2 Chronicles8chapter 8

2 Chronicles 8:1-6

The twenty years join the temple's seven and the king's own house's thirteen into one span, then Chronicles lists what filled it: cities restored from Huram, a campaign against Hamath-zobah, and store, chariot and garrison cities across the land. Hamath-zobah is the one recorded military campaign of Solomon's reign in either book, a break from the peace that otherwise defines him. Tadmor in the wilderness is the same site later ages knew as the caravan city Palmyra. The list runs close to 1 Kings 9:15-19; Chronicles gathers the scattered building notices of Kings into one register of everything Solomon desired to build.

2 Chronicles 8:7-10

The surviving Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, the peoples Israel did not drive out, are set to forced labor and tribute that the Chronicler says continues to his own day. Solomon makes no Israelite a servant for the work; the sons of Israel serve instead as his men of war, captains, and commanders of chariots and horsemen. Two hundred and fifty officers, drawn from Israel, rule over the whole labor force. Chronicles states this division plainly where 1 Kings 9:20-23 gives it in the same terms, keeping Israel a free people even inside a great building program.

2 Chronicles 8:11

Solomon moves Pharaoh's daughter out of the city of David into a house built for her, and Chronicles alone records the reason he gives: the places are holy, whereunto the ark of the LORD hath come. The ark had stood in the city of David since David's own procession in 1 Chronicles 15, and even after its move to the temple, Solomon judges no foreign wife fit to dwell there. Wesley reads the concern as guarding against the very appearance of pollution rather than any specific fault charged against her. 1 Kings 9:24 records the same move without stating the reason; the motive here is the Chronicler's own addition.

2 Chronicles 8:12-16

Solomon offers the burnt offerings at the daily rate, and on the sabbaths, new moons and the three annual feasts of unleavened bread, weeks and tabernacles, exactly as the commandment of Moses required. He sets the priests in their courses and the Levites in their charges to praise and to minister, and the porters at every gate, following the order David had already established in 1 Chronicles 23-26. Verse 14 calls David the man of God, a title Chronicles gives sparingly, elsewhere only to Moses and to one later prophet. Because the priests and Levites departed not from that commandment in any matter, the chapter can close by saying the house of the LORD was perfected, worship carried out in order rather than stone alone finishing the temple.

2 Chronicles 8:17-18

Solomon goes down to Ezion-geber and Eloth on the shore of Edom, ports that give Israel access to the Red Sea trade. Huram sends ships and sailors who know the sea, since the Tyrians had the maritime skill Israel never developed, and Israelite crews sail out under Tyrian direction. The voyage to Ophir returns four hundred and fifty talents of gold to Solomon, a fortune the text records without further comment. Chronicles closes its account where 1 Kings 9:26-28 closes its own telling of the same voyage, the wealth flowing from a partnership rather than from any skill of Israel's own at sea.