The Shared Word Translation · Study & Discuss
2 Chronicles 2
Solomon Plans to Build the Temple
Solomon commanded that a house be built for the name of the LORD and a royal house for himself. Solomon counted seventy thousand burden-bearers, eighty thousand stonecutters in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred to oversee them. Solomon sent word to Huram king of Tyre, saying, “As you dealt with David my father and sent him cedars to build for himself a house to live in, so deal with me. Look, I am building a house for the name of the LORD my God, to consecrate it to him, to burn fragrant incense before him, for the continual arrangement of bread, and for burnt offerings morning and evening, on Sabbaths, new moons, and appointed festivals of the LORD our God. This is upon Israel forever. The house that I am building is great, for our God is greater than all gods. But who is able to build him a house, since the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain him? And who am I that I should build him a house except as a place to burn offerings before him? And now send me a skilled man to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, purple, crimson, and blue yarn, and one who knows how to engrave, to work with the skilled men who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom David my father prepared. Send me also cedar, cypress, and algum timber from Lebanon, for I know that your servants know how to cut timber from Lebanon. My servants will be with your servants, to prepare timber for me in abundance, for the house I am building will be great and wonderful. Look, I will give to your servants, the woodcutters who cut the timber, twenty thousand cors of crushed wheat, twenty thousand cors of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.”
Huram Responds to Solomon
Huram king of Tyre answered in a letter and sent to Solomon: “Because the LORD loves his people, he has made you king over them.” Huram said, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who made the heavens and the earth, who has given to David the king a wise son, endowed with discretion and understanding, who will build a house for the LORD and a royal house for himself. And now I am sending a skilled and understanding man, Huram-Abi, son of a woman from the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre. He knows how to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, wood, purple, blue, fine linen, and crimson, and to make every kind of engraving and devise every design that may be given to him, with your skilled men and the skilled men of my lord David your father. Now therefore let my lord send to his servants the wheat, barley, oil, and wine of which he spoke, and we will cut timber from Lebanon according to all your need and bring it to you as rafts by sea to Joppa. Then you shall bring it up to Jerusalem.”
Solomon Organizes the Labor Force
Solomon counted all the resident aliens who were in the land of Israel after the census that David his father had taken of them, and one hundred fifty-three thousand six hundred were found. He appointed seventy thousand of them as burden-bearers, eighty thousand as stonecutters in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred as overseers to make the people work.