2 Chronicles 2:1–5:2 (NIV)✞: Preparations for Building the Temple, Solomon Builds the Temple, The Temple’s Furnishings
Partially because so much of Chronicles is a repeat of material from Samuel and Kings, and partially because a lot of content about the plans for a building is boring to read, I’m combining together a lot of material in this one post. Which is exactly the opposite of what the Bible does; there are more words in the Bible devoted to the building of the Temple (including the Tabernacle, I believe) than any other topic.
Passage
I’ll mostly go through it chapter by chapter.
Everything starts in Chapter 2✞, in which Solomon engages Hiram, king of Tyre, to supply not only materials but also expertise:
7 “Send me, therefore, a man skilled to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, and in purple, crimson and blue yarn, and experienced in the art of engraving, to work in Judah and Jerusalem with my skilled workers, whom my father David provided.
8 “Send me also cedar, juniper and algum logs from Lebanon, for I know that your servants are skilled in cutting timber there. My servants will work with yours 9 to provide me with plenty of lumber, because the temple I build must be large and magnificent.
In return, he promises to send Hiram a quantify of food that, I assume, is very large.
Hiram agrees, and the expert he sends to Israel is a man named Huram-Abi, whose father is from Tyre but whose mother is from Dan – that is, I believe Huram-Abi is half Israelite.
Solomon also sets up conscribed labour consisting of foreigners living in Israel to carry out the work:
- 70,000 “carriers,” which is probably exactly what it sounds like: people to carry materials from one location to another. (When we marvel at things that were built in antiquity, this is a big part of what we marvel at.)
- 80,000 “stonecutters in the hills,” which I think might be less glamorous than it sounds: I think it’s essentially mining of the materials. I don’t think it’s called “mining” when you’re dealing with marble or other kinds of stone, but I don’t know if it’s skilled labour – I think it’s just labour.
- 3,600 foremen over the other 150,000 workers.
In Chapter 3✞ Solomon actually builds the Temple. He does it on “Mount Moriah” (see below), as decided by his father David, on Araunah’s threshing floor.
Chapter 3 gives a lot more detail, but the main things I’ll point out are that the Temple measured 27 metres (90 feet) by 9 metres (30 feet). Which… is not as big as I was thinking it was! 27 metres/90 feet is about the length of an adult blue whale, and 9 metres/30 feet is about the length of a typical stretch limo. So yes, big, but… in my mind I was thinking it was actually bigger.
Interestingly, the Most Holy Place—the inner, inner place where nobody was allowed to go except for the High Priest once a year—was 9x9 metres (30x30 feet). I always picture it as a room within a room, but it was the same width as the overall foundation, so it was more like a “back room” than an “inner room.”
In Chapter 4✞ we’re told about the Temple’s furnishings, everything from the altar to the pots and shovels and sprinkling bowls, and in 5:1✞ we’re told that the Temple also had a treasury, which is where Solomon put a lot of other items that had been dedicated by King David.
Thoughts
A lot of this is pretty straightforward, but one detail almost escaped my notice.
When I read in 3:1✞ that the Temple was being built on Mount Moriah the name didn’t sound familiar – which is typical for me. I can’t remember every name mentioned in the Bible; I figured it was just another name for Mount Zion, though a less commonly used one.
But out of curiosity I looked it up, and that name is actually only used in two places in all of the Bible: here, and in Genesis 22 it’s where Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac. (In Genesis it’s actually “the region of Moriah,” where God would show Abraham a particular mountain to use.)
I think the author(s) of Chronicles are trying to show us that this particular location has been of importance to God for many, many years. I don’t think that means it’s somehow “magic,” as if God is more there than He is elsewhere—though that’s definitely picture that’s painted when the Temple existed—but it seems to have been a special place of worship to Him since… well, since almost the beginning, going right back to Abraham!
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