2 Chronicleschapter 2
18 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
So now I am sending you Huram-abi, a skillful man endowed with creativity.
Introduction
Ezra, by tradition, History, 2 Chronicles Overview.
This chapter was written for the Jews who returned from Babylon and rebuilt their temple under Persian rule. Tradition gives the book to Ezra. Here the writer turns from Solomon's prayer to his planning, and the tone becomes that of a contract and a work order. Listen for the letters between two kings and for how each one speaks of the God of Israel. The first hearers had hired the same city for the same timber a few years before, so they heard their own story in it. Notice what Solomon says a house for God can and cannot be.
Context
- Who
- People who had rebuilt a temple by the same method, with the same trading partner
- What
- The agreement between Solomon and Huram king of Tyre for timber and a master craftsman, and the census of workers for the temple.
- Where
- Jerusalem, the cedar forests of Lebanon, the quarries of the hill country and the port of Joppa.
- When
- About 967 BC, in the years before the foundation was laid.
- Why
- To show the temple built by ordinary contract and labour under a king who knew no house could contain God.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to Solomon as a king organising a public works project, about 967 BC, in the years before the foundation was laid.
Show the rest of the historical context, 6 more paragraphs
The places are three. Jerusalem is where the plan is made, Lebanon is where the timber is cut, and Joppa is the port the rafts are floated to.
The occasion is the letter to Huram of Tyre and the reply to it. The correspondence follows the standard form of royal letters between allied kings, a greeting, the request, the terms of payment and the answer.
The labour figures describe the project's scale. Seventy thousand men carried loads, eighty thousand cut stone in the hills, and three thousand six hundred supervised, drawn from the resident foreigners in the land and counted in a census taken for the purpose.
A first hearer knew the economics. Tyre was a merchant city crammed onto the coast with the mountains at its back and almost no farmland, so it bought its bread inland. Timber for grain was the natural trade, and it ran for centuries in both directions. What Solomon offers is food, wheat, barley, wine and oil.
The logistics are spelled out in the letter. The cedar and cypress were felled in the mountains, dragged to the shore, lashed into rafts, floated down the coast to Joppa, and hauled up the road to Jerusalem from there.
Huram sends a master craftsman skilled in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, wood, dyed yarns and engraving. This book puts his mother among the daughters of Dan and 1 Kings 7:14 puts her in the tribe of Naphtali. The usual reconciliation is that she was Danite by descent and living in Naphtali's territory.
Significance
The first hearers had done this exact thing. Ezra 3:7 records the returned exiles giving money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, to bring cedar from Lebanon to Joppa.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
The second temple was contracted the same way as the first, with the same city and through the same port.
Solomon's own disclaimer at verse 6 framed the whole enterprise. The highest heavens cannot contain God, so the house is a place to burn sacrifice before him.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
2 Chronicles is not read in the synagogue. Chronicles stands among the Writings in the Hebrew canon rather than among the Prophets the Haftarah is drawn from. The division into two books came in through the Greek. The book therefore carries neither a weekly Torah portion nor a Haftarah, and this site's own reading table records the same for all thirty-six chapters. Solomon's letter to Huram of Tyre is met in the commentary and the midrash instead, and the rest of this card is drawn from them.
How it is read
The classical reading turns on one question the letter itself raises. What is a house built for God actually for? Rashi takes the purpose clauses at the third verse as a list of uses rather than a claim about need. Dedicating the house means setting it apart for a purpose, and the incense is an act of honour (Rashi on II Chronicles 2:3:1 and 2:3:2, the Judaica Press Tanach with Rashi, CC-BY). At the fourth verse he reads the greatness of the house as Solomon's reason for needing Tyre's help. He hears an objection in advance, that the king could simply have built something smaller. "I cannot do so, because our God is greater than all Gods; therefore, I cannot diminish it or make it smaller" (Rashi on II Chronicles 2:4:1).
Then he closes the door on the reading that would follow from it. Greatness here means honour rather than adequacy, and he says so at the fifth verse. Who could gather strength enough to build a house fit for God, when the heavens and the heavens of the heavens cannot contain Him? What Solomon builds "is nothing more than to burn incense therein before Him" (Rashi on II Chronicles 2:5:2). The temple on this reading is a place of service rather than a dwelling that holds its occupant. That is the Jewish reading of the chapter in its own terms, and a Christian reader should take it before setting any other beside it.
The rest of his notes work on the letter's vocabulary and its craftsman. He glosses the two dye words at the sixth verse against their more usual Hebrew forms (Rashi on II Chronicles 2:6:1 and 2:6:2). The wheat at the ninth verse he gives through Middle High German, with a second sense of grain crushed from the ear (Rashi on II Chronicles 2:9:1). The rafts at the fifteenth he handles the same way, against the different word in the Kings parallel (Rashi on II Chronicles 2:15:1). Of Huram the craftsman he says he served the father before the son (Rashi on II Chronicles 2:12:1). Of the mother he says in four words that she was a widow (Rashi on II Chronicles 2:13:1).
Two notes are about the writing rather than the building. At the sixteenth verse Rashi reads a spelling as a date. The word for the strangers is written full here with two yuds, where David's earlier count wrote it with one. He takes the difference as the difference between a count made in advance and a count made "at the time of the deed, when he built" (Rashi on II Chronicles 2:16:1). At the seventeenth he explains why the numbers appear twice. Scripture repeats a matter it has interrupted before carrying it to its end (Rashi on II Chronicles 2:17:1).
Radak, Metzudat David and Malbim comment across this chapter as well. The corpus carries their refs with the reason that Sefaria holds no English version of them, so they stand here cited and unquoted. Metzudat David on II Chronicles 2:1:1, 2:2:1, 2:4:1, 2:7:1, 2:10:1 and 2:11:1. Radak on II Chronicles 2:1:1, 2:7:1 and 2:8:1. Malbim on II Chronicles 2:2:1 and 2:14:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries twenty-eight rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none. Each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The largest run stands on the sixteenth verse, where Solomon counts the strangers in the land. Their standing draws twelve locators. Five are talmudic: Introductions to Tanaitic Literature, Introductions to Tractates of the Mishnah, Kelim 130, Jerusalem Talmud Kiddushin 4:1:8, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 6:7:4 and Yevamot 79a:11. Two are from Ein Yaakov, at Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yevamot 8:7 and Ein Yaakov, Yevamot 8:9. Five are midrashic: Aggadat Bereshit 15:1, Kohelet Rabbah 5:6:1, Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Yitbarach ('May He Be Blessed') 1:3 and 1:14, and Ruth Rabbah 4:6 with Ruth Rabbah (Lerner) 4:9:1. The seventeenth verse carries Jerusalem Talmud Yevamot 8:3:4 beside them.
The opening verses draw the tractate of the meal offerings. The first verse, the house and the royal house, carries Bamidbar Rabbah 8:4 and Vayikra Rabbah 30:15. The third, where Solomon names the showbread and the offerings the house is for, carries four. They are Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Menachot 13:1, Ein Yaakov, Menakhot 13:5, Menachot 110a:9 and Otzar Midrashim, Baraita of Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair 1:37.
The rest follow the letter. The seventh verse, the request for a skilled man, carries Pesikta Rabbati 33:1. The ninth, the wheat and barley and wine and oil, carries Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim on King Solomon, Throne and Hippodrome of King Solomon 4. The eleventh, Huram's blessing of the God of Israel, carries Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 782:27. The twelfth, the craftsman's skill, carries Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 13:5. The thirteenth, his Danite mother, carries Arakhin 16b:20. The fourteenth carries Jerusalem Talmud Taanit 2:1:9. The fifteenth, the cedar floated down from Lebanon, carries Bamidbar Rabbah 12:4, Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 4:5:9 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 3:10:3. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Chronicles 2:3:1 to 2:17:1, thirteen kept notes, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on II Chronicles 2:1:1, 2:7:1 and 2:8:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Chronicles 2:1:1, 2:2:1, 2:4:1, 2:7:1, 2:10:1 and 2:11:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on II Chronicles 2:2:1 and 2:14:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-chronicles/2.json, the 28 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; This site's reading table, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed in this lane: 2-chronicles parashot total 0, haftarah uses total 0, hasSynagogueReading true for 0 of 36 chapters, festivalReadingForBook null.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Solomon's letter to Huram: our God is greater than all gods
2 Chronicles 2:1-2
purposed to build a house for the Name of the LORD: Solomon “purposed to build a house for the Name of the LORD and a royal palace for himself,” naming both projects before either begins. The labor force is numbered, “70,000 porters, 80,000 stonecutters in the mountains, and 3,600 supervisors,” the count 1 Kings 5:15-16 carries with a small variance.
2 Chronicles 2:1
“Solomon determined to build--The temple is the grand subject of this narrative, while the palace--here and in other parts of this book--is only incidentally noticed. The duty of building the temple was reserved for Solomon before his birth.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
he conscripted 70,000 porters: The porters, stonecutters and supervisors are the foreigners in the land of Israel, counted in verse 17 and given their tasks in verse 18. Gill totals them at 153,600. Barnes likens the supervisors to the overseers of forced labor in Egypt and Assyria, who carried whips or sticks.
2 Chronicles 2:2
“And Solomon told out threescore and ten thousand men,.... Of whom, and the difference of the last number in this text from 1Ki 5:15, see the notes there. See Gill on 1Ki 5:15. See Gill on 1Ki 5:16.”
2 Chronicles 2:3-6
The letter opens on precedent, “Do for me as you did for my father David”. Verse 6 confesses that the highest heavens “cannot contain Him”. Kings holds that confession for the dedication prayer at 1 Kings 8:27, and Chronicles sets it in the request for cedar.
2 Chronicles 2:3
“Huram, the form used throughout Chronicles (except 1Ch 14:1) for the name both of the king and of the artisan whom he lent to Solomon 2Ch 2:13; 2Ch 4:11, 2Ch 4:16, is a late corruption of the true native word, Hiram (marginal note and reference).”
appointed feasts of the LORD: The appointed feasts of the LORD are the three great yearly feasts: Passover, the Feast of Weeks, called Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. Barnes points to Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16 for their laws. He finds the meaning of the fragrant incense in Revelation 8:3-4.
2 Chronicles 2:4
“The symbolic meaning of “burning incense” is indicated in Rev 8:3-4. Consult the marginal references to this verse. The solemn feasts - The three great annnual festivals, the Passover, the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and the Feast of tabernacles Lev. 23:4-44; Deut. 16:1-17.”
greater than all gods: Solomon grounds the greatness of the house in the greatness of his God, and he says so to a king who served other gods. Hiram answers by blessing the LORD at verse 12. Barnes holds that Hiram probably identified the LORD with his own god Melkarth.
2 Chronicles 2:5
“See 1Ki 6:2 note. In Jewish eyes, at the time that the temple was built, it may have been “great,” that is to say, it may have exceeded the dimensions of any single separate building existing in Palestine up to the time of its erection. Great is our God ... - This may seem inappropriate as addressed to a pagan king. But it appears 2Ch 2:11-12 that Hiram acknowledged Yahweh as the supreme deity, probably identifying Him with his own Melkarth.”
even the highest heavens: cannot contain God. The Targum, quoted by Clarke, divides the heavens into the lower, the middle and the upper, and none of them can contain Him. It says He sustains all things by the arm of His power.
2 Chronicles 2:6
“Seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens - “For the lower heavens, the middle heavens, and the upper heavens cannot contain him, seeing he sustains all things by the arm of his power. Heaven is the throne of his glory, the earth his footstool; the deep, and the whole world, are sustained by the spirit of his Word, [ברוח מימריה beruach meqmereih]. Who am I, then, that I should build him a house?” - Targum.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 2:7-10
Send me, therefore, a craftsman skilled in engraving: Solomon asks for one craftsman skilled “to work with gold and silver, with bronze and iron, and with purple, crimson, and blue yarn”. Cedar, cypress and algum are paid in wheat, barley, wine and oil, a fuller wage list than the wheat and oil of 1 Kings 5:11.
2 Chronicles 2:7
“See 1Ki 5:6, note; 1Ki 7:13, note. Purple ... - “Purple, crimson, and blue,” would be needed for the hangings of the temple, which, in this respect, as in others, was conformed to the pattern of the tabernacle (see Exo 25:4; Exo 26:1, etc.). Hiram’s power of “working in purple, crimson,” etc., was probably a knowledge of the best modes of dyeing cloth these colors. The Phoenicians, off whose coast the murex was commonly taken, were famous as purple dyers from a very remote period.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 2:7
“The things specified, in which he was to be skilled, relate not to the building, but the furniture of the temple. Iron, which could not be obtained in the wilderness when the tabernacle was built, was now, through intercourse with the coast, plentiful and much used.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
cedar, cypress, and algum logs: Cedar and cypress were prized as rare and lasting woods. Algum, also called almug, was a foreign wood absent from Lebanon. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hold that it came to Solomon through Huram, as at 1 Kings 10:11.
timber in abundance: Barnes judges that the temple may have been larger than any single building in Palestine up to its time. Such a house needed rare and lasting timber in quantity, the cedar and cypress of verse 8. The two crews cut it together.
2 Chronicles 2:9
“Even to prepare me timber in abundance,.... Since he would want a large quantity for raftering, cieling, wainscoting, and flooring the temple: for the house which I am about to build shall be wonderful great; as to its structure and ornaments.”
cors of ground wheat: Barnes judges the Hebrew for ground wheat probably corrupt, and he restores it from the parallel in Kings, where the wheat is given as food. He reads the barley, wine and oil as rations for the foreign laborers. Kings gives the payment in brief.
2 Chronicles 2:10
“Beaten wheat - The Hebrew text is probably corrupt here. The true original may be restored from marginal reference, where the wheat is said to have been given “for food.” The barley and the wine are omitted in Kings. The author of Chronicles probably filled out the statement which the writer of Kings has given in brief; the barley, wine, and ordinary oil, would be applied to the sustenance of the foreign laborers.”
A skilled man sent, and the laborers numbered
2 Chronicles 2:11-12
Hiram's reply opens with a confession before it names any timber: “Because the LORD loves His people, He has set you over them as king”. Kings gives Hiram's blessing in a shorter clause, and Chronicles lets the king of Tyre name Israel's God as the maker of heaven and earth.
2 Chronicles 2:11
“Then Huram the king of Tyre answered in writing, which he sent to Solomon,.... In which letter he told him he had considered the contents of his, and would grant him all that he desired, see 1Ki 5:8. because the Lord hath loved his people; he hath made thee king over them; which are much the same words the queen of Sheba said to Solomon; see Gill on 1Ki 10:9.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 2:11
“Josephus and others professed to give Greek versions of the correspondence, which (they said) had taken place between Hiram and Solomon. No value attaches to those letters, which are evidently forgeries. Because the Lord hath loved his people - Compare the marginal references. The neighboring sovereigns, in their communications with the Jewish monarchs, seem to have adopted the Jewish name for the Supreme Being (Yahweh), either identifying Him (as did Hiram) with their own chief god or (sometimes) meaning merely to acknowledge Him as the special God of the Jewish nation and country.”
who made the heavens: Hiram names the LORD as Creator. Wesley takes this as the confession of a proselyte who worshipped the God of Israel. Barnes reads the title as a common formula for a supreme god among Asian nations, found in Persian inscriptions of Ormazd.
2 Chronicles 2:12
“Made heaven and earth - It seems Huram was not only a friend to the Jewish nation, but a proselyte to their religion, and that he worshipped Jehovah, the God of Israel, (who was now known by that name to the neighbour-nations) as the God that made heaven and earth, and the fountain of power as well as of being.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Chronicles 2:13-16
a skillful man endowed with creativity: Hiram sends “Huram-abi, a skillful man endowed with creativity,” whose mother is “from the daughters of Dan” and whose father is “a man of Tyre”. The pairing recalls Oholiab of Dan set beside Bezalel of Judah at Exodus 31:6, so a craftsman of Dan's line again works for Judah's king.
2 Chronicles 2:13
“Of Huram my father’s - A wrong translation. Huram here is the workman sent by the king of Tyre and not the king of Tyre’s father (see 1Ki 5:1 note). The words in the original are Huram Abi, and the latter word is now commonly thought to be either a proper name or an epithet of honor, e. g., my master-workman.”
the daughters of Dan: Gill divides the verse into descent and skill. The descent seems to disagree with 1 Kings 7:14, a question Gill treats at that passage. The list of skills repeats Solomon's request in verse 7 and adds stone, wood and fine linen.
2 Chronicles 2:14
“The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan,.... Here follows an account of the descent of the artificer, and of his skill in working; of what seeming disagreement there may be in this account, with that in 1Ki 7:14; see Gill on 1Ki 7:14.”
the wheat, barley, olive oil: Hiram accepts the wage of verse 10 item by item. Barnes reads these goods as the rations that fed the woodcutters of Lebanon. The list here names the oil before the wine, a small change of order from verse 10.
2 Chronicles 2:15
“Now therefore, the wheat, and the barley, the oil, and the wine, which my lord hath spoken of,.... In his letter to him, 2Ch 2:10 as for the phrase "my lord", which some think is used, because Hiram was tributary to Solomon, it may only be a respectful way of speaking: let him send unto his servants; Hiram accepted thereof as a proper reward for the work of his servants.”
down to Joppa: Joppa was a Mediterranean port, the same harbor Jonah went down to. Gill names the timber as cedar and fir, following 1 Kings 5:8. The land haul to Jerusalem ran about forty miles.
2 Chronicles 2:16
“And we will cut wood out of Lebanon, as much as thou shall need,.... Both cedar and fir, 1Ki 5:8, and we will bring it to thee in floats by sea to Joppa; a port in the Mediterranean sea, the same that Jonah went down to; see Gill on 1Ki 5:9, and thou shalt carry it up to Jerusalem; in land carriages, about forty miles off.”
2 Chronicles 2:17-18
Solomon numbered all the foreign men in the land of Israel: Solomon numbers “all the foreign men in the land of Israel,” the peoples Israel had not driven out. Chronicles names this labor force as foreigners, where the parallel in Kings does not. It gives the total, 153,600, set to carry loads, cut stone and supervise the work.
2 Chronicles 2:17
“The strangers are the non-Israelite population of the holy land, the descendants (chiefly) of those Canaanites whom the children of Israel did not drive out. The reimposition of the bond-service imposed on the Canaanites at the time of the conquest Jdg 1:28, Jdg 1:30, Jdg 1:33, Jdg 1:35, but discontinued in the period of depression between Joshua and Saul, was (it is clear) due to David, whom Solomon merely imitated in the arrangements described in these verses.”
3,600 supervisors: Gill reads this verse as a repeat of verse 2, placed here to show how the foreign residents were assigned. Barnes takes the supervisors' task as compelling the people to labor. On the numbers he refers to 1 Kings 5:16.
2 Chronicles 2:18
“And he set threescore and ten thousand of them,.... Which is repeated from 2Ch 2:2, to show how the above number of strangers were disposed of; 70,000 of them bearers of burdens, 80,000 of them hewers of wood, and 3,600 overseers of the workmen, in all 153,600; an emblem of the Gentiles employed in building the spiritual temple, the church, Zec 6:15.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 2:18
“On the numbers, see the 1Ki 5:16 note. To set the people a work - Or, “to set the people to work” - i. e., to compel them to labor. Probably, like the Egyptian and Assyrian overseers of forced labor, these officers carried whips or sticks, with which they quickened the movements of the sluggish.”
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative carrying two royal letters, a building request and the reply to it, as Clarke classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The workforce numbered at both ends of the chapter | The same three figures stand at verse 2 and at verse 18, seventy thousand porters, eighty thousand stonecutters and three thousand six hundred supervisors, counted in the Berean text in the store. Verse 17 supplies between them the census the figures come from, a hundred and fifty three thousand six hundred foreign men in the land. John Gill reads the numbered strangers as the labour force the Chronicler names plainly where the parallel account leaves it unlabelled.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on 2 Chronicles 2:17. | 2 Chronicles 2:2, 2 Chronicles 2:17, 2 Chronicles 2:18 |
| The letter and the answer | Two letters carry the chapter. Solomon's request runs from verse 3 to verse 10 and opens on precedent, what Huram did for David. Huram's reply runs from verse 11 to verse 16 and opens on a confession about Israel's God before it names a single log. Adam Clarke and John Wesley both read the request as a statement of what the house is for, the incense, the showbread and the offerings of every sabbath, new moon and appointed feast.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Chronicles 2:3. | 2 Chronicles 2:3, 2 Chronicles 2:4, 2 Chronicles 2:11, 2 Chronicles 2:12, 2 Chronicles 2:15 |
| The crafts, the timber and the wages | The letter lists what is wanted and what will be paid. Verse 7 asks for one man skilled in gold, silver, bronze, iron and in purple, crimson and blue yarn. Verse 8 asks for cedar, cypress and algum from Lebanon. Verse 10 sets the wage in wheat, barley, wine and olive oil. Albert Barnes notes that the wage list here runs fuller than the parallel account, which gives wheat and oil alone.Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on 2 Chronicles 2:10. | 2 Chronicles 2:7, 2 Chronicles 2:8, 2 Chronicles 2:9, 2 Chronicles 2:10, 2 Chronicles 2:14 |
Where the chapter stands in the book
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
The book page gives Solomon the first of its three wide panels, 1:1 to 9:31, and the temple rises through the alliance with Huram of Tyre at 2:1 to 5:1. In the proposed ring the dossier carries for that panel, this chapter is the second limb, Huram of Tyre and the foreign workforce gathered. Its answer comes late in the reign, at Huram again and the queen of Sheba, 8:1 to 9:12. The ring is Raymond B. Dillard's and its status stays proposed. It is drawn in full on the study page for chapter 7.
The historical value
The alliance is the ordinary trade of the eastern Mediterranean. Verse 16 sends the Lebanon timber down the coast as rafts to Joppa, and the land carriage from there up to Jerusalem is about forty miles by the site's own note. Tyre held the maritime skill and the cedar, and Israel paid in grain, wine and oil.
The dossier sets chapters 2 through 7 beside the Mesopotamian temple-building inscriptions, the Gudea Cylinders among them, where the genre runs from about 2100 BC for two millennia. Its fixed sequence is divine authorization, the gathering of materials and craftsmen, construction, a dedication festival, and the deity taking up residence. Victor Hurowitz set the sequence out in I Have Built You an Exalted House, 1992, and the dossier's verdict is that these chapters follow it step for step. Two things in the account have no counterpart in the genre. No image is installed in the shrine, and what fills the house is the glory of the God who says heaven cannot contain him at 6:18.
The debated concept
Huram's confession at verses 11 and 12 is read two ways. On the first, the Tyrian king speaks as a man who has come to Israel's faith, since he blesses the LORD as the maker of heaven and earth. On the second, he speaks as a king honouring a neighbour's god by that god's own name, which was the diplomatic courtesy of the age. The site's exposition note states that the commentators divide and that the letter settles neither.
The craftsman's mother is a second question. This chapter puts her among the daughters of Dan and 1 Kings 7:14 puts her in the tribe of Naphtali. The commentators read a Danite woman married into Naphtali, and the site's note records that neither text is set aside for the other.
The New Testament and the later record
The guard Solomon writes into his letter at verse 6 is the guard the New Testament keeps. Stephen argues from the same ground at Acts 7:47 to 49, where the house Solomon built stands under the limit that the Most High is not housed by human building. The site's study guide carries the fuller form of the point at 6:18, read forward through John 1:14 and the Word who dwelt among us.
Keep studying
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 form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Chronicles 2:3; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on 2 Chronicles 2:10; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Books of the Chronicles, on 2 Chronicles 2:13 and Raymond B. Dillard, 2 Chronicles, Word Biblical Commentary, 1987.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.