1 Chronicleschapter 22
19 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
Key verse
Then David said, This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel.
It stands in This is the house of the LORD, and David piles up its stores, verses 1 to 5.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Standing on Ornan's threshing-floor, David says it: 'This is the house of Jehovah God, and this is the altar of burnt-offering for Israel.' He cannot build it himself ('thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars') so he spends his last strength preparing for the son who can. Iron for nails, brass without weight, cedar trees beyond number from Sidon and Tyre, hewn stone, masons and workmen gathered. Solomon's very name is explained as a promise: a man of rest, 'and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days.' The charge to the son is personal and plain: only be strong, keep the law, build; and the charge to the princes is to help him.
Context
History · Ezra · 1 Chronicles overview
The world behind this chapter
1 Chronicles 22The history
The chapter belongs to David as an old man preparing a building site, and to Solomon, who is young and inexperienced by his father's own account at verse 5.
The time is the last years of the reign, about 975 to 970 BC, following directly from the purchase of the threshing floor.
The place is Jerusalem and the ground David names at verse 1, with cedar coming in by sea from Sidon and Tyre.
The occasion is the naming of the site in the chapter before, which turns a working farm into a building programme.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
A first hearer read the materials list as a construction schedule. Masons cut dressed stone, squared at the quarry so it could be laid without tools on site. Iron was stockpiled for the nails and the clamps that held stonework together, and the timber of Lebanon had no substitute.
He knew where the workforce came from. The resident foreigners in the land were set as stonecutters, which is how labour ran across the region, and the later record is careful to say that Israelites were not made slaves.
He knew the reason David was disqualified, because the chapter states it twice. David had shed much blood on the ground in God's sight, and the house of rest was to be built by a man of rest, which is what the name Solomon means.
The quantities at verse 14 are very large, and scholars read them in more than one way. Some hold that the word rendered talent covered a smaller unit in older records. Others take the figures as the accumulated tribute of a generation of empire, stated in round numbers as royal inscriptions of the age regularly did.
What it meant to them
An old man stockpiling stone and cedar for a building he will not live to enter is the exact posture the first hearers needed. Ezra records that the old men who had seen the first house wept aloud when they saw the foundation of the second.
David's charge to his son answers that grief. He tells Solomon to be strong and to begin the work, and says the LORD is with him. The work is generational, and one hand prepares what the next will lay.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
- Victor Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House , JSOT Supplement 115, 1992
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible , 1710
Where the chapter sits
1 Chronicles 22 falls in David's reign: temple-framed (chapters 10–29). Saul's death framed as judgment; David's consolidation; the ark brought to Jerusalem; the Davidic covenant (ch. 17); the military victories; the census and the threshing-floor site (ch. 21); temple preparation; Solomon's charge; David's doxology.
Solomon charged. ‘The LORD be with thee; and prosper thou, and build the house of the LORD thy God.’
Before it: Genealogies from Adam to Saul, chapters 1–9.
The whole shape of 1 Chronicles→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. This is the house of the LORD, and David piles up its stores
1. (v. 1)
1 Chronicles 22:1
“This is the house of the Lord God - The double miracle - that of the angelic appearance and that of the fire from heaven - had convinced David that here he had found the destined site of that “house” which it had been told him that his son should build 1Ch 22:10. Hence, this public announcement.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
1 Chronicles 22:1
“If a temple must be built for God, it is fit that it be left to him to choose the ground, for all the earth is his; and this is the ground he makes choice of-ground that pertained to a Jebusite, and perhaps there was not a spot of ground besides, in or about Jerusalem, that did so--a happy presage of the setting up of the gospel temple among the Gentiles.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
This is the house of the Lord God: David names the site at Ornan's threshingfloor as the house of the Lord God, the ground marked by the angel's sword and the fire that answered him in the chapter before. Chronicles alone records this naming; Kings opens its temple account with Solomon's alliance with Hiram and never explains why this hill was chosen. 2 Chr 3:1 will call the same ground mount Moriah, and many read it beside Gen 22:2's land of Moriah as the same place, though this chapter fixes the site only by the fire David saw, not by Abraham's altar.
2. (vv. 2-4)
1 Chronicles 22:2
“David commanded to gather together the strangers--partly the descendants of the old Canaanites (2Ch 8:7-10), from whom was exacted a tribute of bond service, and partly war captives (2Ch 2:7), reserved for the great work he contemplated.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 22:2
“The strangers that were in the land - Those who had become proselytes to the Jewish religion, at least so far as to renounce idolatry, and keep what were called the seven Noahic precepts. These were to be employed in the more servile and difficult parts of the work: see on 1Ki 9:21 (note). For the account of building the temple, see 1 Kings 5-9 (note), and the notes there.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 22:3
“And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails for the doors of the gates, and for the joinings,.... Great plenty of iron to make nails of for joining the boards together, of which the doors and gates were to be made, and for the fastening of the hinges of them: and brass in abundance without weight; for making the altar of brass, and the laver of brass, and other vessels. Brass was much used by the Heathens in sacred things, as Macrobius (p) observes. (p) Saturnal. l. 5. c. 19.”
1 Chronicles 22:4
“Also cedar trees in abundance,.... To be sawed into boards and planks for the cieling, wainscotting, and flooring of the temple, and other things: for the Zidonians, and they of Tyre, brought much cedar wood to David; from Mount Lebanon, which was chiefly in their possession; and which they did either of themselves as a free gift and present to him, or at his request, for which he paid them; and this is another thing prefiguring the help of the Gentiles in building up the church of Christ in Gospel times.”
gather together the strangers: David gathers the foreigners in the land to hew stone and sets iron, brass and cedar in abundance before he ever hands Solomon a charge. Kings has no equivalent scene; there the temple's materials appear only after Solomon writes to Hiram in 1 Ki 5. The strangers here are the Canaanite remnant and captives Chronicles elsewhere calls bond servants, the same labor force 2 Chr 2:17-18 will number under Solomon.
3. (v. 5)
1 Chronicles 22:5
“Young and tender - The exact age of Solomon at this time is uncertain; but it cannot have been more than 24 or 25. It may have been as little as 14 or 15. Compare the 1Ki 2:2 note.”
young and tender: David gives his reason in one sentence: Solomon is young and tender, and the house must be exceeding magnifical, so the father will do the preparing. So David prepared abundantly before his death closes the verse and states the chapter's whole program in advance. Barnes reckons Solomon's age at the accession as low as fourteen or fifteen and no higher than twenty-four or twenty-five, a range the text itself leaves open.
B. A man of blood may not build; a man of rest will
1. (vv. 6-8)
1 Chronicles 22:6
“Then he called for Solomon his son,.... To be brought before him: and charged him to build an house for the Lord God of Israel; which charge was given a little before his death, after he had made great preparations for this work, as appears from 1Ch 22:5.”
2 more voices on this verse
1 Chronicles 22:6
“Then he called for Solomon . . . and charged him--The earnestness and solemnity of this address creates an impression that it was given a little before the old king's decease.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Chronicles 22:6
“Solomon - is young and tender - He is as yet without complete knowledge and due experience; and it is necessary that I should make as much preparation for the work as I possibly can; especially as the house is to be exceedingly magnificent.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 22:7
“And David said to Solomon,.... When brought into his presence: my son, as for me, it was in my mind to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God; he was disposed and inclined to it, and was once determined upon it, see 2Sa 7:2.”
1 Chronicles 22:8
“Because he was a man of blood—the reference is not, as some think, to his wars, but to the murder [of Uriah]—he was not permitted to build a temple of the Lord.”
Jerome· written before 420· Against Jovinianus 1.24patristic
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 22:8
“Shed blood - Not that wars are simply unlawful, but to teach us that the church (whereof the temple was an illustrious type) should be built by Christ, the prince of peace, Isaiah ix, 6, and that it should be gathered and built up, not by might or power but by God's spirit, Zech iv, 6, and by the preaching the Gospel of peace.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
charged him to build: David tells Solomon plainly that it was in his own mind to build a house unto the name of the Lord his God, and then gives the reason he was refused. Verse 8 states the ground in words Kings never puts this directly: thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars, thou shalt not build an house unto my name. Kings gives only the general fact of David's wars pressing on every side; Chronicles alone has David repeat the word of the Lord to his own face as a settled verdict, not an excuse. Wesley reads the refusal as typical, since the temple, an illustrious type of the church, was to be built not by might or by blood but by the Spirit, and Henry draws the same line toward the one who builds the gospel temple by saving lives rather than taking them.
2. (vv. 9-10)
1 Chronicles 22:9
“For the names of Solomon, compare 2Sa 12:24 note. The former name prevailed, probably on account of this prophecy, which attached to the name the promise of a blessing.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 22:9
“This [passage quoted, 1 Kings 8:26-27] is also found in the same words in Chronicles. God then promised David he would raise up a king from his body and would be his father, so that the offspring of the seed of David should be called the Son of God and should have his throne in an eternal kingdom.”
Eusebius of Caesarea· written before 339· PROOF OF THE GOSPEL 6.12patristic
1 Chronicles 22:10
“He shall build an house for my name,.... For the worship of God, and for his honour and glory: and he shall be my son, and I will be his father; see 2Sa 7:13 and which is applied to Christ, Heb 1:5. and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever; that is, for a long time in his posterity; and which will have its fulfilment in Christ, his antitype, in the utmost sense of the expression, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his throne for ever and ever, Luk 1:32.”
a man of rest: The son not yet born is named before he is named: a man of rest, for I will give him rest from all his enemies round about, for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days. The wordplay sits on the surface of the Hebrew, Solomon and shalom sharing one root, so the promise and the name are the same word twice. Verse 10 then retells the covenant of 2 Sam 7:13-14 in the son's own hearing, he shall be my son and I will be his father, the sonship language Heb 1:5 quotes of Christ.
3. (vv. 11-13)
1 Chronicles 22:11
“Now, my son, the Lord be with thee, &c. Or "shall be with thee" (r), as some; and if it be as a prayer, it was no doubt a prayer of faith; the Targum is,"may the Word of the Lord be thine help:" and prosper thee; may success attend thee: and build the house of the Lord thy God, as he hath said of thee; foretold he should, and therefore would assist him to do it, which was an encouragement to go about it. (r) יהי "erit", Pagninus, Montanus; "futurus est", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.”
1 Chronicles 22:12
“Whatever charge we have, if we see God giving us the charge and calling us to it, we may hope he will give us wisdom for the discharge of it. Perhaps Solomon had an eye to this prayer of his father for him, in the prayer he offered for himself: Lord, give me a wise and understanding heart.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Chronicles 22:13
“Then shall thou prosper, if thou takest heed to fulfil the statutes,.... See 1Ki 2:2 where the same things are said as here: which shows that this was spoken by David a little before his death.”
the Lord be with thee: David charges Solomon in Joshua's own commissioning vocabulary: be strong, and of good courage, dread not, nor be dismayed, the words the Lord gave Joshua at Josh 1:6-9 for taking a land, now given for building a house in it. The condition is named plainly at verse 13, prosper if thou takest heed to fulfil the statutes and judgments the Lord charged Moses with. This charge stands beside David's actual deathbed words at 1 Ki 2:2-3, which use the same be thou strong language but then turn to settling Joab and Shimei; Chronicles keeps only the temple charge and leaves that political business out entirely, the same selection the whole book practices.
4. (vv. 14-16)
1 Chronicles 22:14
“In my trouble I have prepared - Notwithstanding ail the wars in which I have been engaged, all the treacheries with which I have been surrounded, all the domestic troubles with which I have been overwhelmed, I never lost sight of this great object, the building of a house for God, that his worship might be established in the land. I have curtailed my expenses, and have lived in comparative poverty that I might save all I possibly could for this building.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 22:15
“Moreover, there are workmen with thee in abundance,.... All the strangers in the land being gathered by the order of David, 1Ch 22:2 who were skilled in all manner of work, as follows: hewers and workers of stone and timber; masons and carpenters: and all manner of cunning men for every manner of work; joiners, carvers, &c.”
1 Chronicles 22:16
“Of the gold, the silver, and the brass, and the iron,....”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 22:16
“Hope of God's presence must not slacken our endeavours. Though the Lord be with us, we must rise and be doing, and, if we do this, we have reason to believe he is and will be with us. Work out your salvation, and God will work in you.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
an hundred thousand talents: David sets the sums down, an hundred thousand talents of gold and a thousand thousand talents of silver, brass and iron past counting, and calls it what it cost him: in my trouble I have prepared. Workmen in abundance stand ready alongside the materials, so nothing is left for Solomon to gather before he can build. The charge closes where it opened, arise therefore, and be doing, and the Lord be with thee, presence and labor named together rather than presence offered as a substitute for labor.
C. The princes charged to help young Solomonvv. 17-19
commanded all the princes of Israel: David turns from his son to the nation's princes and commands them to help Solomon, grounding the command in what the Lord has already done: hath he not given you rest on every side, the land subdued before the Lord and before his people. Verse 19 states the seeking refrain the whole book measures every reign by, set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God, before repeating the charge to arise and build the sanctuary. The chapter that opened with David naming a house ends with a nation told to seek the one it is named for.
1 Chronicles 22:17
“David also commanded all the princes of Israel,.... His courtiers and nobles that were about him: to help Solomon his son; by their advice, and with their purses, should he need them, and by overlooking the workmen, directing and encouraging them: saying; as follows.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 22:17
“There corruption was uppermost (but the well of living water in the soul, though it may be muddied, will work itself clear again); grace here has recovered the upper hand. Preparations for the Temple. 1 Then David said, This is the house of the L ORD God, and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Chronicles 22:18
“Is not the Lord your God with you? - “Is not the Word of the Lord your God your assistant?” - T. Hath he not given you rest on every side? - David at this time was not only king of Judea, but had also subdued most of the surrounding nations. Thus Solomon came to the Jewish throne with every possible advantage. Had he made a proper use of his state and of his talents, he would have been the greatest as well as the wisest of sovereigns. But alas! how soon did this pure gold become dim!”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 22:19
“Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God,....”
This page carries no textual note on 1 Chronicles 22. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.