King James Version · The united kingdom
2 Chronicles 2
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
And determined to build an house for the name of , and an house for . And told out threescore and ten thousand men to bear burdens, and fourscore thousand to hew in the mountain, and three thousand and six hundred to oversee them. And sent to Huram the king of , saying, As thou didst deal with , and didst send him cedars to build him an house to therein, even so deal with me. Behold, I build an house to the name of my , to dedicate it to him, and to burn before him , and for the continual , and for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the , and on the new moons, and on the solemn feasts of our . This is an for ever to Israel. And the house which I build is great: for great is our above all gods. But who is able to build him an house, seeing the and cannot contain him? who am I then, that I should build him an house, only to burn before him? Send me now therefore a man cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue, and that can skill to with the cunning men that are with me in Judah and in , whom did provide. Send me also cedar trees, fir trees, and algum trees, out of : for I know that thy servants can skill to cut timber in ; and, behold, my servants shall be with thy servants, Even to prepare me timber in abundance: for the house which I am about to build shall be wonderful great. And, behold, I will give to thy servants, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of , and twenty thousand baths of oil. Then Huram the king of answered in writing, which he sent to , Because hath loved his people, he hath made thee king over them. Huram said moreover, be of Israel, that made and earth, who hath given to the king a son, endued with prudence and understanding, that might build an house for , and an house for . And now I have sent a cunning man, endued with understanding, of Huram ’s, The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his was a man of , skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; also to any manner of graving, and to find out every device which shall be put to him, with thy cunning men, and with the cunning men of my thy . Now therefore the wheat, and the barley, the oil, and the , which my hath spoken of, let him send unto his servants: And we will cut wood out of , as much as thou shalt need: and we will bring it to thee in floats by sea to ; and thou shalt carry it up to . And numbered all the strangers that were in the land of Israel, after the numbering wherewith his had numbered them; and they were found an hundred and fifty thousand and three thousand and six hundred. And he set threescore and ten thousand of them to be bearers of burdens, and fourscore thousand to be hewers in the mountain, and three thousand and six hundred overseers to set the people a work.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The united kingdom, 1050 BC to 931 BC ›
Saul, David, and Solomon. A rare window when both Egypt and Mesopotamia are weak, which is how a small kingdom in the corridor between them could briefly become a regional power.
- The power vacuum
- This is the whole political explanation for the united kingdom. Egypt is fragmented, Assyria is recovering but still local, the Hittites are gone, and nobody is in a position to object to a strong state in the corridor. It lasts about a century, and Israel's golden age fits exactly inside it.
- Phoenicia
- Tyre under Hiram is the commercial power of the coast, and supplies the cedar, the craftsmen, and the shipping for Solomon's building programme. The alliance is trade, not charity: Israel had grain and a land route, Tyre had timber and ships.
- Egypt
- Weak enough that a pharaoh gives a daughter in marriage to an Israelite king, which is the opposite of Egyptian practice in stronger centuries. Late in the era it recovers under a new house, and Shishak will invade within five years of Solomon's death.
- Further afield
- Greece is still in its dark age but beginning to recover, and will adopt the Phoenician alphabet within a century or two. Carthage is founded by settlers from Tyre by tradition in 814 BC. In the Americas the Olmec centre shifts to La Venta.