Bible Commentaries

And Solomon told out threescore and ten thousand men to bear burdens, and fourscore thousand to hew in the mountain, and three thousand and ^a six hundred to oversee them.

(a) Which is to be understood of all sorts of officers and overseers: for else the chief officers were but 3300 as in (1 Kings 5:16).

But who is able to build him an house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him? who [am] I then, that I should build him an house, save only to burn ^b sacrifice before him?

(b) That is, to do the service which he has commanded, signifying that no one is able to honour and serve God in the perfection his majesty deserves.

Send me also cedar trees, fir trees, and ^c algum trees, out of Lebanon: for I know that thy servants can skill to cut timber in Lebanon; and, behold, my servants [shall be] with thy servants,

(c) Some take it for Brazil, or the wood called Ebenum, others for coral.

And, behold, I will give to thy servants, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty ^d thousand baths of oil.

(d) Of "bath" read (1 Kings 7:26). It is also called ephah, but an ephah measures dry things as a bath is a measure for liquids.

Huram said moreover, Blessed [be] the LORD God of Israel, that made heaven and earth, who hath given to David the king a ^e wise son, endued with prudence and understanding, that might build an house for the LORD, and an house for his kingdom.

(e) The very heavens confessed that it was a singular gift of God when he gave to any nation a king that was wise and of understanding, though it appears that this Hiram had the true knowledge of God.

The son of a woman of the ^f daughters of Dan, and his father [was] a man of Tyre, skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device which shall be put to him, with thy cunning men, and with the cunning men of my lord David thy father.

(f) It is also written that she was of the tribe of Naphtali, (1 Kings 7:14) which may be understood that by reason of the confusion of tribes which then began to be, they married in various tribes so that by her father she might be of Dan and by her mother of Naphtali.