The Plan Is Handed Over in Public

The guest list follows the registers just completed: tribal princes (27:16–22), the monthly commanders (27:1–15), the stewards of the royal estate (27:25–31), then the mighty men of chapter 11. “And of his sons” shows the king’s sons held property of their own, managed by the same stewards.

In 1 Kings 1 David is bedridden and cold; here he rises to his feet to speak. Calling his subjects “my brethren” recalls Deuteronomy 17:20, where the king’s heart is not to be lifted above his brethren. “House of rest” and “footstool” are the language of Psalm 132:7–8.

“A man of war” is literally “a man of wars”, plural. The same phrase in the singular is used of God himself in the song at the sea: “The LORD is a man of war” (Exodus 15:3). What God can be, the builder of his house must not be.

“Liked” in 1611 meant was pleased with; the Hebrew ratsah is to take delight in or accept, the word used of an acceptable sacrifice. David was the youngest of Jesse’s sons and out with the sheep when Samuel came (1 Samuel 16:11), so the choice ran against the order of birth.

Chapter 3:1–9 lists nineteen sons of David by name besides the sons of concubines, so “many sons” is literal. “The throne of the kingdom of the LORD” is a phrase found only in Chronicles; the kingdom is God’s, and the king sits on it as his steward.

Only Chronicles says in so many words that God “chose” Solomon; 1 Kings 1 shows him reaching the throne through Nathan and Bathsheba’s intervention against Adonijah. The house now has “courts”, plural, the open enclosures around the building where the people would gather.

“If he be constant” uses chazaq, to be strong, the same verb as David’s “be strong” to Solomon in verses 10 and 20. The kingdom holds if Solomon holds to the commandments. “As at this day” means as he is doing now, at the start.

“In the audience of our God” means in God’s hearing: God is named as a witness to the charge alongside the assembly. “Possess this good land” is the phrase of Deuteronomy (4:21–22; 6:18), and it is set here as a condition, not a possession guaranteed.

“Imaginations” is yetser, the word Genesis 6:5 uses for the thoughts of man’s heart before the flood. The promise “if thou seek him, he will be found of thee” becomes the principle of the kings to come; the prophet Azariah repeats it almost word for word to Asa (2 Chronicles 15:2).

“Take heed now” is literally “see now”. The two closing verbs, chazaq va’aseh, “be strong and do”, are the same words Shecaniah later says to Ezra (Ezra 10:4): “be of good courage, and do it.”

“Pattern” is tavnit, the word used of the design shown to Moses for the tabernacle. The “place of the mercy seat” is literally “the house of the kapporet”, naming the most holy room after the lid of the ark, from the verb kaphar, to cover or atone.

“That he had by the spirit” can be read “that he had in his spirit”, what was in his mind, or as the Spirit of God; the Hebrew ruach allows both, and the King James keeps a lowercase letter. The treasuries of dedicated things are those Shelomith kept (26:26).

The plan includes people as well as rooms. The courses of chapters 23–26 are handed over in the same breath as the architecture, as though the rota were as much part of the building as its walls.

Everything is “by weight”, repeated through the next four verses. When Ezra later carries temple vessels back from Babylon they are weighed out to the priests and weighed in again at Jerusalem (Ezra 8:25–34), the same accounting in practice.

The tabernacle had one golden lampstand (Exodus 25:31); Solomon’s temple would have ten (2 Chronicles 4:7). Silver lampstands are mentioned nowhere else in the descriptions of the temple, and may have lit the chambers rather than the holy place.

Again the tabernacle had a single table for the shewbread, and Solomon’s house had ten (2 Chronicles 4:8, 19). “Tables of silver” occur only here and have no counterpart in the later building accounts.

Fleshhooks were forks for drawing meat from the pot, like the three-pronged hook of Eli’s servants in 1 Samuel 2:13. The bowls are mizraqot, basins for sprinkling blood. The “basons” are kefori, covered bowls, a rare word that reappears in the lists of vessels returned from Babylon (Ezra 1:10).

“Refined gold” is gold purified by fire. The Hebrew for “chariot”, merkavah, is used of the cherubim only here in the Bible; later Jewish writers gave the same name to the throne vision of Ezekiel 1, which never uses the word.

“His hand upon me” is the formula prophets use when seized by God’s power, as with Elijah before Ahab’s chariot (1 Kings 18:46) and Ezekiel by the river Chebar (Ezekiel 1:3). Writing that comes from God recalls the tablets “written with the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18).

“Even my God” turns the promise into David’s own testimony. The assurance has a limit set on it, “until thou hast finished all the work”, and 2 Chronicles 7:11 records the moment: “Thus Solomon finished the house of the LORD.”

“Willing” here is nadiv, from the root of the free-will offering. That root runs through the next chapter, where the King James uses “willing” or “willingly” seven times. “Wholly at thy commandment” is literally “for all thy words”.