A House for the Name, Not a Container for God

“Determined” is literally “said”, the Hebrew for resolving to do something. The second house, “for his kingdom”, is the royal palace, which 1 Kings 7:1 says took thirteen years against the temple’s seven (1 Kings 6:38). Chronicles barely describes the palace at all.

“Told out” means counted. The same three numbers return in verse 18, bracketing the chapter. First Kings 5:16 gives 3,300 overseers rather than 3,600, a difference that resolves itself when the chief officers of 8:10 are added in.

Chronicles spells the king Huram, where Kings has Hiram. In 1 Kings 5:1 Hiram makes the first approach after hearing of Solomon’s anointing; here Solomon writes first, asking the same favour Tyre had done for David (1 Chronicles 14:1).

Solomon explains Israel’s worship to a Phoenician king item by item, as if the timber order needed a statement of purpose. “Sweet incense” is incense of spices, blended by the formula of Exodus 30:34. The same catalogue of daily and seasonal service reappears when Abijah defends Judah’s worship in 13:11.

The claim echoes Jethro, a foreign priest, who said “the LORD is greater than all gods” (Exodus 18:11), and Psalm 95:3. Spoken to a king whose own city worshipped Melqart and Baal, the sentence is not merely courtly.

“Heaven and heaven of heavens” is the phrase of Deuteronomy 10:14, and Solomon will use it again at the dedication (6:18). “Who am I then” repeats his father’s question at the offering, “who am I, and what is my people” (1 Chronicles 29:14).

Purple, crimson and blue were dyes, the purple and blue from murex shellfish harvested off the Phoenician coast; “Tyrian purple” was the city’s famous product. The word here for crimson, karmil, occurs only in Chronicles and is probably a Persian loanword, where Exodus uses a different term.

“Fir” is berosh, probably cypress or juniper. Algum is most often identified as red sandalwood, and 1 Kings 10:11 says the almug trees came by ship from Ophir; Chronicles lists them among the timbers from Lebanon, a tension commentators have long noted.

“Wonderful great” is “great and wonderful”, pala, the root used for God’s own marvellous deeds. Solomon repeats the size of the building as his reason for the size of the timber order.

A “measure” is a kor, a large dry measure, and a bath a liquid measure of about a tenth of that. “Beaten wheat” may be a copyist’s slip for “food”, the word in 1 Kings 5:11. Kings has Hiram’s own household fed yearly; Chronicles has the woodcutters provisioned, with barley and wine added.

Huram replies by letter, the ordinary form of diplomacy between kings. In 1 Kings 5:7 he “rejoiced greatly” when he heard Solomon’s words; Chronicles gives the written reply its content instead.

“Endued with prudence and understanding” is sekel and binah, exactly what David prayed God would give his son (1 Chronicles 22:12). The foreign king unwittingly confirms that David’s prayer has been answered. “That made heaven and earth” is Chronicles’ addition to his blessing.

“Of Huram my father’s” is better read as a name, Huram-abi, “Huram my father”, where “father” is a title of honour for a master craftsman. He is called Huram “his father” again in 4:16, which the King James renders the same way.

First Kings 7:14 calls his mother a widow of Naphtali; here she is of Dan. Either she was a Danite who married into Naphtali, or the town of Dan in Naphtali’s territory is meant. Bezaleel’s partner at the tabernacle, Aholiab, was also of Dan (Exodus 31:6).

Huram calls Solomon “my lord”, and David “my lord” in the verse before, the courtesy of a vassal or junior partner, though Tyre was an independent and wealthy kingdom. He asks for the promised food before he sends the timber.

“Floats” are rafts: logs lashed together and towed down the coast. Joppa, modern Jaffa, is the port where Jonah boarded his ship (Jonah 1:3) and where cedar came again for the second temple (Ezra 3:7). Jerusalem lay about thirty-five miles inland and some two thousand five hundred feet higher.

First Kings 5:13 says Solomon raised a levy “out of all Israel”, thirty thousand men; Chronicles counts only the foreigners, and 8:9 insists he made no Israelite a slave. The count follows David’s earlier gathering of strangers (1 Chronicles 22:2), a census of non-Israelites that carries no taint of 1 Chronicles 21.

“To set the people a work” is old English for “to put the people to work”. The 3,600 overseers here plus the 250 chiefs of 8:10 make 3,850; Kings gives 3,300 plus 550 (1 Kings 5:16; 9:23), the same total divided differently.