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CHAPTER II

Solomon determines to build a temple, 1. The number of his workmen, 2. Sends to Huram for artificers and materials, 3- 10. Huram sends him a favourable answer, and makes an agreement with him concerning the labour to be done, and the wages to be paid to his men, 11-16. The number of strangers in the land, and how employed, 17, 18.

NOTES ON CHAP. II

Verse 1. "A house for the name of the Lord" - A temple for the worship of Jehovah.

"A house for his kingdom." - A royal palace for his own use as king of Israel.

Verse 3. "Solomon sent to Huram" - This man's name is written µryj Chiram in Kings; and in Chronicles, µrwj Churam: there is properly no difference, only a y yod and a w vau interchanged. See on 1 Kings v. 2.

Verse 6. "Seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens" - "For the lower heavens, the middle heavens, and the upper heavens cannot contain him, seeing he sustains all things by the arm of his power. Heaven is the throne of his glory, the earth his footstool; the deep, and the whole world, are sustained by the spirit of his Word, [ hyrmym jwrb beruach meqmereih.] Who am I, then, that I should build him a house?" -Targum.

Save only to burn sacrifice] It is not under the hope that the house shall be able to contain him, but merely for the purpose of burning incense to him, and offering him sacrifice, that I have erected it.

Verse 7. "Send me-a man cunning to work" - A person of great ingenuity, who is capable of planning and directing, and who may be over the other artists.

Verse 11. "Answered in writing" - Though correspondence among persons of distinction was, in these early times, carried on by confidential messengers, yet we find that epistolary correspondence did exist, and that kings could write and read in what were called by the proud and insolent Greeks and Romans barbarous nations. Nearly two thousand years after this we find a king on the British throne who could not sign his own name.

About the year of our Lord 700, Withred, king of Kent, thus concludes a charter to secure the liberties of the Church: Ego Wythredus rex Cantiae haec omnia suprascripta et confirmavi, atque, a me dictata propria manu signum sanctae crucis pro ignorantia literarum espressi; "All the above dictated by myself, I have confirmed; and because I cannot write, I have with my own hand expressed this by putting the sign of the holy cross +." -See Wilkins' Concilta.

Verse 13. "I have sent a conning man" - His name appears to have been Hiram, or Hiram Abi: see the notes on 1 Kings vii. 13, 14.