2 Chronicleschapter 2
18 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
Key verse
Then Huram the king of Tyre answered in writing, which he sent to Solomon, Because the Lord hath loved his people, he hath made thee king over them.
It stands in A skilled man sent, and the laborers numbered, verses 11 to 18.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Solomon purposes to build a house for the name of Jehovah and a house for his kingdom, and musters seventy thousand bearers of burdens, eighty thousand hewers in the mountains, and three thousand six hundred overseers. His letter to Huram of Tyre states the theology of the project before a stone is laid: 'the house which I build is great; for great is our God above all gods. But who is able to build him a house, seeing heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him?' He asks for cedar, cypress, and algum from Lebanon, and for a craftsman skilled in gold, silver, brass, iron, purple, crimson, and blue. Huram sends Huram-abi and blesses the God who made heaven and earth.
Context
History · Ezra · 2 Chronicles overview
The world behind this chapter
2 Chronicles 2The history
The chapter belongs to Solomon as a king organising a public works project, about 967 BC, in the years before the foundation was laid.
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 rest of the history, and what it meant to them
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.
What it meant to them
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.
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.
Sources cited
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Victor Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House , 1992
Where the chapter sits
2 Chronicles 2 falls in Solomon's reign (chapters 1–9). Wisdom at Gibeon; temple construction and dedication; the Queen of Sheba; Solomon's riches and death. Parallels 1 Kgs 1–11 with temple emphasis.
After it: Kings of Judah: Rehoboam to Ahaz, chapters 10–28.
The whole shape of 2 Chronicles→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Solomon's letter to Huram: our God is greater than all gods
1. (vv. 1-2)
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
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.”
for the name of the Lord, and an house for his kingdom: Solomon determined to build an house for the name of the LORD, and an house for his kingdom names both projects in one sentence before either begins, and Chronicles keeps that order through the whole account, temple named first though the palace took longer to raise in Kings' fuller telling. The labor force is numbered here at the very outset, seventy thousand bearers, eighty thousand hewers and thirty six hundred overseers, a count the parallel exposition at 1 Kings 5:15-16 already carries with its small variance. Chronicles states the double purpose and the workforce in the same breath, as one royal act rather than two.
2. (vv. 3-6)
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).”
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.”
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.”
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
As thou didst deal with David my father: Solomon's letter to Huram opens on precedent, as thou didst deal with David my father, then states what the house is for: incense, shewbread, the morning and evening burnt offerings, sabbaths, new moons and the solemn feasts, an ordinance for ever to Israel. Then comes v6, the confession that the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him, so the house is only a place to burn sacrifice before him and not a residence in the pagan sense. Kings keeps that theology for Solomon's dedication prayer at the temple's completion (1 Ki 8:27); Chronicles moves it forward into the building request itself, so the king writing for cedar already says plainly what the cedar cannot hold.
3. (vv. 7-10)
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
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.”
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.”
Send me now therefore a man cunning to work in gold: Solomon asks for one man skilled in gold, silver, brass, iron, purple, crimson and blue, and able to grave, set alongside the craftsmen David had already provided in Judah and Jerusalem, named again at 1 Chr 22:15. The timber order for cedar, fir and algum trees is paid in kind, wheat, barley, wine and oil for the hewers, a wage list fuller than Kings' parallel account, which gives wheat and oil alone. Solomon's own word for the scale of the work, wonderful great in v9, sets the measure the Chronicler holds through the rest of the building chapters.
B. A skilled man sent, and the laborers numbered
1. (vv. 11-12)
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.”
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
Because the Lord hath loved his people: Huram's reply opens with a confession before it names any timber, because the LORD hath loved his people, he hath made thee king over them, and v12 carries it further, blessed be the LORD God of Israel, that made heaven and earth. Kings gives Hiram's blessing in one shorter clause; Chronicles lets the Tyrian king name Israel's God at greater length as maker of heaven and earth. Whether Huram speaks as a convert to Israel's faith or as a king honoring a neighbor's god by that god's own name is read differently among the commentators, and the letter itself does not settle which.
2. (vv. 13-16)
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
a cunning man, endued with understanding: Huram sends a craftsman called Huram my father's, an honorific title rather than kinship, whose mother is of the daughters of Dan and whose father was a man of Tyre. The pairing recalls Bezaleel of Judah given the tabernacle's chief gift and Aholiab of Dan set beside him at Exodus 31:6, so that a craftsman of Dan's line again stands at the side of Judah's king for the greater house. Kings names the same man's mother of the tribe of Naphtali, a variance the commentators read as a mother married into Naphtali from a Danite family, and neither text is set aside for the other. The letter closes with the wheat, barley, oil and wine confirmed and the timber promised by raft to Joppa, some forty miles short of Jerusalem by land.
3. (vv. 17-18)
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.”
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.”
after the numbering wherewith David his father had numbered them: Solomon numbers all the strangers in the land, the non-Israelite population left from the peoples Israel had not driven out, matching a count David had already taken of the same group. Kings' parallel account does not name this labor force strangers; Chronicles states it directly, a hundred fifty three thousand six hundred of them set to bear burdens, hew stone in the mountain and oversee the work. Gill reads the number as a picture of Gentiles built into the spiritual temple the church would become, an application he draws from Zechariah 6:15 rather than a claim the text makes for itself.
This page carries no textual note on 2 Chronicles 2. 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, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; 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.