Everything Given Was Already God's

“Palace” is birah, a late word for a citadel or fortress. Elsewhere it names “Shushan the palace” in Esther 1:2 and the fortress beside the temple in Nehemiah 2:8, so the vocabulary belongs to the Chronicler’s own Persian-era Hebrew. Solomon is “young and tender”, David’s phrase from 22:5.

“Stones to be set” are stones for settings, like those in the high priest’s breastplate (Exodus 25:7). “Glistering stones” are literally stones of puk, the dark antimony Jezebel used to paint her eyes (2 Kings 9:30), probably a dark mortar or inlay. The marble is shayish, a white or alabaster stone.

“Mine own proper good” translates segullah, a private treasure. It is the word God uses of Israel at Sinai, “a peculiar treasure unto me above all people” (Exodus 19:5). David gives from what is his in the way Israel is God’s.

Ophir was the source of the finest gold, and Solomon’s ships would sail there for it (1 Kings 9:28); its location, somewhere in Arabia, East Africa or India, is still debated. “The houses” are the rooms of the temple complex, their walls to be overlaid with metal.

“Consecrate his service” is literally “fill his hand”, the Hebrew idiom for ordaining a priest (Exodus 28:41). David applies the priests’ ordination language to lay donors: anyone who gives is, in this one act, filling his hand for the LORD.

The donors are listed in the order of the registers in chapter 27: heads of families and tribal princes, the unit commanders, and the “rulers of the king’s work”, the stewards of 27:25–31. Every officer just appointed becomes a giver.

“Drams” are adarkonim, darics, the Persian gold coin first struck under Darius I, some five centuries after David. The Chronicler has converted part of the gift into the currency of his own day, a small window onto when the book was written.

At the tabernacle the rulers had likewise brought onyx and stones for setting (Exodus 35:27). Stones given here pass into the Gershonite treasury of 26:21–22, received by a named Levite so the gift is recorded.

Rejoicing over giving has a precedent at the tabernacle, where the people brought so much that Moses had to proclaim a halt to the offerings (Exodus 36:5–7). The word “willingly” comes twice in this one verse.

“Blessed be thou, LORD” is the form, barukh attah, that later became the standard opening of Jewish blessings. “Israel our father” means Jacob. “For ever and ever” is literally “from everlasting to everlasting”, the phrase of the doxologies that close Psalm 41 and Psalm 106.

The doxology that later copyists added to the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:13, “thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory”, draws on this verse. The word for “victory”, netsach, also carries the sense of lasting splendour or endurance.

“In thine hand” is said twice, of power and of the ability to make great. Riches and honour are the very pair God will give Solomon unasked at Gibeon (2 Chronicles 1:11–12).

“Thy glorious name” is literally “the name of thy splendour”. The verb for thanks, hodah, is the same one used for confessing sin; in both, something is acknowledged openly before God.

“Who am I” repeats David’s first words after the promise of a house, “Who am I, O LORD God” (17:16). “After this sort” means in this manner. “Of thine own” is literally “from thy hand”: the gifts go back to the hand they came from.

“Strangers and sojourners” are gerim and toshavim, the words Abraham used when he asked the Hittites for a grave (Genesis 23:4), and the law says Israel is that to God (Leviticus 25:23). “None abiding” is miqveh, hope: there is no expectation of staying.

“Store” is hamon, a word more often used for a noisy crowd; here it is a mass of goods. Within one sentence the pronoun moves from “we have prepared” to “thine own”, the ownership shifting as the clause runs.

“Triest” is bachan, the assayer’s verb for testing metal. It fits a scene piled with gold and silver, as in Proverbs 17:3: “the fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the LORD trieth the hearts.”

“Prepare their heart” is hakhen, to make firm or set in place. Chronicles later uses the same phrase as a verdict on kings: Rehoboam “prepared not his heart to seek the LORD” (2 Chronicles 12:14), and Jehoshaphat “prepared thine heart to seek God” (19:3).

Commandments, testimonies and statutes are the same three terms Josiah will vow to keep when he renews the covenant (2 Chronicles 34:31). The temple is again the birah of verse 1, so the prayer ends on the same word as the speech that opened the chapter.

“Bowed down their heads, and worshipped” pairs two verbs, to bow the head and to prostrate oneself, the pair used by Abraham’s servant when he found Rebekah (Genesis 24:26) and by Israel on hearing the Passover instructions (Exodus 12:27).

The drink offerings were wine poured out with each burnt offering, measured by the animal (Numbers 15:5–10). “Sacrifices in abundance” are zevachim, peace offerings whose meat the worshippers ate, which is why the next verse turns to eating and drinking.

“Chief governor” is nagid, the title Samuel used when he anointed Saul (1 Samuel 10:1) and Abigail gave David (1 Samuel 25:30). Zadok is anointed alongside the king, anticipating Solomon’s removal of Abiathar and Zadok’s appointment in his place (1 Kings 2:35).

“Obeyed him” is literally “listened to him”. When Solomon’s son takes the throne, the northern tribes will refuse to listen, and the kingdom will split (2 Chronicles 10:16). Here all Israel hears.

“Submitted themselves” is literally “gave a hand under Solomon”, a gesture of pledged loyalty; Hezekiah uses the same idiom when he urges the north to “yield yourselves unto the LORD” (2 Chronicles 30:8). David’s sons include those who, in 1 Kings 1, had backed Adonijah.

“Royal majesty” is hod malkhut, the splendour of kingship. Only Saul and David had reigned before him, so the comparison is short, but 2 Chronicles 1:12 will extend it to every king after him as well.

David’s reign in this book began with all Israel gathering to him at Hebron (11:1) and ends with him reigning “over all Israel”. The deathbed instructions of 1 Kings 2:5–9, with their settling of scores against Joab and Shimei, have no place in this closing.

Second Samuel 5:5 gives the Hebron years as seven years and six months; Chronicles rounds them to seven. Forty is also the length of Saul’s and Solomon’s reigns in the traditional reckoning.

“A good old age”, seivah tovah, is what God promised Abraham (Genesis 15:15) and what Gideon received (Judges 8:32). Riches and honour are the gifts David had just said come from God (verse 12), and he dies holding both.

Three prophets are cited with three different Hebrew titles: Samuel the ro’eh, Nathan the navi, and Gad the chozeh. “First and last” means from beginning to end, the Chronicler’s standard way of pointing to fuller records.

“The times that went over him” are the events and seasons that passed over his head. The last words reach “all the kingdoms of the countries”, recalling 14:17, where “the fame of David went out into all lands.”