was in front of the sanctuary was twenty cubits long across the width of the house, and the height was one hundred and twenty. He overlaid the inside with pure gold. 5 The larger room he paneled with cypress which he overlaid with fine gold, and he carved palm trees and chainwork on it. 6 And he decorated the house with precious stones for beauty, and the gold was gold from Parvaim. 7 He also overlaid the house—the beams and doorposts, its walls and doors—with gold; and he carved cherubim on the walls. 8 ¶ And he made the Most Holy Place. Its length was according to the width of the house, twenty cubits, and its width twenty cubits. He overlaid it with six hundred talents of fine gold. 9 The weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold; and he overlaid the upper area with gold. 10 In the Most Holy Place he made two cherubim, fashioned by carving, and overlaid them with gold. 11 The wings of the cherubim were twenty cubits in overall length: one wing of the one cherub was five cubits, touching the wall of the room, and the other wing was five cubits, touching the wing of the other cherub; 12 one wing of the other cherub was five cubits, touching the wall of the room, and the other wing also was five cubits, touching the wing of the other cherub. 13 The wings of these cherubim spanned twenty cubits overall. They stood on their feet, and they faced inward. 14 And he made the veil of blue, purple, crimson, and fine linen, and wove cherubim into it. 15 ¶ Also he made in front of the temple two pillars thirty-five cubits high, and the capital that was on the top of each of them was five cubits. 16 He made wreaths of chainwork, as in the inner sanctuary, and put them on top of the pillars; and he made one hundred pomegranates, and put them on the wreaths of chainwork. 17 Then he set up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand and the other on the left; he called the name of the one on the right hand Jachin, and the name of the one on the left Boaz. |
After 4 years of preparation, Solomon begins the work on the temple. This is the Temple that God told David he could not build back in I Chronicles 17 (see notes). It took 7 years to build the Temple - 105 feet long by 35 feet wide. These two chapters give a construction overview along with the furnishings. Talk about a generous use of gold - here's a generous use of gold; virtually everything inside, including the walls, was overlaid with gold. It's no wonder Israel's enemies had their eye on Israel's temple!
I Kings 6:11-13 contains a conditional promise from God specifically to Solomon.
Then the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying: “Concerning this temple which you are building, if you walk in My statutes, execute My judgments, keep all My commandments, and walk in them, then I will perform My word with you, which I spoke to your father David. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake My people Israel.
This was a confirmation of the promise that God made to David back in II Samuel 7:12-16 (see notes). One distinction should be noted between this word to Solomon and the promise made to David which we know as the Davidic Covenant. There were no conditions prescribed for the fulfillment of the covenant God made with David; it was an unconditional covenant that has Messianic implications. (Click here to see the specifics of this promise we know as the Davidic Covenant.) This word to Solomon was limited in scope to the physical reign of Solomon.
We get an extremely significant chronological fix in I Kings 6:1, "And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD." By following the chronology of the Kings of Judah, we are able to fix the date of the beginning of Solomon's rule at 971 B.C. Therefore, four years after his reign began puts us at 967 B.C., which we are told in this verse is in the 480th year since Israel left Egyptian bondage - placing the exodus of Israel from Egypt at 1445/6 B.C. With this verse, we are also able to calculate the length of the period of the judges of Israel at 346 years (see notes on Judges 1 for more detail).