John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

1 Kings 7:1



INTRODUCTION TO 1 KINGS 7



This chapter gives an account of some buildings of Solomon for himself, 1Ki 7:1; and of other things for the use of the temple; of two pillars of brass, 1Ki 7:13; of the molten sea, 1Ki 7:23; and of ten bases, and ten layers on them, 1Ki 7:27; with other utensils and ornaments, 1Ki 7:40.



Ver. 1. But Solomon was building his own house thirteen years,.... He made more haste with the house of God than with his own, for that was but seven years in building; which showed greater regard to the honour of God then to his own glory, or even convenience; nor was this built till after that:



and finished all his house; or houses he undertook to build, the singular for the plural; even the house of God, his own palace, and that for the daughter of Pharaoh, and that which is next mentioned, which were in all twenty years building, 1Ki 9:10.





1 Kings 7:2



Ver. 2. He built also the house of the forest of Lebanon,.... Besides the temple, his own palace, and the queen's; so called, not because it was built on Mount Lebanon, which lay at the northern border of the land, at a great distance from Jerusalem, whereas this was both a magazine of arms, and a court of judicature, 1Ki 7:7; see

1Ki 10:17; neither of which can be supposed to be far from Jerusalem; but because not only it was built of the cedars of Lebanon, but in a situation, and among groves of trees which resembled it; it seems to have been a summer house; and so the Targum calls it, a royal house of refreshment:



the length thereof [was] an hundred cubits, and the breadth thereof fifty and the height thereof thirty cubits; so that it was in every measure larger than the temple; and, there was good reason for it, since into that only the priests entered; whereas into this went not only Solomon's family but his courtiers and nobles, and all foreign ambassadors, and whoever had any business with him, which required various rooms to receive them in:



upon four rows of cedar pillars; or piazzas:



with cedar beams upon the pillars; which laid the floor for the second story.





1 Kings 7:3



Ver. 3. And it was covered with cedar above the beams, that lay on forty five pillars, fifteen in a row. On the second floor were three rows of pillars, fifteen in a row, which made forty five, that stood to east, north, and south; and upon these pillars beams, which were the floor of the third story, over which was a roof of cedar wood.





1 Kings 7:4



Ver. 4. And there were windows in three rows,.... Both in the second and third stories, east, north, and south, there being none in the west, where the porch stood:



and light was against light in three ranks; or the windows, through which light was let, answered to each other.





1 Kings 7:5



Ver. 5. And all the doors and posts were square with the windows,.... The doors into the several stories and apartments, and the posts and lintel of them, and the windows over them, were all square:



and light was against light in three ranks; they answered one another as before.





1 Kings 7:6



Ver. 6. And he made a porch of pillars,.... At the west end of the house:



and the length thereof was fifty cubits; answerable to the breadth of the house:



and the breadth thereof thirty cubits: which, added to the length of the house, made it one hundred and thirty:



and the porch was before them; the four rows of cedar pillars of the house, 1Ki 7:2 this porch was either for his guards to keep watch in; or for his courtiers to walk in, sheltered from rain or the like; or perhaps only for grandeur and magnificence:



and the other pillars and the thick beam were before them; the pillars of the porch, on which were laid beams of cedar for a storey over them, and so on; these were before and right against, and answered to the pillars of the house.





1 Kings 7:7



Ver. 7. Then he made a porch for the throne,.... The ivory throne on which he sat to hear and try causes, 1Ki 10:18,



where he might judge, even the porch of judgment: which had its name from thence; this was either in his house in the forest of Lebanon, or in his palace at Jerusalem; the former seems best:



and it was covered with cedar from one side of the floor unto the other; that is, the whole floor.





1 Kings 7:8



Ver. 8. And his house where he dwelt,.... Which was properly his dwellingplace, that part of the house where he usually resided:



[had] another court within the porch, which [was] of the like work; a court between that and the porch, called the inner court, 2Ki 20:4.



Solomon made also a house for Pharaoh's daughter, whom he had taken to wife; see 1Ki 3:1,



like unto this porch: being built of the same sort of materials, though in a different form.





1 Kings 7:9



Ver. 9. All these were of costly stones,.... Marble, porphyry, &c.



according to the measure of hewed stones, sawed with saws, within and without; they were all hewed, and squared, and polished, and so they appeared both on the inside of the building, and without:



even from the foundation unto the coping; from the bottom to the top:



and so on the outside toward the great court: where the people used to assemble when they had causes to be tried, and was adjoining to the king's house.





1 Kings 7:10



Ver. 10. And the foundation was of costly stones, even great stones,.... Of a great price, and very large:



stones of ten cubits, and stones of eight cubits some of one measure, and some of another; not so many cubits square, but of solid measure; they were so many in length.





1 Kings 7:11



Ver. 11. And above were costly stones,.... Above the foundation, from thence to the top of the buildings; the whole walls were made of such right up to the ceiling:



after the measure of hewed stones; which, according to the Rabbins, as Kimchi says, were five hands breadth:



and cedars; beams of cedars over them, or these, both the foundation and the walls, were lined with them.





1 Kings 7:12



Ver. 12. And the great court round about,.... Which surrounded Solomon's house:



[was] with three rows of hewed stones, and a row of cedar beams; these rows were one upon another, and were a wall to the court, which were either topped with a row of cedar wood, or that was a lining to the stones



for the inner court of the house of the Lord; or rather as, or like to that, as appears from 1Ki 6:36,



and for the porch of the house; not the temple, but Solomon's house.





1 Kings 7:13



Ver. 13. And King Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre. Not the king of Tyre, but an artificer in it, after described, whom Solomon had heard and upon his request Huram sent him to him, 2Ch 2:13 his name is called Hyperon by Clemens of Alexandria {l}.



{l} Stromat. l. 1. p. 332.





1 Kings 7:14



Ver. 14. He was a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali,.... In 2Ch 2:14, his mother is said to be of the daughters of Dan, as she might be, and yet her son of the tribe of Naphtali; for either she was of the city of Dan, which is placed in the tribe of Naphtali {m}, or her mother was of the tribe of Dan; and therefore she is said to be of the daughters of Dan, when her father was of the tribe of Naphtali, as it is expressed by the Targum on 2Ch 2:14, and in which way most of the Jewish commentators reconcile this; or she was of Dan, and her husband of Naphtali besides, if there was any mistake, it must be ascribed, not to the sacred historians, but to the king of Tyre, whose words they are in the above place, and who might not be so well acquainted with the tribe this man and his parents were of:



and his father was a man of Tyre; not a Tyrian by birth, but one who had dwelt there a while, and therefore so called, as Obededom, for a like reason, is called the Gittite:



a worker in brass; and he was filled with wisdom, and understanding, and cunning to work all works in brass; which might be true both of the father and of the son, and especially of the son, who had improved upon his father's knowledge and instructions; and who was skilful to work in other things besides brass, as gold, silver, iron, stone, timber, purple, blue and fine linen, crimson, and all sorts of engraving, and every device that could be put to him by the most ingenious workmen that either David or Solomon had, 2Ch 2:14, but this is only mentioned, because it was in such work he was only employed by Solomon; and it seems, by the mode of expression, that, besides his natural genius, and his diligence and industry, he was filled with wisdom from God more immediately for this service, as Bezaleel and Aholiab were for the service of the tabernacle:



and he came to King Solomon, and wrought all his work; in brass, as follows.



{m} Vid. Adrichom. Theat. T. S. p. 105. Fuller's Pisgah-Sight, 107.





1 Kings 7:15



Ver. 15. For he cast two pillars of brass, eighteen cubits high apiece,.... In 2Ch 3:15 they are said to be thirty five cubits high, which must be understood of the length or height of them both; and whereas that would allow but seventeen cubits and a half to a pillar, either the round number of eighteen is used, or half a cubit in each may be allowed, either for the base or pedestal into which they were put; or the chapiter at the top of them, into which they might go such a length, and so only what was seen is described:



and a line of twelve cubits did compass either of them about; that was the circumference of them, and therefore their diameter must be four cubits. Eupolemus, an Heathen writer {n} speaks of these pillars, but he makes the circuit of them to be but ten cubits; and says they were equal in height with the temple, and stood on the right and left, and were made of brass, and covered with gold, the thickness of a finger.



{n} Apud Euseb, Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 34. p. 450.





1 Kings 7:16



Ver. 16. And he made two chapiters of molten brass, to set upon the tops of the pillars,.... These were large ovals in the form of a crown, as the word signifies; or like two crowns joined together, as Ben Gersom; or bowls, as they are called, 1Ki 7:41,



the height of the one chapiter was five cubits, and the height of the other chapiter was five cubits; in 2Ki 25:17 they are said to be but three cubits high; but that is to be understood only of the ornamented part of them, the wreathen work and pomegranates on them, as there expressed; here it includes, with that, the part below unornamented.





1 Kings 7:17



Ver. 17. And nets of checker work, and wreaths of chain work, for the chapiters which were upon the top of the pillars,.... These were the ornaments of the chapiters; the former being like thick branches of trees, with their boughs and leaves curiously wrought, as the word signifies, and the latter like fringes, such as the Jews wore at the skirt of their garments:



seven for the one chapiter, and seven for the other chapiter; perhaps with four rows of checker work, and three of chain work.





1 Kings 7:18



Ver. 18. And he made the pillars,.... Or adorned them in this manner:



and two rows round about upon the one network, to cover the chapiters that were upon the top, with pomegranates; that is, there were two rows of figures like pomegranates upon the net or branch work that covered the chapiters that were on the top of the pillars; and Kimchi owns, that some copies so read, on the top of the pillars, instead of pomegranates, though he thinks it a mistake:



and so did he for the other chapiter; put two rows about that also.





1 Kings 7:19



Ver. 19. And the chapiters that were upon the top of the pillars were of lily work in the porch,.... Or such as was in the porch of the temple; the work was like that wrought in the form of the flower of lilies open:



four cubits; of the five cubits of which the chapiters consisted, four of them were of lily work, the two rows of pomegranates taking up the other; though Dr. Lightfoot {o} thinks, that at the head of the pillar was a border or circle of lily work, that stood out four cubits under the chapiter, into and along the porch; a four cubit circle, after the manner of a spread lily.



{o} Prospect of the Temple, c. 13. sect. 2. p. 1075.





1 Kings 7:20



Ver. 20. And the chapiters upon the two pillars had pomegranates also above, over against the belly which was by the network,.... The supplement is needless, according to Dr. Lightfoot; the sense being only, that the chapiters were above the lily work, which wrought out as far as the belly of the chapiters, or the middle cubit of them, which the pomegranates filled up:



and the pomegranates were two hundred, in rows round about upon the other chapiter: there were so many in each, which in all made four hundred, as in 1Ki 7:42. In Jer 52:23, it is said there were ninety six on a side, and yet one hundred round about; the meaning of which is, either that there were twenty four to every wind, as the word there is, and four on the four angles, and so in all one hundred; or, as the above learned writer, when the pillars were set to the wall, only ninety six appeared in sight in a row, the other four being hid behind them.





1 Kings 7:21



Ver. 21. And he set up the pillars in the porch of the temple,.... Not at the door or entrance into the temple, as Jarchi, but at the entrance into the porch:



and he set up the right pillar; or the pillar on the right hand as you went in, which was on the north, the front being east:



and called the name thereof Jachin; which signifies "he will establish", i.e. the house to which here was an entrance, so long as the pure worship of God should continue in it:



and he set up the left pillar; or the pillar on the left hand, which was to the south, unless the position of them was as you come out:



and called the name thereof Boaz; which signifies "in him", or "it is strength", namely, in the Lord that dwelt there; for this has no respect to Boaz, a prince of the house of Judah, from whom all its kings sprung, as the Targum, in 2Ch 3:17 suggests. These names were given them not by Hiram the artificer, but by Solomon, and which were very expressive; not so much of the nobility of the kingdom of the house of David, as the Targum intimates; or of the church of God, the pillar and ground of truth; as of Christ himself, and the two natures in him, and of his royal dignity, signified by the crowns or chapiters on them, decorated as they were, whose legs are as pillars of marble, and in whom are righteousness and strength; which is no small encouragement to those who are entering into the church of God the temple was a type of; who, should they fear, being feeble and weak, that they should totter and fall, here stands Jachin, to let them know the Lord will establish and settle them; or that they should never hold out to the end, here is Boaz to direct them to Christ, in whom their strength lies, see So 4:15. Allusion is had to these, Re 3:12.





1 Kings 7:22



Ver. 22. And upon the top of the pillars was lily work,.... Which seems to be repeated from 1Ki 7:19 and confirms that:



and so was the work of the pillars finished; in the manner described.





1 Kings 7:23



Ver. 23. And he made a molten sea,.... A large vessel made of molten brass, which, because of the great quantity of water it held, is called a sea; as it was usual with the Jews to call a large collection of waters a sea, as the sea of Tiberius and Galilee. This was made by the man of Tyre, as the pillars, by the order of Solomon, and answered to the brasen laver in the tabernacle, only larger than that; and was not only for the priests to wash their hands and feet in, but to dip upon occasion, and by the Jews {p} is expressly said to be a dipping place for the priests, see 2Ch 4:6,



ten cubits from the one brim to the other: which was the diameter of it: it was round all about; spherical or circular; not as an hemisphere, as Josephus {q}, and Procopius Gazaeus, but rather cylindrical:



and his height was five cubits; from the bottom of it, not including the pedestal of oxen on which it stood:



and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about; this was the circumference of it; which answers to the diameter of ten cubits, or near it, a round number being given not strictly mathematical.



(Sceptics have ridiculed the Bible for saying that the mathematical constant p is 3 instead of the more precise 3.14159. (This number is an "irrational number" and needs an infinite number digits to specify it exactly.) Two explanations for the apparent lack of precision in the measurement are given.



1) The circumference given may be for the inside circumference and the diameter may be the diameter including the thickness of the rim. This would yield a very accurate mathematical result for the inside circumference of thirty cubits. The outside circumference would be about 31.4 cubits giving a rim thickness of four inches or an hand breadth agreeing with 1Ki 7:26.



2) In 1Ki 7:26 we read the vessel "was wrought like the brim of a cup." That is the brim on the top of the vessel was wider than the main part of the vessel. The diameter would be given for the brim. If the brim or lip extended about four inches past the main body of the vessel then the outside circumference of the main part of the vessel would be exactly thirty cubits.



In each case the mathematical ratio for circumference of the circle is

pd, where "d" is the diameter and p is the number 3.14159 ..... For a more complete discussion on this see the article by Russel Grigg. {r}. Editor.)



{p} T. Hieros, Yema, fol. 41. 1 {q} Antiqu. l. 8. c. 3. sect 5. {r} "Does the Bible say pi equals 3.0?", Russell Greg, page 24, "Ex Nihil", March-May Issue, Vol. 17. No. 2., Creation Science Foundation Ltd. Brisbane, Australia.





1 Kings 7:24



Ver. 24. And under the brim of it round about there were knops compassing it,.... Of an oval form, and therefore the Targum calls them figures of eggs; in 2Ch 4:3 they are said to have the similitude of oxen, being like the heads of oxen, and the other parts oval; or these were in the form of gourds, as sometimes the word is rendered, 2Ki 4:39 which had on them the figures of the heads of oxen, and might serve as cocks to let out the water:



ten in a cubit, compassing the sea round about it; and as the circumference was thirty cubits, there must be three hundred of these in the circuit:



the knops were cast in two rows when it was cast; for these were cast together with the sea, and being in two rows, there must be in all six hundred of them.





1 Kings 7:25



Ver. 25. It stood upon twelve oxen,.... Figures of them in brass, of full proportion:



three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east; and so turned to the four quarters of the world:



and the sea was set above upon them; as it were on the backs of them, and their mouths served as spouts or cocks, to let water out of it on all sides:



and all their hinder parts were inward; that they might not be seen, and which met in a centre; they that were north came against those that were south, and they in the east met with those to the west. The brass of the sea, according to Jacob Leon {r}, weighed 1,800 arobas, and, with twelve oxen under, 33,500; each aroba being twenty five pounds weight.



{r} Relation of Memorable Things in the Temple, ch. 4. p. 21.





1 Kings 7:26



Ver. 26. And it was an hand breadth thick,.... Or four fingers, as in

Jer 52:21



and the brim thereof was wrought like the brim of a cup,

with flowers of lilies, embroidered and engraven on it for ornament sake:



it contained 2,000 baths; which is reckoned about five hundred barrels of water; it was filled by the Gibeonites; in 2Ch 4:5, it is said to receive and hold 3,000 baths, which the Jewish writers {s} thus reconcile; they suppose here it means so many baths of liquid, as the Targum expresses, there of dry measure, which might be heaped up, and so contain more; but as this was a vessel for water, and this distinction seems to answer no purpose, it may be better to observe, that in common, for the use of the priests, whether for washing their hands and feet, or dipping their bodies, it had no more than 2,000 baths in it, but, if filled up to the brim, it would hold 3,000. How a vessel of such dimensions should hold so much is difficult to account for; the Rabbins say {t}, that in the two upper cubits of it it was circular, and in the three lower cubits square, by which they imagine it would hold more, and the position of it on the oxen seems to countenance this; but very probably it was wider, and bellied out in the lower part of it, and so more capacious; but of the contents of this, according to mathematical rules, see a treatise of Bishop Cumberland's {u}. It is said {w} of a temple of Neptune's, in the fore part of it were two signs of him, and another of Amphitrite, and that was a brasen sea. This brasen sea of Solomon was typical of Christ, the fountain opened to wash in for uncleanness, by all that are made priests unto God; and this being larger than the laver in the tabernacle, may denote the greater efficacy of Christ's blood than in anything in the law of Moses to cleanse from sin; and the larger provision made for it, not only for Israel, but for all the people of God in the several nations of the world, in the four quarters of it; being published, and proclaimed, and directed to by the twelve apostles of Christ, and by all Gospel ministers since, signified by oxen for their laboriousness and strength. In the second temple there were no sea, nor bases, after mentioned, nor lavers, but one, which stood between the porch and the altar, which was for the priests to wash their hands and feet at {x}.



{s} Shilte Hagibborim, c. 27. fol. 23. 4. {t} T. Bab. Eruvin, fol. 14. 2. {u} Of Scripture Weights and Measures, c. 3. p. 93, &c. {w} Pausaniae Corinthiaca, sive, l. 2. p. 87. {x} Shilte Hagibborim, c. 27. fol. 24. 2.





1 Kings 7:27



Ver. 27. And he made ten bases of brass,.... Seats, stands, or settles for the ten lavers after mentioned:



four cubits was the length of one base, and four cubits the breadth thereof; as broad as it was long, and so a square, that the laver might stand firm upon it:



and three cubits the height of it; from the ground plates to the surface, that the priests might be able to reach the layers, and wash their sacrifices.





1 Kings 7:28



Ver. 28. And the work of the bases was on this manner,.... The following was the form in which they were made:



they had borders; plates of brass all around them, which enclosed them:



and the borders were between the ledges; which were short staves or bars of brass, that stood upright all around, like the staves of a cart on each side, or the rails of a balcony, only in double rows; and between these were the borders or plates of brass.





1 Kings 7:29



Ver. 29. And on the borders that were between the ledges were lions, oxen, and cherubims,.... The figures of them, for ornament sake; the cherubim, being distinguished from lions and oxen might be figures of men, or else of eagles, as Josephus {y}, see Eze 1:10



and upon the ledges there was a base above; a flat piece of brass laid upon the top of the staves or bars:



and beneath the lions and oxen were certain additions made of thin work; these, according to Dr. Lightfoot {z}, whom I chiefly follow in this account, were shelving plates of brass at the bottom of the borders and bars, where the priests washed the sacrifice; the filth of which ran off the easier, through the angle of them.



{y} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 8. c. 3. sect. 5.) {z} Prospect of the Temple, ch. 38. sect. 2.





1 Kings 7:30



Ver. 30. And every base had four brasen wheels, and plates of brass,.... Flat pieces or planks of brass, on which the wheels stood, and not on the bare floor; so that these wheels seem only to serve as supporters, not to carry the laver from place to place, as is usually said; for they were not like chariot wheels, on two sides of the carriage, but set one at each square; and besides, when the lavers were placed upon them, they were fixed in a certain place, 1Ki 7:39



and the four corners thereof had undersetters; or "shoulders {a}", or pillars, which were placed on the plates of brass the wheels were; and served with them to support the lavers when laid upon the bases, and so were of the same use as men's shoulders, to bear burdens on them:



under the layer were undersetters molten; cast as, and when and where, the bases were, and the plates on which they stood; this explains the use they were of, being under the laver; these pillars stood at the four corners of the base:



at the side of every addition; made of thin work, 1Ki 7:29 they stood by the side of, or within side, the sloping shelves.



{a} tptk "humeri", Pagninus, Montanus, &c.





1 Kings 7:31



Ver. 31. And the mouth of it within the chapiter, and above, was a cubit,.... On the lid of the base rose up a lesser base, called the chapiter, which was circular, like a coronet, as the word signifies, the inside of which was hollow, for the lower part of the layer to rest in; this ascended straight up half a cubit, and then widening, went up half a cubit more, and so in its whole height, as here a cubit; the circuit or circumference of which is called the mouth of the base, into which the feet of the layer were set, the measure of which is next given:



but the mouth thereof was round, after the work of the base, a cubit and an half; which was either the circumference or the diameter of it; one should think the latter:



and also upon the mouth of it were gravings, with their borders, four square, not round; though the mouth was round, the border of it was four square, which had figures engraved thereon, perhaps the same as on the other borders, lions, oxen, and cherubim.





1 Kings 7:32



Ver. 32. And under the borders were four wheels,.... Not under the borders last mentioned, but those in 1Ki 7:29,



and the axle trees of the wheels [were] joined to the base; to the four sides of it:



and the height of a wheel was a cubit and half a cubit; that is, from the plate of brass on which it stood, to the axis or semicircle of it; so that the highest part of the ring being also a cubit and an half, reached to the top of the base, it being but three cubits high, 1Ki 7:27.





1 Kings 7:33



Ver. 33. And the work of the wheels was like the work of a chariot wheel,.... In the same form and fashion as one of them; the Targum is,



"like a chariot of glory;''



a splendid one, curiously wrought; unless reference is had in it to the chariot of Ezekiel's vision:



their axle trees, and their naves, and their felloes, and their spokes, were all molten; cast together when the base was.





1 Kings 7:34



Ver. 34. And there were four undersetters to the four corners of one base,.... Or pillars, as in 1Ki 7:30



and the undersetters were of the base itself; they were cast together, and of the same piece of metal with it.





1 Kings 7:35



Ver. 35. And in the top of the base was there a round compass of half a cubit high,.... The same with the chapiter, 1Ki 7:31 which rose up straight half a cubit, and widening upwards half a cubit more, here called the round compass of it:



and on the top of the base, the ledges thereof and the borders thereof, were of the same; of the same piece of brass with the base, all being cast together.





1 Kings 7:36



Ver. 36. For on the plates of the ledges thereof, and on the borders thereof,.... In this, and the preceding verse, a different word is used, translated "ledges", from that in 1Ki 7:28, the Targum renders it axle trees; as if the axle trees of the wheels, and the borders, circumferences, and rings of them, were meant, in which were the following engravings: it literally signifies hands or handles; and Procopius Gazaeus says, that the bases had, in the upper part of them, forms of hands holding a circle like a crown:



he graved cherubims, lions, and palm trees, according to the proportion of everyone; these figures were made as large as the plates of the ledges, and the borders, would allow room for:



and the addition round about; which were sloping shelves of brass around the base, 1Ki 7:29 these were ornamented in like manner.





1 Kings 7:37



Ver. 37. After this manner he made the ten bases,.... This was the form and fashion of them as above described:



all of them had one casting, one measure, and one size; they were all cast into the same mould, and were exactly alike in their form, figures, and size, and each weighed 2000 talents, and the weight of a talent was ninety three pounds and upwards, according to Jacob Leon {b}.



{b} Relation of Memorable Things in the Temple, c. 4. p. 21.





1 Kings 7:38



Ver. 38. Then made he ten lavers of brass,.... There was but one in the tabernacle of Moses, and what became of that is not known: some Jewish writers {c} say it was placed in Solomon's temple, and these lavers, five on the right and five on the left of it; however, here were enough provided for the purpose for the priests to wash their burnt offerings in, 2Ch 4:6 and were typical of the large provision made in the blood of Christ for the cleansing of his people; whose works, services, and sacrifices, as well as persons and garments, need continual washing in that blood; see Ro 12:1,



one laver contained forty baths; and a bath, according to Bishop Cumberland {d} held seven wine gallons, and two quarts and half a pint:



and every laver was four cubits: that is, square; this was the diameter of it:



and upon every of the ten bases one laver; for which they were made, even to set the lavers on, and were exactly of the same measure.



{c} Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi, in 2 Chron. iv. 6. {d} Scripture Weights and Measures, c. 3. p. 70, 71.





1 Kings 7:39



Ver. 39. And he put five bases on the right side of the house,.... On the south side, which is commonly understood; that is, of the courts of the priests, where they were placed for their use: and five on the left side of the house; on the north, as it must be, if the south is on the right; though as the entrance into the temple was at the east, when a man went in, the north must be on the right, and the south on the left; and this seems to be the position by what follows:



and he set the sea on the right side of the house eastward, over against the south; and therefore the right side must be the north, which is opposite to the south; the sea seems to have stood northeast, which was for the priests to wash in before they entered on divine service, See Gill on "Ex 30:20" hence it became customary with the Heathens to wash before they performed any religious worship {e}, particularly the hands and feet {f}.



{e} Vid. Virgil. Bucolic. Eclog. 8. "affer aquam", &c. Aeneid. 2. "attrectare nefas", &c. Macrob. Saturnal. l. 3. c. l. {f} Vid. Sperling de Bapt. Ethnic. p. 88, 89, 101.





1 Kings 7:40



Ver. 40. And Hiram made the lavers, and the shovels, and the basins,.... The lavers are not the ten before mentioned, of the make of which an account is before given; but these, according to Jarchi and Ben Gersom, are the same with the pots, 1Ki 7:45 and so they are called in 2Ch 4:11 the use of which, as they say, was to put the ashes of the altar into; as the "shovels", next mentioned, were a sort of besoms to sweep them off, and the "basins" were to receive the blood of the sacrifices, and sprinkle it; no mention is here made of the altar of brass he made, but is in 2Ch 4:11, nor of the fleshhooks to take the flesh out of the pots, as in 2Ch 4:16,



so Hiram made an end of doing all the work that he made King Solomon for the house of the Lord; what he undertook, and was employed in, he finished, which were all works of brass; of which a recapitulation is made in the following verses to the end of the forty fifth, where they are said to be made of "bright brass", free of all dross and rust; "good", as the Targum, even the best brass they were made of; the brass David took from Hadarezer, 1Ch 18:8 which Josephus {g} too much magnifies, when he says it was better than gold.



{g} Antiqu. l. 7. c. 5. sect. 3.





1 Kings 7:41



Ver. 41. See Gill on "1Ki 7:40"





1 Kings 7:42



Ver. 42. See Gill on "1Ki 7:40"





1 Kings 7:43



Ver. 43. See Gill on "1Ki 7:40"





1 Kings 7:44



Ver. 44. See Gill on "1Ki 7:40"





1 Kings 7:45



Ver. 45. See Gill on "1Ki 7:40"





1 Kings 7:46



Ver. 46. In the plain of Jericho did the king cast them in the clay ground,.... Which being thick, as the word signifies, and stiff and close, was fit for such a purpose as casting brass; of such clay, furnaces of earth used to be made to melt metals in; but here were large things to be cast, as the two pillars, the sea, the ten lavers, &c. moulds were made in the ground, and so the melted brass was poured into them, which gave it its different forms; this, no doubt, was done by Hiram, though said to be done by the king, because done by his orders: the place where it was done was a part of the plain of Jericho, which lay



between Succoth and Zarthan; Succoth was in the tribe of Gad, on the other side Jordan; Zarthan was near it on this side, in the tribe of Manasseh, the same that is called Zartanah, 1Ki 4:12 and Zaretan, Jos 3:16 and Zeredathah, 2Ch 4:17. The first casters of brass are said {h} to be Theodorus and Rhaecus, both Samians.



{h} Pausau. Arcadica, sive, l. 8. p. 479. & Boeotica, sive, l. 9. p. 607.





1 Kings 7:47



Ver. 47. And Solomon left all the vessels [unweighed], because they were exceeding many,.... The vessels of brass before mentioned, being so large, at least some of them, and so numerous; the Targum is, he laid them up, or placed them; he brought them from whence they were cast, and put them in the sanctuary without weighing them:



neither was the weight of the brass found out; or "searched" {i}; it never was inquired into; or, as the Targum, there was no end of it, it was so much.



{i} rqxn al "nec invesigari potuerit", Tigurine version: "non pervestigatum est", Junius, Tremellius, Piscator.





1 Kings 7:48



Ver. 48. And Solomon made all the vessels that pertained unto the house of the Lord,.... That is, he ordered them to be made, even all that were in the tabernacle of Moses; all were newly made, excepting the ark, mercy seat, and cherubim:



the altar of gold; the altar of incense, which was made of cedar, covered with gold, 1Ki 6:20, hence called the golden altar, Re 8:3



and the table of gold, whereupon the shewbread was; this includes all the tables, for there were ten of them, 2Ch 4:8 where they are said to be placed, five on the right hand, and five on the left; which, according to the Jews {k}, were not on the right and left of the temple, but on the right and left of the table of Moses, and which being placed on the north side, these must be also, Ex 40:22 there being more tables in the temple than in the tabernacle may denote the greater provision of spiritual food in the word and ordinances of the Gospel church, of which the temple was a figure, than under the legal dispensation.



{k} T. Bab. Meuachot, fol. 98. Kimchi in loc. Targum in 2 Chron. iv. 8.





1 Kings 7:49



Ver. 49. And the candlesticks of pure gold, five on the right side, and five on the left, before the oracle,.... These stood in the holy place, where the shewbread tables did, right before the holy of holies; there were ten of these as of them, which were placed, as the same Jewish writers say, not on the right and left of the temple, but on the right and left of Moses's candlestick, which stood on the south side, Ex 40:24, these may denote the greater degree of spiritual light in the church of Christ under the Gospel dispensation than under the law:



with the flowers; the figures of flowers, such as were wrought on the candlestick of Moses:



and the lamps; which were seven to each candlestick, and so must be in all seventy; which may put us in mind of the seventy disciples of Christ, some of the first lights of the Gospel church:



and the tongues of gold; which were used to take the wicks out of the oil, and put into the lamps.





1 Kings 7:50



Ver. 50. And the bowls,.... To keep the oil in:



and the snuffers; to trim the lamps with; though some interpret the word of musical instruments, as the Targum, of psalteries:



and the basins; which were to receive the blood of the sacrifices; and, Ben Gersom thinks, particularly the blood of those that were brought into the sanctuary, see Heb 13:11, there were an hundred of them, 2Ch 4:8



and the spoons; which held the incense:



and the censers of pure gold; with which the coals were carried from one altar to another, on which the incense was burnt; not only those but all the other vessels were of pure gold:



and the hinges of gold, [both] for the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and for the doors of the house, to wit,



of the temple; the holy of holies and the holy place, the hinges of the doors of each, on which they were hung, and turned, were of gold; so grand and magnificent was this edifice, and so liberal Solomon in the building of it.





1 Kings 7:51



Ver. 51. So was ended all the work that King Solomon made for the house of the Lord,.... Which he ordered to be made to be put into it, either for the ornament of it, or for the use and service of it; all was completely finished in the space of seven years:



and Solomon had brought in the things which David his father had dedicated; had laid up for, and devoted to the building of the temple, and for the service of it; not all, but what was left; what was over and above there was a need of; though the Jews commonly say, that he made use of none of his father's, but built it and furnished it at his own expense; for which reason he did not begin to build as soon as he came to the throne, they suppose, but waited four years, until he had laid up a sufficiency of his own to defray the expense of it; but it is certain he made use of the brass his father reserved for this work, see 1Ch 18:8 and which, perhaps it may be said, is the reason it is not mentioned here as laid up: even the silver, and the gold, and the vessels, did he put among the treasures of the house of the Lord; he did not convert them to his own use, but laid them up in the treasury of the sanctuary, for the purchase of sacrifices, the repair of the house in future times, &c.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

1 Kings 8:1



INTRODUCTION TO 1 KINGS 8



This chapter gives an account of the introduction of the ark into the temple, 1Ki 8:1 of the glory of the Lord filling it, 1Ki 8:10 of a speech Solomon made to the people concerning the building of the temple, and how he came to be engaged in it, 1Ki 8:12, of a prayer of his he put up on this occasion, requesting, that what supplications soever were made at any time, or on any account, by Israelites or strangers, might be accepted by the Lord, 1Ki 8:22, and of his blessing the people of Israel at the close of it, with some useful exhortations, 1Ki 8:54, and of the great number of sacrifices offered up by him, and the feast he made for the people, upon which he dismissed them, 1Ki 8:62.



Ver. 1. Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel,.... The judges in the several cities, or senators of the great sanhedrim, as others; though it is a question whether as yet there was such a court:



and all the heads of the tribes; the princes of the twelve tribes:



the chief of the fathers of the children of Israel; the principal men of the ancient families in every tribe:



unto King Solomon in Jerusalem; these he summoned together to himself there where the temple was built:



that they might bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion; whither David brought it, when he had taken that fort, so called, and dwelt in it; and from this mountain Solomon proposed to bring it up to the temple, on a higher mountain, Moriah, not far from one another.





1 Kings 8:2



Ver. 2. And all the men of Israel assembled themselves unto King Solomon at the feast,.... Not of tabernacles, as the Targum on 2Ch 5:3 and so Jarchi; though that was in the same month next mentioned, and began on the fifteenth of it, and held seven days; wherefore this must be the feast of the dedication of the temple, and which was kept before that; since both lasted fourteen days, and the people were dismissed on the twenty third of the month; now not only the above principal persons convened, but a vast number of the common people came to see the solemnity of removing the ark, and of dedicating the temple, and to attend the feast of it, and the more, since in a few days was the time for all the males in Israel to appear there:



in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month; it was, as the Targum says, originally the first month; but upon the children of Israel coming out of Egypt in Ab or Nisan, that became the first month, and this was the seventh from that; and is the same with Tisri, which answers to part of September, and part of October, here called Ethanim; which some render the month of the ancients, others of strong ones; either because of the many feasts that were in it, as some say; or because it was the time of ingathering all the increase and fruits of the earth, which strengthen and support man's life; or rather of "never failing", i.e. waters, showers falling in this month, and the rivers full of water {l}; so September is "septimus imber", according to Isidore {m}, and the three following months are alike derived; this, by the Egyptians, was called Theuth, and was with them the first month in the year {n}; so Porphyry says {o}, with the Egyptians the beginning of the year was not Aquarius, as with the Romans, but Cancer; and so the month of September was the first with the Ethiopians {p}, and with most people {q}; though with the Chinese about the middle of Aquarius {r}. Now, though the temple was finished in the eighth month, 1Ki 6:38, it was not dedicated until the seventh in the following year; it required time to finish the utensils and vessels, and put them in their proper place, and for the drying of the walls, &c.



{l} Vid. Hackman. Praecidan. Sacr. p. 130, 131. {m} Origin. l. 5. c. 33. {n} Lactant. de Fals. Felig. l. 1. c. 6. {o} De Antro Nymph. prope finem. {p} Ludolf. Lexic. Ethiopic. p. 65. & Hist. Ethiop. l. 3. c. 6. {q} Julian. Opera, par. 1. orat. 4. p. 290, 291. {r} Martin. Sinic. Hist. l. 1. p. 22.





1 Kings 8:3



Ver. 3. And all the elders of Israel came,.... To Zion, the city of David:



and the priests took up the ark; from thence; in 2Ch 5:4 it is said the Levites did it, whose business it was, De 31:25, and so the priests might be called; for every priest was a Levite, though every Levite was not a priest, and the priests did at all times bear the ark; see Jos 3:15.





1 Kings 8:4



Ver. 4. And they brought up the ark of the Lord,.... From the city of David to the temple:



and the tabernacle of the congregation; not the tent David made for the ark, though that might be brought also, but the tabernacle of Moses, which had been many years at Gibeon; but now removed to Zion, and from thence to the temple, where it was laid up, as having been a sacred thing; that it might not be put to common or superstitious uses, and to prevent the being of more places than one for worship:



and all the holy vessels that were in the tabernacle; as the candlestick, shewbread table, incense altar, &c.



even those did the priests and the Levites bring up; some brought one, and some another; the priests brought the ark, and the Levites the vessels.





1 Kings 8:5



Ver. 5. And King Solomon, and all the congregation of Israel, that were assembled together,.... On this solemn occasion:



were with him before the ark; while it was in the court of the priests, before it was carried into the most holy place:



sacrificing sheep and oxen, that could not be told nor numbered for multitude; the phrase seems to be hyperbolical, and designed to denote a great number.





1 Kings 8:6



Ver. 6. And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place,.... Destined for it, the like to which it had in the tabernacle:



into the oracle of the house, to the most holy place; that part of the house where the divine oracle was, the holy of holies; for though into it none but the high priest might enter, and he but once a year; yet in case of necessity, as for the repair of it, which the Jews {s} gather from hence, other priests might enter, as was the case now; an high priest could not carry in the ark himself, and therefore it was necessary to employ others; and besides, as yet the divine Majesty had not taken up his residence in it:



even under the wings of the cherubim; the large ones which Solomon had made, 1Ki 6:23 not those of Moses.



{s} Vid. Maimon. Hilchot Beth Habechirah, c. 7. sect. 23.





1 Kings 8:7



Ver. 7. For the cherubim spread forth [their] two wings over the place of the ark,.... The most holy place where the ark stood, even from wall to wall:



and the cherubim covered the ark, and the staves thereof above; so that neither could be seen.





1 Kings 8:8



Ver. 8. And they drew out the staves,.... Not made them larger, as Ben Gersom, than those in the tabernacle of Moses, this place being larger than that; nor did they draw them wholly out, and lay them up in the sanctuary, there being no further use for them, the ark having now a fixed place, and not to be removed; which would have been contrary to

Ex 25:15 but they drew them out some little way:



that the ends of the staves were seen out in the holy place before the oracle; not in that part of the temple commonly called the holy place, in distinction from the most holy, for that seems to be denied in the next clause; nor could they be seen there, since there was a wall and a vail between them; though some think they might be seen when the door was opened, and the vail turned aside; and these also pushing against the vail, might be seen prominent, like the breasts of a woman under a covering, as the Jews express it; but the sense is, that the ends of these were seen out of the ark from under the wings of the cherubim, being a little drawn, in that part of the most holy place which is before the oracle or mercy seat:



and they were not seen without; neither quite out of the ark, nor without the most holy place, nor in the holy place; but were only seen by the high priest when he went in on the day of atonement, and served as a direction to him to go between them before the ark, and there perform his work {t}; which, through the darkness of the place, and the ark being covered with the wings of the cherubim, he could not otherwise discern the exact place where it stood:



and there they are unto this day: when the writer of this book lived, even in the same situation.



{t} Vid. Misn. Yoma, c. 5. sect. 1.





1 Kings 8:9



Ver. 9. There was nothing in the ark, save the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb,.... That is, there were no other writings; or, as Ben Gersom says, no other part of the law, but the decalogue otherwise he observes there were in it Aaron's rod and the pot of manna, according to Heb 9:4 though the particle there may be rendered "at", or "with", or "by", See Gill on "Heb 9:4" and so they might be not within it, but in some place on the sides of it, see

De 31:26,



when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt; about two months after.





1 Kings 8:10



Ver. 10. And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place,.... The most holy place, having set up the ark of the Lord there, who were all sanctified that were there, and did not wait by course as at other times, see 2Ch 5:11, where in 2Ch 5:12 it is said, that at this time, the Levites, who were singers of the families of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, arrayed in fine linen, with their musical instruments in their hands, stood at the east end of the altar of burnt offering, and one hundred and twenty priests, blowing their trumpets, praised the Lord together with one sound, declaring his goodness and his mercy, which endure for ever: and then it was



that the cloud filled the house of the Lord; the whole temple, both the holy of holies and the holy place, and the court of the priests; so that it was visible to all, and was a token of the divine presence of God, of his taking possession of his house, and of his taking up his residence in it.





1 Kings 8:11



Ver. 11. So that the priests could not stand to minister, because of the cloud,.... Either through the darkness it first caused, or through the light that broke out of it, which was dazzling to them, or through the terror it struck their minds with; they could neither minister in the holy place, by offering incense there; and as for the most holy place, none but the high priest could minister there, and that on one day only; nor in the court of the priests, at the altar of burnt offerings:



for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord; a bright and glorious stream came forth from the cloud, and spread itself all over the house, and then took up its abode in the most holy place as in the tabernacle, Ex 40:34.





1 Kings 8:12



Ver. 12. And then spake Solomon,.... Perceiving by this symbol that the Lord was come into his house, to take up his dwelling in it, and seeing the priests and people in consternation at it, spake the following words to their comfort:



the Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness; and now was fulfilling his promise, and therefore to be considered not as a token of his displeasure, but of his gracious presence; this was done for the greater awe of the divine Majesty, and to denote the darkness of the former dispensation; reference may be had to Le 16:2 or rather this was now said by the Lord, that is, it appeared to be his resolution and determination to dwell in this manner; the Targum is,



"the Lord is pleased to cause his Shechinah or divine Majesty to dwell in Jerusalem,''



in the temple there. This was imitated by the Heathens; hence the Lacedemonians had a temple dedicated to Jupiter Scotitas, or the dark, as Pausanias {u} relates; and the Indian Pagans to this day affect darkness in their temples, and are very careful that no light enter into them but by the door, which is commonly strait and low, and by little crevices in the windows {w}.



{u} Laconica, sive, I. 3. p. 178. {w} Agreement of Customs between the East-Indians and Jews, art. 5. p. 35.





1 Kings 8:13



Ver. 13. I have surely built thee an house to dwell in,.... Turning himself from the priests and people, he quieted with a few words, he addressed the Lord; having built an house for him, for his worship and glory, with this view, that he might dwell in it, he was now, by the above token, fully assured it would be an habitation for him:



a settled place for thee to abide in for ever; which is observed in distinction from the tabernacle of Moses, which was often removed from place to place, otherwise this did not continue for ever; though Solomon might hope it would, at least unto the times of the Messiah; and indeed such a building on this spot, for such use, did continue so long, excepting the interval of the seventy years' captivity in Babylon.





1 Kings 8:14



Ver. 14. And the king turned his face about,.... He was before the altar, 1Ki 8:22, with his face to that first, and looking towards the holy and the most holy place, filled with the cloud and glory; and now he turned himself and stood with the altar behind him, and looking to the court of the people:



and blessed all the congregation of Israel; either blessed the Lord before them, or prayed for blessings for them, or congratulated them upon the Lord's taking up his residence in the temple, which was so great an honour and favour to them:



and all the congregation of Israel stood: ready to receive the king's blessing, and in honour of him, and reverence to the divine Being. The Jews say, none might sit in the court but the kings of the house of David.





1 Kings 8:15



Ver. 15. And he said, blessed be the Lord God of Israel,.... All praise and glory, honour and blessing, be ascribed to the Lord; who had afresh shown himself to be Israel's covenant God, by taking up his residence among them in the temple he had filled with his glory:



which spake with his mouth to David my father, and hath with his hand fulfilled it; who graciously promised him he should have a son that should build an house for him, and which he had by his power and providence faithfully performed; or rather which spake concerning David, so Noldius {x}; for God did not speak with his mouth to David, but to Nathan, of him: saying; as follows.



{x} Ebr. Concord. Part. p. 117. No. 596. So Sept.





1 Kings 8:16



Ver. 16. Since the day that I brought forth my people Israel out of Egypt,.... Which was now about four hundred and eighty eight years ago; see 1Ki 6:1.



I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel to build an house, that my name might be therein; he had chosen one in his mind from all eternity; but he had not made known this choice, nor the place he had chosen; he gave hints by Moses, that there was a place which he should choose, or declare he had chosen to put his name in, but did not express it, De 12:5 but now it was a clear case that he had chosen Jerusalem, and that was the city he always had in view, see 2Ch 6:6,



but I chose David to be over my people Israel; to be their king, and to him he gave the first hint of the place where the temple was to be built, 1Ch 22:1, and he chose no man, and his family with him, before him, to rule over Israel, and be concerned in such a work, see 2Ch 6:5.





1 Kings 8:17



Ver. 17. And it was in the heart of David my father,.... His mind was disposed to it, his heart was set upon it, he had taken up a resolution:



to build an house for the name of the Lord God of Israel; for his worship and service, for his honour and glory, 2Sa 7:3.





1 Kings 8:18



Ver. 18. And the Lord said unto David my father,.... By Nathan the prophet:



whereas it was in thine heart to build an house unto my name, thou didst well that it was in thine heart; his design was good, and so far it was acceptable to the Lord, that he thought of such a thing, though it was not his pleasure that should do it, as follows.





1 Kings 8:19



Ver. 19. Nevertheless, thou shall not build the house,.... Which is implied in the question in 2Sa 7:5



but thy son that shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build the house unto my name; which is expressed in 2Sa 7:12.





1 Kings 8:20



Ver. 20. And the Lord hath performed his word that he spake,.... To David, concerning his son's building the temple:



and I am risen up in the room of David my father, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised; succeeded him in the kingdom:



and have built an house for the name of the Lord God of Israel; the temple he had now finished; and thus the promise to David was punctually fulfilled, that he should have a son that should succeed him in the throne, and build the house of the Lord.





1 Kings 8:21



Ver. 21. And I have set there a place for the ark,.... The most holy place:



wherein is the covenant of the Lord; the two tables of stone, on which were the covenant of the Lord, as the Targum:



which he made with our fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt; as in 1Ki 8:9.





1 Kings 8:22



Ver. 22. And Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord,.... The altar of the burnt offering in the court of the priests, where he prayed the following prayer; and which altar was typical of Christ, who is always to be in sight in prayer, and through whom all sacrifices of prayer and praise become acceptable to God. In 2Ch 6:13 he is said to stand upon a scaffold of brass, five cubits long, five broad, and three high, which stood in the midst of the court; it was a sort of a pulpit, round, as a laver, for which the word is sometimes used, and on which he kneeled:



in the presence of all the congregation of Israel; who stood in the great court before him, called the court of Israel:



and spread forth his hands toward heaven; and hence it appears, that though Solomon stood before the altar, he did not lay hold on it with his hands, as the Heathens did when they prayed; for they say {y}, that prayer alone does not appease the Deity, unless he that prays also lays hold on the altar with his hands; hence altars, at first, as we are told {z}, were called "ansae"; and lifting up or spreading the hands towards heaven was a proper gesture with the Greeks and Romans {a}.



{y} Macrob. Saturnal. l. 3. c. 2. Vid. Sperling. de Baptism. Ethiac, c. 6. p. 103. {z} Varro Rer. Divin. l. 5. apud ib. {a} Homer. Iliad. 3. ver. 275. & 6. ver. 301. Vid. Barth. Animadv. ad Claudian. in Rufin. l. 2. ver. 205.





1 Kings 8:23



Ver. 23. And he said, Lord God of Israel,.... Their covenant God and Father, whereby he was distinguished from all the gods of the Gentiles:



there is no god like thee; in heaven above or on earth beneath; none among the angels in heaven, nor among kings and civil magistrates on earth, who both are sometimes called "Elohim" gods; but only in a figurative sense, and not to be compared with the one only true God, for the perfection of his nature, or the works of his hands:



who keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants that walk before thee with all their heart; performs his promises, by which he both declares his mercy or goodness and his faithfulness to such who walk before him, in his ways, and according to his word, in the sincerity and uprightness of their hearts.





1 Kings 8:24



Ver. 24. Who hast kept with thy servant David my father that thou promisedst him..... Concerning a son, his successor, and the builder of the temple:



thou, spakest also with thy mouth, and hast fulfilled it with thine hand, as it is this day; the temple being now finished by him, see 1Ki 8:15.





1 Kings 8:25



Ver. 25. Therefore now, Lord God of Israel, keep with thy servant David my father that thou promisedst him,.... That as he had fulfilled one part of his promise respecting himself, his immediate successor, so that he would fulfil the other respecting his more remote offspring:



saying, there shall not fail thee a man in my sight, to sit on the throne of Israel; one of David's posterity to inherit his throne and kingdom, but with this proviso:



so that thy children takes heed to their way; in what way they walk, and how they walk in it:



that they walk before me as thou hast walked before me; meaning as David walked, see Ps 132:11.





1 Kings 8:26



Ver. 26. And now, O God of Israel, let thy word, I pray thee, be verified,.... Truly made good, and punctually performed:



which thou spakest unto thy servant David my father; the same request in other words, repeated to show his ardent and vehement desire to have it fulfilled.





1 Kings 8:27



Ver. 27. But will God indeed dwell on the earth?.... Is it true? Can any credit be given to it? Who could ever have thought it, that so great and glorious a Being, who inhabits eternity, dwells in the highest heavens, should ever condescend to dwell on earth? Such was the amazing condescension of Christ, the Son of God, to tabernacle in human nature with men on earth, to which Solomon perhaps might have respect; his temple being the figure of his body, in which the Godhead dwells, Joh 2:19



behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee; not, only the visible heavens, but the third heaven, where the throne of God is, and is the habitation of angels and saints; though there God makes the most glorious displays of himself yet he is so immense and infinite, that he is not to be comprehended and circumscribed in any place whatever:



how much less this house that I have builded? Though temples built for idols contain them, and are large enough, yet Solomon had no notion, when he built his temple, though it was for the name of God, that he was restrained to it, but dwelt everywhere, filling heaven and earth with his presence.





1 Kings 8:28



Ver. 28. Yet have thou respect to the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God,.... Meaning himself, who, though a king acknowledged himself, and esteemed it an honour to be the servant of the Lord, and who was also an humble suppliant of his, and desired his prayers and supplications might be attended to:



to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee this day; the particulars of which follow.





1 Kings 8:29



Ver. 29. That thine eyes may be open towards this house night and day,.... That is, to the people that pray in it, as they are to his righteous ones, Ps 33:14 even towards the place of which thou hast my name shall be there; there should be some displays of his presence, power, and providence, of goodness, grace, and mercy:



that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make towards this place; not only to what he should make in it, but to what he should make in his own house, with his face directed towards this, as would be, and was the practice of good people in later times, yea, even when the temple lay in ruins; see Da 6:10 figuring the respect gracious souls have to Christ by faith in their prayers, in whom the Godhead dwells bodily, see Jon 2:4 and it is observable, according to a Jewish canon {b}, one at a distance, in another land, was not only to turn his face to the land of Israel, but direct his heart to Jerusalem, and the temple, and the holy of holies; and if in the land, to Jerusalem, &c. and if in Jerusalem, not only to the temple, and holy of holies, but if behind the mercy seat, he was to turn his face to it; which was a symbol of Christ, the propitiatory and throne of grace, to be looked unto by faith, Ro 3:25.



{b} Schulchan Aruch, par. 1. c. 94. sect. 1.





1 Kings 8:30



Ver. 30. And hearken thou to the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, when they shall pray towards this place,.... Not only he desires his prayers might be heard, but those of the people of Israel, then, and at all times in succeeding ages, whenever they should look towards the temple, and to him that was typified by it; to whose blood, righteousness, sacrifice and mediation, the acceptance of prayers with God is to be ascribed:



and hear thou in heaven thy dwellingplace; for though he condescended to take up his residence in the temple, yet his more proper and more glorious dwelling was in heaven, and from whence, notwithstanding the distance of it, he could hear the prayers of his people, and does:



and when thou hearest, forgive; manifest and apply pardoning grace and mercy on account of sins confessed, and repented of; or remove calamities and distresses on account of sin, which sometimes is meant, and frequently in this prayer, by the forgiveness of sin.





1 Kings 8:31



Ver. 31. If any man trespass against his neighbour,.... By being unfaithful in a trust committed to him, or the like:



and an oath be laid upon him to cause him to swear; he denying that ever anything was committed to his trust, and there being no witnesses of it, the judge obliges him to take an oath he never had any:



and the oath come before thine altar in this house; where it was taken, as in the presence of God, and as appealing to him: hence in corrupt times they came to swear by the altar, Mt 23:20 and so the Heathens used to take their oaths in the temples of their gods, and at their altars, as the instances of Callicrates {c} and Hannibal {d} show, and others Grotius refers to; yea, they also laid hold on the altar, at least touched it when they swore {e} to give the greater sanction to the oath.



{c} Cornel. Nep. Vit. Dion. l. 10. c. 8. {d} Ib. Hannibal. l. 23. c. 2. {e} Vid. Lydii Dissert de Jurament. c. 4. sect. 7.





1 Kings 8:32



Ver. 32. Then hear thou in heaven,.... When the injured person makes supplication to have justice done him:



and do, and judge thy servants; contending with one another, the one affirming, the other denying



condemning the wicked, by bringing his way upon his head: inflicting upon him the punishment imprecated by him in his oath:



and justifying the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness; by making it appear that his cause is just.





1 Kings 8:33



Ver. 33. When thy people Israel shall be smitten down before the enemy,.... Beaten and routed, many slain, and others carried captive; which had been their case, and might be again, and was, though now a time of peace:



because they have sinned against thee; which always was the reason of their being given up into the hands of their enemies:



and shall turn again to thee; to thy worship, as the Targum, having fallen into idolatry, which was generally the case when they fell before their enemies:



and confess thy name; own him to be the true God, acknowledge his justice in their punishment, confess their sin, repent of it, and give him glory:



and pray and make supplication unto thee in this house; not the captives, unless it should be rendered, as it may, "toward this house" {f}; but those that escaped, or their brethren that went not out to battle, who should pray for them here.



{f} So Pool and Patrick.





1 Kings 8:34



Ver. 34. Then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy people Israel,.... It being not personal, but public sins, which would be the cause of such a calamity:



and bring them again unto the land which thou gavest unto their fathers; as had been often their case in the time of the judges.





1 Kings 8:35



Ver. 35. When heaven is shut up,.... As it may be said to be when the air is quite serene, and not a cloud in it:



and there is no rain; in its season, neither the former nor the latter, as it was in the times of Elijah:



because they have sinned against thee; want of rain was threatened in case of sin, and was always the effect of it, Le 26:19,



if they pray towards this place; in any part of the country where they were; for it sometimes rained on one city, and not on another, Am 4:7



and confess thy name; own his power and his providence, and the justness of his dealings with them:



and turn from their sin, when thou afflictest them; their affliction being made useful, to bring them to a sense of their sin, and to repentance for it, and reformation from it; or, "when thou hearest" or "answerest them" {g}; so the Targum, receives their prayer; thus the goodness of God leads to repentance.



{g} Mnet yk "cum exaudieris eos", Vatablus.





1 Kings 8:36



Ver. 36. Then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy servants, and of thy people Israel,.... By removing the judgment of drought upon them:



that thou teach them the good way wherein they should walk; the way of worship and duty prescribed by the Lord which was good in itself, and good for them, good things being enjoyed by them that walk therein; and this the Lord sometimes teaches by afflictions, as well as by his word; but whenever he does it, it is by his Spirit, and then afflictions are blessings, Ps 104:19 where the same phrase is differently rendered:



and give rain upon the land which thou hast given to thy people for an inheritance; as he did at the prayer of Elijah, Jas 5:18.





1 Kings 8:37



Ver. 37 If there be in the land famine,.... Through want of rain, or any other cause, as there had been a three years' famine in the time of David, and it is supposed it might be again, though Canaan was a land flowing with milk and honey:



if there be pestilence; as there had been, for David's numbering the people:



blasting; or blights, occasioned by the east wind:



mildew; a kind of clammy dew, which falling on plants, corn, &c. corrupts and destroys them, see Am 4:9,



locust, or



if there be caterpillar; creatures very pernicious to the fruits of the earth, and cause a scarcity of them, see Joe 1:4,



if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; so that they cannot go out to gather the increase of the earth, or till their land:



whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be; whatever stroke from the hand of God, or what judgment or calamity soever befalls.





1 Kings 8:38



Ver. 38. What prayer and supplication soever,.... On account of any of the above things, or any other:



be [made] by any man, or by all the people Israel; by a private man, for such an one might go to the temple and pray by himself; see

Lu 18:10 or by the public congregation:



which shall know every man the plague of his own heart; be sensible of his sin as the cause of his distress, and own it, though ever so privately committed, which none knows but God and his own heart; and which may be only an heart sin, not actually committed; as all sin is originally in the heart, and springs from it, that is the source of all wickedness; it may respect the corruption of nature, indwelling sin, which truly deserves this name, and which every good man is led to observe, confess, and bewail, Ps 51:4. In 2Ch 6:29 it is,



shall know his own sore and his own grief; what particularly affects him, and gives him pain and sorrow, as every man best knows his own affliction and trouble, and so can best represent his own case to the Lord:



and spread forth his hands towards this house; pray with his face towards it, and his hands spread out, a prayer gesture, and what was now used by Solomon, 1Ki 8:22.





1 Kings 8:39



Ver. 39. Then hear thou in heaven thy dwellingplace,.... Which was more properly so than this Solomon had built, and the Lord had taken possession of:



and forgive; remove the calamity and distress, be it what it may:



and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest: that his prayer is cordial and sincere, his confession and repentance genuine, and that he is truly sensible of his sin, and sorry for it, and is pure in his intentions and resolutions, through divine grace, to depart from it for the future:



(for thou, [even] thou only knowest the hearts of all the children of men;) he knows all men, the hearts of them all, what is in them, what comes out of them, and is according to them; omniscience belongs only to God; it is his prerogative to know the heart and search the reins, see Jer 17:9.





1 Kings 8:40



Ver. 40. That they may fear thee,.... For his goodness sake in hearing their prayer, removing their affliction, and bestowing his blessings on them, particularly in forgiving their sins, see Ps 130:4



all the days that they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers; not only for the present, while the mercy is fresh, but all the days of their lives; to which they were the more obliged by the good land they possessed as a divine gift, and which they held by the tenure of their obedience, Isa 1:19.





1 Kings 8:41



Ver. 41. Moreover, concerning a stranger that is not of thy people Israel,.... One of another country, not belonging to any of the tribes of Israel, yet having some knowledge of, and disposition to, the true worship of God:



but cometh out of a far country for thy name's sake; as the Ethiopian eunuch did, to pray to him, worship him, and offer such sacrifices as were allowed a Gentile to do, Le 22:18 led thereunto by the fame of him, as follows.





1 Kings 8:42



Ver. 42. (For they shall hear of thy great name,.... Of his great name, Jehovah; of him as the eternal, immutable, and self-existent Being; of the perfections of his nature, as displayed in his mighty works:



and of thy strong hand, and of thy stretched out arm); which had done formerly such mighty works in Egypt, at the Red sea, in the wilderness, in the land of Canaan, in the times of David, and still under the reign of Solomon, and even in future ages, besides the works of creation and providence in general:



when he shall come and pray towards this house; not being admitted into it, only into a court, which in later times was called the court of the Gentiles, see Ac 21:19.





1 Kings 8:43



Ver. 43. Hear thou in heaven thy dwellingplace,.... The prayer of the stranger:



and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for; which were consistent with the will of God and his glory, and for the good of the stranger; this is more absolutely and unconditionally expressed than the requests for the Israelites; it is not desired that he would do by them according to their ways, and if they turned from their sins, or knew the plague of their hearts; the reason of which is supposed to be, because the Israelites knew the will of God, when the strangers did not; and therefore it is desired that, notwithstanding their ignorance, and their non-compliance with the divine will, through that, they might be heard and answered:



that all people of the earth may know thy name, to fear thee, as do thy people Israel; might know him to be a God, hearing and answering prayer, forgiving sin, and bestowing favours, which might lead them to fear him and his goodness, as Israel did:



and that they may know that this house, which I have builded, is called by thy name; that he dwelt in it, granted his presence, heard and received the supplications of men, answered their requests, and accepted of their sacrifices here. Solomon seems to have had knowledge of the calling of the Gentiles, and to desire it.





1 Kings 8:44



Ver. 44. If thy people go out to battle against their enemy,.... In a foreign country, threatening to invade them, or having trespassed on their borders, or some way or other infringed on their liberties and privileges, and so given them just occasion to go to war with them:



whithersoever thou shalt send them; this case supposes their asking counsel of God, or having a direction and commission from him by a prophet, or some other way, to engage in war with the enemy:



and shall pray unto the Lord toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house I have built for thy name: for, notwithstanding the justness of their cause, and having a warrant from God to go to war, yet they were to pray to him for success when at a distance, even in a foreign land, and about to engage the enemy; and this they were to do, turning their faces towards the city of Jerusalem, and the temple there; declaring thereby that their dependence was upon the Lord that dwelt there, and their expectation of victory was only from him.





1 Kings 8:45



Ver. 45. Then hear thou in heaven their prayer and their supplication,.... For success:



and maintain their cause; do them justice, and avenge their injuries, as the Targum; let it appear that their cause is right, by giving them victory.





1 Kings 8:46



Ver. 46. If they sin against thee,.... The same persons when they were gone forth to battle, not observing the divine commands as they should:



for there is no man that sinneth not; such are the depravity of human nature, the treachery of the heart, and the temptations of Satan, of which Solomon had early notice, and was afterwards still more confirmed in the truth of, Ec 7:20



and thou be angry with them; for their sins, and resent their conduct:



so as to deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive unto the land of the enemy, far or near; as into Assyria or Babylon, whither they were carried.





1 Kings 8:47



Ver. 47. Yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives,.... Or, "return to their heart" {a}; remember their sins, the cause of their captivity, and reflect upon them:



and repent of them, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captives; though and while they are in such a state:



saying, we have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness; which phrases include all their sins, with all the aggravated circumstances of them, and their sense of them, and contrition for them.



{a} Nbl la wbyvhw "et reversi fuerint ad cor suum", Pagninas, Montanus, Vatablus.





1 Kings 8:48



Ver. 48. And so return unto thee, with all their heart, and with all their soul,.... In the most sincere and cordial manner, with great ingenuity and uprightness; the Targum is,



"return unto thy worship;''



relinquishing false worship they had given into, and serve the Lord in the best manner they could:



in the land of their enemies, which led them away captive; and so at a distance from that temple, and the service of it, which





1 Kings 8:49



Ver. 49. Then hear thou their prayers, and their supplication, in heaven thy dwellingplace,.... For their deliverance out of captivity: and maintain their cause; plead it, and do them justice, avenge their injuries, and deliver them.





1 Kings 8:50



Ver. 50. And forgive thy people that have sinned against thee, and all their transgressions wherein they have transgressed against thee,.... By returning them to their own land; by which it would appear that the Lord had forgiven their trespasses, as well as by what follows:



and give them compassion before them who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them; for it is in the power of God to work upon the affections of men, and dispose their minds to use his people well, and to pity them under their distresses, as the Chaldeans did the Jews in Babylon, Ps 106:46.





1 Kings 8:51



Ver. 51. For they be thy people, and thine inheritance,.... Whom the Lord had chosen above all people, to be a special people to him, and to be his portion and possession; see De 7:6



which thou broughtest forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron; hard and cruel bondage in Egypt: See Gill on "De 4:20".





1 Kings 8:52



Ver. 52. That thine eyes may be open to the supplication of thy servant,.... That is, attentive to it, meaning himself and his present supplication; or any other he should hereafter put up in this place:



and unto the supplication of thy people Israel, to hearken unto them in all that they call unto thee: at any time, and upon any account; so far as may be agreeable to his will, make for his glory, and their good; see De 4:7.





1 Kings 8:53



Ver. 53. For thou didst separate them from among all people of the earth to be thine inheritance,.... By his choice of them in his own mind, by the redemption of them out of Egypt, by the peculiar laws he gave them, and by the special blessings he conferred upon them:



as thou spakest by the hand of Moses thy servant, when thou broughtest our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord our God; it was he that spake this to Moses, and by him to the people, Ex 19:5 and it was he that did it, namely, separate them from all nations, to be his people and peculiar treasure: in this and the two preceding verses Solomon makes use of arguments taken from what the people of Israel were to the Lord, and he had done for them, to engage him to hearken to their supplications, and here ends his long prayer; in 2Ch 6:1 some things are added at the close of it, and some omitted.





1 Kings 8:54



Ver. 54. And it was so, that, when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication unto the Lord,.... In which he was a type of Christ, praying and interceding for his people before the golden attar, Re 8:3,



he arose from before the altar of the Lord; the altar of burnt offering, over against which he was:



from kneeling on his knees; upon the brasen scaffold; see 2Ch 6:13, in which posture he was during this long prayer:



with his hands spread up to heaven; which gesture he had used in his prayer, and now continued in blessing the people.





1 Kings 8:55



Ver. 55. And he stood and blessed all the congregation of Israel with a loud voice,.... Turning himself the altar, and his face to the people, giving them his benediction, not only as the father of his people, but as preacher in Jerusalem, closing it with a word of exhortation to them:



saying: as follows.





1 Kings 8:56



Ver. 56. Blessed be the Lord, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according, to all that he promised.... A land of rest, and rest in the land from all enemies; see De 12:9,



there hath not failed one word of all his good promises, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant: so Joshua observed a little before his death, Jos 23:14 to which Solomon seems to have respect; and who lived to see a greater accomplishment of the gracious promises of God, and his faithfulness therein, both in the times of his father David, and his own.





1 Kings 8:57



Ver. 57. The Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers,.... Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and those that came out of Egypt, and especially that entered into the land of Canaan under Joshua, and subdued it; as the Lord had been with them to guide and direct them, protect and defend them, succeed and prosper them, so Solomon desires he might be with them: nothing is more desirable than the presence of God; Solomon could not have prayed for a greater blessing for himself and his people; the Targum is,



"let the Word of the Lord our God be for our help, as he was for the help of our fathers:''



let him not leave us, nor forsake us: this was no doubt a prayer of faith, founded upon a divine promise, Jos 1:5.





1 Kings 8:58



Ver. 58. That he may incline our hearts unto him,.... By his Spirit, to love, fear, and serve him; to attend to his worship, word, and ordinances:



to walk in all his ways; he has prescribed and directed to:



and to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and his judgments, which he commanded our fathers; all his laws, moral, ceremonial, and judicial.





1 Kings 8:59



Ver. 59. And let these my words, wherewith I have made supplication before the Lord,.... At this time:



be nigh unto the Lord our God day and night; be continually remembered and regarded by him, that so gracious answers might always be returned to those who supplicated in this place:



that he maintain the cause of his servant; of himself and his successors in the throne, that they may continue to possess it in peace, to the glory of God, and the good of the people:



and the cause of his people Israel at all times: that their rights and privileges might be continued, and they supported in them; and both his cause and theirs be regarded:



as the matter shall require; as they should stand in need of assistance, direction, and protection.





1 Kings 8:60



Ver. 60. That all the people of the earth may know that the Lord is God,.... By chastising the people of Israel when they sinned; by bearing and answering their prayers when they prayed unto him; by forgiving their sins, and delivering them out of their troubles; by maintaining their cause, and protecting them in the enjoyment of their blessings: and that there is "none else"; no God besides him; all being else fictitious deities, or nominal ones; he only is the one living and true God.





1 Kings 8:61



Ver. 61. Let your heart therefore be perfect with the Lord your God,.... Sincere in their love to him, united in their worship of him, and constant in their obedience to him:



to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day: as they did that day, neither king nor people having as yet fallen into idolatry, but showing by their then present appearance a zeal for God, his house, and worship.





1 Kings 8:62



Ver. 62. And the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifice before the Lord. For burnt offerings, which having been laid upon the altar, as soon as the king had done praying to God, and blessing the people, and exhorting them, fire came down from heaven, and consumed them; which showed the Lord's acceptance of the sacrifices, and was another confirmation, besides the cloud, of the Lord's well pleasedness with the temple, and of his taking possession of it to reside in it; upon which the people bowed and worshipped, and praised the Lord for his goodness and mercy, 2Ch 7:1.





1 Kings 8:63



Ver. 63. And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered unto the Lord,.... Part of which belonged to the offerer, and with those Solomon feasted the people all the days of the feast of the dedication, if not of tabernacles also; for the number was exceeding large, as follows:



22,000 oxen, and 120,000 sheep; which, as suggested, might be the number for all the fourteen days; nor need it seem incredible, since, as Josephus {b} says, at a passover celebrated in the times of Cestius the Roman governor, at the evening of the passover, in two hours time 256,500 lambs were slain; however, this was a very munificent sacrifice of Solomon's, in which he greatly exceeded the Heathens, whose highest number of sacrifices were hecatombs, or by hundreds, but his by thousands:



so the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord; devoted it to divine and religious worship by these sacrifices: hence in imitation of this sprung the dedication of temples with the Heathens; the first of which among the Romans was that in the capitol at Rome {c} by Romulus; the rites and ceremonies used therein by them may be read in Cicero, Livy, Tacitus, and others {d}.



{b} De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 9. sect. 3. {c} Vid. Liv. Hist. Decad. 1. l. 1. p. s. & l. 2. p. 33. {d} Vid. Hospinian. de Templis, l. 4. c. 2. p. 451. & Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 6. c. 14.





1 Kings 8:64



Ver. 64. The same day did the king hallow the middle of the court that was before the house of the Lord,.... The court of the priests that was before the holy place, adjoining to it, in which was the altar of burnt offering; this, or, however, the middle part of it, he sanctified for present use, to offer sacrifices on, for a reason hereafter given:



for there he offered burnt offerings and meat offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings; which was the reason why the middle of the great court was for this time set apart for this service.





1 Kings 8:65



Ver. 65. And at that time Solomon held a feast, and all Israel with him,.... Partaking of the parts of the peace offerings which belonged to him, and were offered by way of thanksgiving on the occasion, together with whatsoever he might as a liberal prince provide for this entertainment:



for it was for a great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt; consisting of a number of people, gathered together from Hamath, which was on the northern border of the land of Israel, to the river of Egypt; either the Nile, or Rhinoculura, a branch of it, which lay on the southern border of the land: and this was kept



before the Lord; as in his presence, with thankfulness to him, and with a view to his glory:



seven days and seven days, even fourteen days; seven days for the dedication of the house, and seven days for the feast of tabernacles, as the Targum; which agrees with 2Ch 7:9, the feast of dedication was first, and began perhaps on the seventh day of the month, as the feast of tabernacles did on the fifteenth: within this time, namely, on the tenth, was a fast day, the day of atonement; which was either observed between the two feasts, or was omitted, which is not likely; or they did not eat and drink until the evening of that day. The Septuagint version, according to the Vatican copy, reads "seven days" only once; see 2Ch 7:8.





1 Kings 8:66



Ver. 66. On the eighth day he sent the people away,.... That is, of the feast of tabernacles, the eighth from the first of that, which was a solemn day, and fell on the twenty second of the month; at the close of which the dismission was made, or they had leave to go, but they did not until the twenty third, according to 2Ch 7:10



and they blessed the king; returned him thanks for his care, and charge, and pains, in building the temple; for prayers for them, and the feast he had now made, and wished all health and happiness to him:



and went unto their tents joyful and glad of heart; or to their cities, as the Targum, to their several habitations; being greatly delighted with what they had seen and heard, and partook of especially:



for all the goodness the Lord had done for David his servant, and for Israel his people; in 2Ch 7:10, it is added, "unto Solomon"; for David, in giving him such a son and successor, who according to promise had built the house of the Lord; and for Solomon, in raising him up to such dignity, and enabling him to build such a temple for the worship of God and his glory; and for the people of Israel, in giving them such a king to rule over them, under whom they enjoyed so much peace and prosperity, and the full and free exercise of the true religion, with such accommodations, and in such a splendid manner as now.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

1 Kings 9:1



INTRODUCTION TO 1 KINGS 9



This chapter relates a second vision Solomon had at Gibeon, in which he received an answer to his prayer in the preceding chapter, 1Ki 9:1 that passed between him and Hiram king of Tyre, 1Ki 9:10, the places that Solomon built or repaired, 1Ki 9:15, the Canaanitish people that became bondmen to him, and the officers he had among the children of Israel, 1Ki 9:20 the removal of Pharaoh's daughter to the house built for her, 1Ki 9:24. Solomon's attention to religious services, 1Ki 9:25 and the navy of ships he employed, which brought him in great riches, 1Ki 9:26.



Ver. 1. And it came to pass, when Solomon had finished the building of the house of the Lord,.... Which was done in seven years, 1Ki 6:38.



and the king's house; his own palace, which was finished in thirteen years, 1Ki 7:1,



and all Solomon's desire which he was pleased to do; all his other buildings, the house for Pharaoh's daughter, the house of the forest of Lebanon, and may include his vineyards, gardens, orchards, and pools of water, made for his pleasure, Ec 2:4 in which he succeeded and prospered, 2Ch 7:11.





1 Kings 9:2



Ver. 2. That the Lord appeared to Solomon the second time,.... Junius and Tremellius read this verse with the following, to the end of the ninth, in a parenthesis, and render this clause, "for the Lord had appeared", &c. and Piscator translates it, "moreover the Lord appeared", &c. as beginning a distinct narrative from the former; and indeed if the words are to be connected with the preceding, as in our version, this appearance must be thirteen years after the building of the temple, which is not probable; but rather it was the night after the dedication of it, when an answer was returned to Solomon's prayer in the preceding chapter; for that it should be deferred twelve or thirteen years is not reasonable to suppose; and this appearance was the second of the kind and manner:



as he had appeared unto him at Gibeon; in a dream and a vision, and by night, 1Ki 3:5, see 2Ch 7:12.





1 Kings 9:3



Ver. 3. And the Lord said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication that thou hast made before me,.... With delight and pleasure, and had accepted it; meaning the prayer recorded in the preceding chapter:



I have hallowed this house which thou hast built; by the cloud of glory filling it, and by fire descending from heaven, and consuming the sacrifices offered in it, 2Ch 7:1



to put my name there for ever; there to grant his presence, so long as his pure worship should be continued in it; so the Targum adds,



"and my Shechinah or divine Majesty shall abide in it, if my will is done there continually:''



and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually; his eyes of Providence should be upon it, to watch over it, and protect it, and his worshippers in it; and he should have a cordial regard to the sacrifices there offered, and to the persons of the offerers, so long as they offered them in a right way, and to right ends and purposes.





1 Kings 9:4



Ver. 4. And if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness..... Who, though guilty of many sins and failings in life, yet was sincere and upright in the worship of God, never apostatized from it, or fell into idolatry, which is what is chiefly respected:



to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments; observe all the laws of God, moral, ceremonial, and judicial.





1 Kings 9:5



Ver. 5. Then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever,.... In a succession in his posterity, until the coming of the Messiah:



as I promised unto David thy father, saying, there shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel; not fail one of his posterity to sit upon it; see 2Sa 7:12.





1 Kings 9:6



Ver. 6. But if you shall at all turn from following me, you or your children,.... From my worship, as the Targum; either Solomon or his successors, or the people of Israel and their posterity; should they turn their backs on God and his worship, meaning not in a single instance, or in some small degree; but as in the original, "if in turning ye turn" {e}, that is, utterly, and entirely, or wholly turn from him and his worship to other gods, as follows:



and will not keep my commandments and my statutes, which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods, and worship them: neglecting the will and worship of God, go into idolatrous practices, as Solomon himself did.



{e} Nwbvt bwv Ma "si avertendo aversi fueritis", Pagninus, Montanus, &c.





1 Kings 9:7



Ver. 7. Then will I cut off Israel out of the land I have given them,.... Suffer them to be carried captive into other lands, as the ten tribes were into Assyria, and the two tribes to Babylon; which is called a plucking them up by the roots in 2Ch 7:20



and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight: as it was when burnt by Nebuchadnezzar:



and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people; both for their sins and for their miseries; see De 28:37: in 2Ch 7:20 the house or temple is said to be made a proverb of.





1 Kings 9:8



Ver. 8. And at this house which is high,.... The house of the most High, as some render it, and in high esteem, fame, and glory, as well as it was built on an high hill, and was itself one hundred and twenty cubits high, 2Ch 3:4, the Targum is,



"and this house which was high shall be destroyed:''



everyone that passeth by it shall be astonished; at the ruins of the temple, and of the city of Jerusalem, which had been so magnificent:



and shall hiss; in scorn and derision of the people of Israel, rejoicing in their ruin:



and they shall say, why hath the Lord done thus unto this land, and to this house? or suffered it to be done, to lie thus in waste and ruins; a land in which it had been said he delighted, and looked unto from one end of the year to the other, and a house he had taken up his dwelling in; surely something more than ordinary, they suggest, must be the cause of all this.





1 Kings 9:9



Ver. 9. And they shall answer,.... Who were left in the land when others were carried captive, as were some by Nebuchadnezzar, and who were capable of making the following answer:



because they forsook the Lord; the worship of the Lord their God, as the Targum:



who brought forth their fathers out of the land Egypt; which is observed as an aggravation of their sin:



and have taken hold upon other gods: the gods of the people, as the Targum; of the Gentiles, who knew not the true God:



and have worshipped them, and served them: even idols of gold and silver, wood and stone; an instance of judicial blindness they were left unto, who had been favoured with a revelation from God:



therefore hath the Lord brought upon them all this evil; their idolatry was the cause of it, than which nothing is more provoking to God.





1 Kings 9:10



Ver. 10. And it came to pass at the end of twenty years,.... From the time Solomon first began to build: when Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord, and the king's house; the first was seven years in building, and the other thirteen; in all twenty.





1 Kings 9:11



Ver. 11. (Now Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedar trees and fir trees,.... For the building of both his houses; see 1Ki 5:8,



and with gold, according to all his desire): which is not before mentioned, and accounts for it from whence Solomon had his gold; if he made no use, as some think he did not, of what his father left him; see 1Ki 7:51 with which he covered several parts of the temple, and made several vessels in it. Hiram traded to Ophir, and had it from thence; and he could supply Solomon with it, and did, before he sent a navy thither:



that then Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee; that is, by or near it, for they were not in the land of Canaan; for then Solomon could not have disposed of them, being allotted and belonging to one of the tribes of Israel, and part of the Lord's inheritance; but they were upon the borders, particularly on the borders of Asher, if Cabul in Jos 19:27, can be thought to be the same with these; though some think that Solomon did not give Hiram the possession of these cities, but the royalties and revenues of them, their produce until the debt was paid: but they rather seem to be a gratuity, and a full grant of them, and might be cities which David had conquered, and taken out of the hands of the ancient inhabitants of them; and so Solomon had a right to dispose of them, being left him by his father; for it is plain as yet they were not inhabited by Israelites; see 2Ch 8:2. They are by a Jewish writer {f} said to be twenty two, very wrongly.



{f} Gloss. in T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 54. 1.





1 Kings 9:12



Ver. 12. And Hiram came out from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him,.... For these cities, being in or near Galilee, were not far from Tyre:



and they pleased him not; being either out of repair, as some think; see 2Ch 8:2 or the ground barren, and unfruitful; which is not likely, being in a very fruitful country, as the tribes on which they bordered were: but they were not agreeable to him, they did not suit with the disposition of him and his people, who were given not to husbandry, but to merchandise; and the land about these would require a good deal of pains and labour to till, which they were not used to.





1 Kings 9:13



Ver. 13. And he said,.... By letter to him:



what cities are these which thou hast given me, my brother? so he called him, being not only his neighbour, but his ally, in friendship and covenant with him; and this he said of them not by way of complaint, or contempt, as unworthy of his acceptance; for so munificent a prince as Solomon would never offer to a king to whom he was so much obliged anything mean and contemptible; but as being unsuitable to him, however valuable they might be in themselves, or of advantage to others:



and he called them the land of Cabul unto this day; or rather the words should be rendered impersonally, "they were called so"; for Hiram could not call them by this name to the times of the writer of this book; nor is there any reason to think he would give them any name at all, and much less a contemptible one, as this is thought to be, when he did not choose to accept of them. Some interpret {g} the word shut up, or unfruitful, sandy, dirty, clayey; so in the Talmud {h} it is said to be a sandy land, and called Cabul, because a man's foot was plunged in it up to his ankles, and is represented as unfruitful. Josephus {i} says, in the Phoenician tongue it signifies "not pleasing", which agrees with what Hiram says, 1Ki 9:12. Hillerus {k} interprets it "as nothing", they being as nothing to Hiram, of no use to him, whatever they might be to others; and therefore he restored them to Solomon, 2Ch 8:2, which seems to be the best sense of the word. They are the same with Decapolis, Mt 4:25 so called from ten cities therein {l}.



{g} David de Pomis, Lexic fol. 58. 2. {h} T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 54. 1. {i} Antiqu. l. 8. c. 5. sect. 3. {k} Onomastic. Sacr. p. 435. {l} Vid. Castel Lex Heptaglot. col. 1669. & Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 18.





1 Kings 9:14



Ver. 14. And Hiram sent to the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold. Not after the cities had been given him, but before; and it may be rendered "had sent" {m}, and is the sum of the gold he furnished him with for the temple, 1Ki 9:11 which, according to Brerewood {n}, was 540,000 pounds of our money; and, according to another {o} writer, it amounted to 1,466,400 ducats of gold, taking a talent at 12,220 ducats.



{m} xlvy "miserat", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. {n} De Ponderibus & Pretiis, Vet. Num. c. 5. {o} Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 3. p. 571.





1 Kings 9:15



Ver. 15. And this is the reason of the levy which King Solomon raised,.... Both of men to work, 1Ki 5:13, and of money to defray the expense:



it was for to build the house of the Lord; the temple:



and his own house; or palace:



and Millo; which he repaired: See Gill on "1Sa 5:9".



and the wall of Jerusalem; which, as Abarbinel says, was a large building, there being three walls one within another:



and Hazor; a city in the tribe of Naphtali, and which had been a royal city with the Canaanites; see Jos 11:1



and Megiddo; which was in the tribe of Manasseh, Jos 17:11



and Gezer; which was in the tribe of Ephraim, and formerly a royal city of the Canaanites, Jos 10:33.





1 Kings 9:16



Ver. 16. For Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, and taken Gezer, and burnt it with fire,.... Egypt lay lower than Canaan, and therefore Pharaoh is said to go up to it; what moved him to it is not certain; whether he went of himself provoked, or was moved to it by Solomon, who had married his daughter; however, so he did, and took the place, and burnt it:



and slain the Canaanites that dwelt in the city: for though it was given to the tribe of Ephraim, yet they could not drive the Canaanites out of it, who seem to have remained in it to this time; see

Jos 16:10



and given it for a present unto his daughter, Solomon's wife; not as a dowry with her, but as a present to her; perhaps some time after marriage.





1 Kings 9:17



Ver. 17. And Solomon built Gezer,.... Rebuilt it, it having been burnt, at least great part of it, by Pharaoh when he took it:



and Bethhoron the nether; and the upper also, 2Ch 8:5, which belonged to the tribe of Ephraim, and were on the borders of it, between that and Benjamin, Jos 16:3.





1 Kings 9:18



Ver. 18. And Baalath,.... A city in the tribe of Dan, Jos 19:44



and Tadmor in the wilderness, in the land; or "Tamar", as in the Cetib, or Scriptural reading; for we go according to the marginal reading, and so Thamato in Ptolemy {p}; and is thought by some to be the same with Tamar in Eze 47:19, which Jerom there says is Palmyra. Tamar signifies a palm tree, from whence this city had its name Palmyra, the situation of which place agrees with this; hence we read both in Ptolemy {q} and Pliny {r} of the Palmyrene deserts: the ruins of it are to be seen to this day, and of it this account is given; that it is enclosed on three sides with long ridges of mountains, which open towards the east gradually, to the distance of about an hour's riding; but to the south stretches a vast plain, beyond the reach of the eye; the air is good, but the soil exceeding barren; nothing green to be seen therein, save some few palm trees in the gardens, and here and there about the town; and from these trees, I conceive, says my author, it obtained its name both in Hebrew and in Latin: it appears to have been of a large extent, by the space now taken up by the ruins; but there are no footsteps of any wall remaining, nor is it possible to judge of the ancient figure of the place. The present inhabitants, as they are poor, miserable, dirty people, so they have shut themselves up, to the number of about thirty or forty families, in little huts made of dirt, within the walls of a spacious court, which enclosed a most magnificent Heathen temple {s}. Benjamin of Tudela says {t}, it is situated in a wilderness, far from any habitable place, and is four days' journey from Baalath before mentioned; which place he takes to be the same with Baalbek, in the valley of Lebanon, built by Solomon for Pharaoh's daughter; which, according to the Arabic geographer {u}, was situated at the foot of Mount Lebanon; and Tadmor seems to be in the land of Hamathzobah, 2Ch 8:3.



{p} Geograph. l. 5. c. 16. {q} Ib. c. 15. {r} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 26. & 6. 28. {s} Halifax apud Philosphic. Transact. vol. 3. p. 504. {t} Itinerar. p. 57, 58. {u} Geograph. Nub. par. 5. clim. 3. p. 117.





1 Kings 9:19



Ver. 19. And all the cities of store that Solomon had,.... In which were his magazines of corn, arms, and ammunition; and these were built in Hamath, 2Ch 8:4



and cities for his chariots; chariots of war, iron chariots, which were kept in times of peace, in case of necessity, of which Solomon had 1400, 1Ki 10:26,



and cities for his horsemen; of which he had 12,000, a standing cavalry:



and that which Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem; besides the temple and his own palace before mentioned; see Ec 2:4,



and in Lebanon; the house of the forest of Lebanon, which Junius on 1Ki 7:2 thinks he built after he had taken Hamathzobah, a royal city of Lebanon; see 2Ch 8:3 or fortresses on Mount Lebanon, which was the northern border of his kingdom:



and in all the land of his dominions; where he might repair or fortify cities, or erect new forts for the safety of his kingdom; now for the doing of all this was the levy both of men and money raised, and of whom next follows.





1 Kings 9:20



Ver. 20. And all the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites,.... Who were not destroyed in the times of Joshua, or since, but dwelt in several cities of the land of Israel from those times; see Jud 1:1, which were not of the children of Israel; not natives of the land of Israel, though they might be proselytes, at least some of them.





1 Kings 9:21



Ver. 21. Their children that were left after them in the land,.... The posterity of those left unsubdued in the times of Joshua:



whom the children of Israel also were not able utterly to destroy; in later times, though now it is thought by some it was not for want of power, but because they had made a covenant with them, as the Gibeonites did, and therefore they could not, because it would have been a breach of covenant to have destroyed them; see 2Ch 8:8,



upon these did Solomon levy a tribute of bond service unto this day; not a tribute of money, which being poor they were not able to pay, but of service, and which being once laid on was continued, and even to the time of the writing of this book.





1 Kings 9:22



Ver. 22. But of the children of Israel did Solomon make no bondmen,.... For that was contrary to the law; they might be hired servants, but not bond servants, Le 25:39



but they were men of war; which he kept in pay, a standing army, maintained even in time of peace, in case of necessity, should an enemy attempt to invade or surprise them:



and his servants; in his family and court, who had offices and employments there:



and his princes; ministers of state, counsellors, governors of cities, &c.



and his captains; officers in his army:



and rulers of his chariots and his horsemen; war chariots and troopers; see 1Ki 9:19.





1 Kings 9:23



Ver. 23. These were the chief of the officers over Solomon's work,.... In building the above houses and cities:



five hundred and fifty which bore rule over the people that wrought in the work; in 2Ch 8:10 they are said to be but two hundred and fifty; now it may be observed, as is by the Jewish writers, that there were three sorts of those rulers; the lowest rank and order of them consisted of 3300, the next of three hundred which were over the 3300, and being numbered with them made 3600, 2Ch 2:18 and the highest rank of them were two hundred and fifty, and the middlemost and highest being joined together, as they are here, made five hundred and fifty. Abarbinel reconciles the places thus, the two hundred and fifty were only over those that wrought in the temple; and the five hundred and fifty here were those that were over such that were employed in the various parts of the kingdom.





1 Kings 9:24



Ver. 24. But Pharaoh's daughter came up out of the city of David,.... Where he placed her when he first married her, until he had finished his buildings, 1Ki 3:1, which being done he brought her from thence unto her house, which Solomon had built for her; the reason of which is given, not only because it was the house of David, but because it was holy by the ark being there for some time; and therefore he did not judge it proper that his wife, an Egyptian woman, and sometimes in her impurity, should dwell there; see 2Ch 8:11,



then did he build Millo: this being particularly repeated from 1Ki 9:15, and following upon what is said of Pharaoh's daughter, has led many Jewish writers to conclude her house was built at Millo; and indeed, without supposing this, it is hard to conceive why it should be observed here; the Targum on 2Ch 8:11 calls her name Bithiah.





1 Kings 9:25



Ver. 25. And three times in a year did Solomon offer burnt offerings and peace offerings upon the altar which he built unto the Lord,.... The brasen altar, the altar of burnt offering, which stood in the court of the priests, and by whom he offered. The three times were the feasts of passover, pentecost, and tabernacles, as explained in 2Ch 8:13, not that these were the only offerings, or these the only times he offered; for he offered all other sacrifices, and at all other times commanded in the law of Moses, as on sabbaths and new moons, as expressed in the above place:



and he burnt incense upon the altar that was before the Lord; the altar of incense, which stood in the holy place, right beside the most holy, in which was the ark, the symbol of the divine Presence; not that Solomon burnt incense in person, but by the priests, whom he furnished with incense; for no king might offer incense, as the case of Uzziah shows:



so he finished the house; which respects not the building of it, that had been observed before, but the service of it; as he had provided all vessels and utensils for the furniture of it, and all things to be used in them; as sacrifices for the altar of burnt offering, incense for the altar of incense, bread for the shewbread table, and oil for the lamps; so he appointed the courses of the priests, Levites, and porters, to do their duty, who went through every part of service assigned them, and completed the whole; see 2Ch 8:14.





1 Kings 9:26



Ver. 26. And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber,.... Which was one of the stations of the Israelites, near the wilderness of Sin, or Paran, Nu 33:35, it signifies the backbone of a man; and it is said {w} the ridge of rocks before this port were in that form, covered by the sea at high water, and sticking up with various points in a line when it was low. Josephus says {x} in his time it was called Berenice, which is placed by Mela {y} between the Heroopolitic bay, and the promontory Strobilus, or Pharan. It is thought probable {z} to be the same with that which is called by the Arabs Meenah-el-Dsahab, the port of gold, called Dizahab, De 1:1, which stands upon the shore of the Arabic gulf, about two or three days' distance from Mount Sinai; though by others {a} thought to be the same the Arabs call Calzem, where was a great quantity of wood fit for building ships. It is further described,



which is beside Elath, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom; and when Edom was subdued by David, this port fell into his hands, and so was in the possession of Solomon; and there being plenty of timber in the parts adjacent, and this being a port in the Red sea, Solomon chose it as proper place to build ships in. Elath, near to which was, is the same the Elanitic bay had its name from; or which

See Gill on "De 2:8". Trajan, the Roman emperor, formed a navy in the Red sea {b}, that by it he might ravage and waste the borders of India; and here it seems Solomon's navy went; see 1Ki 9:28.



{w} Harris's Voyages, vol. 1. B. 1. ch. 2. sect. 3. p. 377. {x} Antiqu. l. 8. c. 6. sect. 4. {y} De Situ Orbis, l. 3. c. 8. {z} Clayton's Chronology, &c. p. 407. {a} Vossius in Melam ut supra, (Harris's Voyages, vol. 1. B. 1. ch. 2. sect. 3.) p. 386. {b} Eutrop. Rom. Hist. l. 8. Ruti Fest. Breviar.





1 Kings 9:27



Ver. 27. And Hiram sent in his navy his servants,.... And, according to 2Ch 8:18, ships also but how he could send them from Tyre, which lay in the Mediterranean sea, to the above ports in the Red sea, without going a great way round, is not easy to conceive. Perhaps, as Gussetins conjectures {c}, Hiram had a port in the Red sea for building and sending out ships, for the sake of his eastern navigation, and from thence he sent them to Solomon's ports in the same sea; but if what R. Japhet {d} observes is true, that the Red sea is mixed with the sea of Joppa by means of the river Rhinocurura, as is remarked by a learned man {e} and who approves of the observation, and thinks it does not deserve the censure Dr. Lightfoot {f} passes on it. If this, I say, can be supported, the difficulty is removed: so Abarbinel asserts {g}, that a branch of the Nile flows into the Red sea: and another, passing through Alexandria, runs into the Mediterranean sea. This is the first navy of ships we read of; in the construction of which, as well as in the art of navigation, the Tyrians no doubt were greatly assisting to Solomon's servants, and which appears by what follows; and they are said {h} to be the first that made use of ships; and the invention of ships of burden, or merchant ships, such as these were, is by Pliny {i} ascribed to Hippus the Tyrian: and the Tyrians were famous for merchandise, which they could not carry on with foreign nations without shipping; see Isa 23:8, the servants Hiram sent in Solomon's navy were



shipmen that had knowledge of the sea; of sea coasts and ports, of the manner of guiding and managing ships at sea, and of the whole art of navigation, so far as then known, for which the Tyrians were famous; see Eze 27:3,



with the servants of Solomon; to instruct and assist them in naval affairs, they not having been used thereunto.



{c} Ebr. Comment p. 628. {d} In Aben Ezra in Jon. ii. 5. {e} Texelii Phoenix, l. 3. c. 6. p. 243, 244. {f} Miscellanies, c. 18. vol. 1. p. 1002, 1003. {g} Apud Manasseh, Spes Israelis, sect. 2. p. 20. {h} "Prima ratem ventis credere docta Tyros", Catullus. {i} Nat. Hist. l. 7. c. 56.





1 Kings 9:28



Ver. 28. And they came to Ophir,.... About which place there are various opinions; some take it to be the little island of Zocatora, on the eastern coast of Africa, at a small distance from the straits of Babelmandel; others the island of Ceylon; others Sofala in Africa; some {k} Peru in America; Vatablus the island of Hispaniola in the West Indies, discovered by Columbus, and who thought {l} himself that he had found the land of Ophir, because of the quantity of gold in it; others the southern part of Arabia; but the most reasonable opinion is, says my author {m}, that it is a rich country in Malacca, which is a peninsula in the true Red sea (that part of the ocean which divides Asia from Africa), known by the name of the "golden Chersonese", and which agrees with Josephus {n}; and at twelve leagues from Malacca there is a very high mountain, which by the natives is called Ophir, and is reported to be, or to have been, very rich in gold, though at present only some tin mines are worked there; and Kircher {o} says the word Ophir is a Coptic or Egyptian word, by which the ancient Egyptians used to call that India which contains the kingdoms of Malabar, Zeilan, the golden Chersonese, and, the islands belonging to it, Sumatra, Molucca, Java, and other neighbouring golden islands. So Varrerius {p} thinks that all that coast in which are contained Pegu, Malaca, and Somatra, is Ophir; which places, besides gold, abound with elephants, apes, and parrots. In the island of Sumatra gold is now found, especially in Achin, in great plenty; in which is a mountain, called the "golden mountain", near the mines {q} Reland {r} takes Ophir to be the country round about a city called Oupara or Suphara, in the East Indies, where now stands Goa, the most famous mart in all India at this day for many of those things Solomon traded thither for. Though after all perhaps there was no such place originally as Ophir in India; only the gold brought from thence was like that of Ophir in Arabia, and therefore they called the place so from whence it was had; see Job 22:24



and fetched from thence gold four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon; which according to Brerewood {s} amounted to 1,890,000 pounds of our money; and according to another writer {t} 5,132,400 ducats of gold. Abarbinel says a talent of gold was equal to 12,300 Venetian ducats; in 2Ch 8:18 it is said, that four hundred and fifty talents of gold were brought to Solomon; perhaps thirty might be expended in the voyage, or paid to Hiram's servants for their wages, as some Jewish writers observe; or in the bulk or ore it might be four hundred and fifty talents, but when purified only four hundred and twenty, as Grotius remarks; either way removes the difficulty; though some think different voyages are respected here and there; of the gold of Ophir frequent mention is made in Scripture.



{k} Erasm. Schmid. de America, orat. ad Cale. Pindar. p. 261. So some Jewish writers say it is the new world, Ganz. Tzemach David, par. 1. fol. 10. 1. {l} P. Martyr Decad. 1. l. 1. {m} Harris's Voyages, ut supra. (vol. 1. B. 1. ch. 2. sect. 3. p. 377.) {n} Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 8. c. 6. sect. 4.) {o} China Illustrat. cum Monument. p. 58. & Prodrom. Copt. c. 4. p. 119. {p} Comment. de Ophyra. {q} Dampier's Voyages, vol. 2. ch. 7. {r} Dissert. de Ophir, sect. 6, 7. {s} De Ponder. & Pret. c. 5. {t} Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 3. p. 572.

 

↑ Back to top