Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary

on the Whole Bible

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Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708)

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S E C O N D   C H R O N I C L E S

CHAP. II.

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Solomon’s trading, which we read of in the close of the foregoing

chapter, and the encouragement he gave both to merchandise and

manufacturers, were very commendable. But building was the work he was

designed for, and to that business he is here applying himself. Here

is,

I. Solomon’s determination to build the temple and a royal palace, and

his appointing labourers to be employed herein,

ver. 1, 2, 17, 18.

II. His request to Huram king of Tyre to furnish him both with artists

and materials,

ver. 3-10.

III. Huram’s obliging answer to, and compliance with, his request,

ver. 11-16.

Preparations to Build the Temple.	B. C. 1015.

     

1 And Solomon determined to build a house for the name of the

LORD, and a house for his kingdom.

  2 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.

  3 And Solomon sent to Huram the king of Tyre, saying, As thou

didst deal with David my father, and didst send him cedars to

build him a house to dwell therein, even so deal with me.

  4 Behold, I build a house to the name of the LORD my God, to

dedicate it to him, and to burn before him sweet incense, and

for the continual showbread, and for the burnt offerings morning

and evening, on the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the

solemn feasts of the LORD our God. This is an ordinance for

ever to Israel.

  5 And the house which I build is great: for great is our

God above all gods.

  6 But who is able to build him a house, seeing the heaven and

heaven of heavens cannot contain him? who am I then, that I

should build him a house, save only to burn sacrifice before

him?

  7 Send me now therefore a man cunning to work in gold, and in

silver, and in brass, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson,

and blue, and that can skill to grave with the cunning men that

are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David my father did

provide.

  8 Send me also cedar trees, fir trees, and 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,

  9 Even to prepare me timber in abundance: for the house which I

am about to build shall be wonderful great.

  10 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 thousand baths of oil.

     

Solomon’s wisdom was given him, not merely for speculation, to

entertain himself (though it is indeed a princely entertainment), nor

merely for conversation, to entertain his friends, but for action; and

therefore to action he immediately applies himself. Observe,

     

I. His resolution within himself concerning his business

(v. 1):

He determined to build, in the first place, a house for the

name of the Lord. It is fit that he who is the first should be

served–first a temple and then a palace, a house not so much for

himself, or his own convenience and magnitude, as for the kingdom, for

the honour of it among its neighbours and for the decent reception of

the people whenever they had occasion to apply to their prince; so that

in both he aimed at the public good. Those are the wisest men that lay

out themselves most for the honour of the name of the Lord and the

welfare of communities. We are not born for ourselves, but for God and

our country.

     

II. His embassy to Huram, king of Tyre, to engage his assistance in the

prosecution of his designs. The purport of his errand to him is much

the same here as we had it

1 Kings v. 2,

&c., only here it is more largely

set forth.

     

1. The reasons why he makes this application to Huram are here more

fully represented, for information to Huram as well as for inducement.

(1.) He pleads his father’s interest in Huram, and the kindness he had

received from him

(v. 3):

As thou didst deal with David, so deal with me. As we must show

kindness to, so we may expect kindness from, our fathers’ friends, and

with them should cultivate a correspondence.

(2.) He represents his design in building the temple: he intended it

for a place of religious worship

(v. 4),

that all the offerings which God had appointed for the honour of his

name might be offered up there. The house was built that it might be

dedicated to God and used in his service. This we should aim at in all

our business, that our havings and doings may be all to the glory of

God. He mentions various particular services that were there to be

performed, for the instruction of Huram. The mysteries of the true

religion, unlike those of the Gentile superstition, coveted not

concealment.

(3.) He endeavors to inspire Huram with very great and high thoughts of

the God of Israel, by expressing the mighty veneration he had for his

holy name: Great is our God above all gods, above all idols,

above all princes. Idols are nothing, princes are little, and both

under the control of the God of Israel; and therefore,

[1.] “The house must be great; not in proportion to the greatness of

that God to whom it is to be dedicated (for between finite and infinite

there can be no proportion), but in some proportion to the great value

and esteem we have for this God.”

[2.] “Yet, be it ever so great, it cannot be a habitation for the great

God. Let not Huram think that the God of Israel, like the gods of the

nations, dwells in temples made with hands,
Acts xvii. 24.

No, the heaven of heavens cannot contain him. It is intended

only for the convenience of his priests and worshippers, that they may

have a fit place wherein to burn sacrifice before him.”

[3.] He looked upon himself, though a mighty prince, as unworthy the

honour of being employed in this great work: Who am I that I should

build him a house? It becomes us to go about every work for God

with a due sense of our utter insufficiency for it and our incapacity

to do any thing adequate to the divine perfections. It is part of the

wisdom wherein we ought to walk towards those that are without

carefully to guard against all misapprehension which any thing we say

or do may occasion concerning God; so Solomon does here in his treaty

with Huram.

     

2. The requests he makes to him are more particularly set down here.

(1.) He desired Huram would furnish him with a good hand to work

(v. 7):

Send me a man. He had cunning men with him in Jerusalem

and Judah, whom David provided,

1 Chron. xxii. 15.

Let them not think but that Jews had some among them that were artists.

But “send me a man to direct them. There are ingenious men in

Jerusalem, but not such engravers as are in Tyre; and therefore, since

temple-work must be the best in its kind, let me have the best workmen

that can be got.”

(2.) With good materials to work on

(v. 8),

cedar and other timber in abundance

(v. 8, 9);

for the house must be wonderfully great, that is, very stately

and magnificent, no cost must be spared, nor any contrivance wanting in

it.

     

3. Here is Solomon’s engagement to maintain the workmen

(v. 10),

to give them so much wheat and barley, so much wine and oil. He did not

feed his workmen with bread and water, but with plenty, and every thing

of the best. Those that employ labourers ought to take care they be not

only well paid, but well provided for with sufficient of that which is

wholesome and fit for them. Let the rich masters do for their poor

workmen as they would be done by if the tables were turned.

Solomon’s Treaty with Hiram.	B. C. 1015.

     

11 Then Huram the king of Tyre answered in writing, which he

sent to Solomon, Because the LORD hath loved his people, he hath

made thee king over them.

  12 Huram said moreover, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel,

that made heaven and earth, who hath given to David the king a

wise son, endued with prudence and understanding, that might

build a house for the LORD, and a house for his kingdom.

  13 And now I have sent a cunning man, endued with

understanding, of Huram my father’s,

  14 The son of a woman of the 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.

  15 Now therefore the wheat, and the barley, the oil, and the

wine, which my lord hath spoken of, let him send unto his

servants:

  16 And we will cut wood out of Lebanon, as much as thou shalt

need: and we will bring it to thee in floats by sea to Joppa; and

thou shalt carry it up to Jerusalem.

  17 And Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the

land of Israel, after the numbering wherewith David his father

had numbered them; and they were found a hundred and fifty

thousand and three thousand and six hundred.

  18 And he set threescore and ten thousand of them to be

bearers of burdens, and fourscore thousand to be hewers in the

mountain, and three thousand and six hundred overseers to set the

people a work.

     

Here we have,

I. The return which Huram made to Solomon’s embassy, in which he shows

a great respect for Solomon and a readiness to serve him. Meaner people

may learn of these great ones to be neighbourly and complaisant.

1. He congratulates Israel on having such a king as Solomon was

(v. 11):

Because the Lord loved his people, he has made thee king. Note,

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 he loved thee (though that was true,

2 Sam. xii. 24)

he made thee king, but because he loved his people.

Princes must look upon themselves as preferred for the public good, not

for their own personal satisfaction, and should rule so as to prove

that they were given in love and not in anger.

2. He blesses God for raising up such a successor to David,

v. 12.

It should seem that Huram was not only very well affected to the Jewish

nation, and well pleased with their prosperity, but that he was

proselyted to the Jewish religion, and worshipped Jehovah, the God

of Israel (who was now known by that name to the neighbouring

nations), as the God that made heaven and earth, and as the

fountain of power as well as being; for he sets up kings. Now that the

people of Israel kept close to the law and worship of God, and so

preserved their honour, the neighbouring nations were as willing to be

instructed by them in the true religion as Israel had been, in the days

of their apostasy, to be infected with the idolatries and superstitions

of their neighbours. This made them high, that they lent to many

nations and did not borrow, lent truth to them, and did not borrow

error from them; as when they did the contrary it was their shame.

3. He sent him a very ingenious curious workman, that would not fail

to answer his expectations in every thing, one that had both Jewish and

Gentile blood meeting in him; for his mother was an Israelite (Huram

though she was of the tribe of Dan, and therefore says so here,

v. 14,

but it seems she was of the tribe of Naphtali,

1 Kings vii. 14),

but his father was a Tyrian–a good omen of uniting Jew and Gentile in

the gospel temple, as it was afterwards when the building of the second

temple was greatly furthered by Darius

(Ezra vi.),

who is supposed to have been the son of Esther–an Israelite by the

mother’s side.

4. He engaged for the timber, as much as he would have occasion for,

and undertook to deliver it at Joppa, and withal signified his

dependence upon Solomon for the maintenance of the workmen as he had

promised,

v. 15, 16.

This agreement we had,

1 Kings v. 8, 9.

     

II. The orders which Solomon gave about the workmen. He would not

employ the free-born Israelites in the drudgery work of the temple

itself, not so much as to be overseers of it. In this he employed the

strangers who were proselyted to the Jewish religion, who had not lands

of inheritance in Canaan as the Israelites had, and therefore applied

to trades, and got their living by their ingenuity and industry. There

were, at this time, vast numbers of them in the land

(v. 17),

who, if they were of any of the devoted nations, perhaps fell within

the case, and therefore fell under the law, of the Gibeonites, to be

hewers of wood for the congregation: if not, yet being in many respects

well provided for by the law of Moses, and put upon an equal footing

with the native Israelites, they were bound in gratitude to do what

they could for the service of the temple. Yet, no doubt, they were well

paid in money or money’s worth: the law was, Thou shalt not oppress

a stranger. The distribution of them we have here

(v. 2,

and again

v. 18),

in all 150,000. Canaan was a fruitful land, that found meat for so many

mouths more than the numerous natives; and the temple was a vast

building, that found work for so many bands. Mr. Fuller suggests that

the expedient peculiar to this structure, of framing all beforehand,

must needs increase the work. I think it rather left so much the more

room for this vast multitude of hands to be employed in it; for in the

forest of Lebanon they might all be at work together, without crowding

one another, which they could not have been upon Mount Sion. And, if

there had not been such vast numbers employed, so large and curious a

fabric, which was begun and ended in seven years, might, for aught I

know, have been as long in building as St. Paul’s.

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Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708)

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