Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

and Num. iv. 6sqq. WJ! is used impersonally, and derived from Dpnt q£ Ewald, jj L93,&, and 138,5. As David waa then in his

Bntieth year, this decrepitude was not the natural result of extreme old age, hut the consequence of a sickly constitution, arising out of the hardships which lie had endured in his agitated and restless lite. The proposal of his servants, to restore the vital warmth which lie had lost by bringing a virgin to lie with him, is recommended as an experiment by Galen (Method. medic, viii 7). Ami n has been an acknowledged fact with physicians of all ages, that departing vitality may be preserved and strengthened by communicating the vital warmth of strong and youthful persons (compare Trusen, SM n Gtbr&ucfu u. Kranlcheitender Hebrder, p. li 5 7 sqq.). The singular suffix in SP*? is to be explained on the ground that one person spoke. HTtrn niy^ a maid who is a virgin. Km) *T?y, to stand before a person as

. ant = to serve (cf. Deut. i. 38 with Ex. xxiv. 13). JUSb, an attendant or nurse, from |3D=p^ to live with a person, then to be helpful or useful to him. With the words " that she may lie in thy bosom," the passage passes, as is frequently the case, from the third person to a direct address. — Vers. 3, 4. They then looked about for a beautiful girl for this purpose, and found Abishag of Shunem, the present Sulcm or Solam, at the southeastern foot of the Duhy or Little Hermon (see at Josh. xix. 18\ who became the king's nurse and waited upon him. The further remark, " and the king knew her not," is not introduced either to indicate the impotence of David or to show that she did not become David's concubine, but simply to explain how it was that it could possibly occur to Adonijah (ch. ii. 17) to ask for her as his wife. Moreover, the whole affair is to be judged according to the circumstances of the times, when there was nothing offensive in polygamy.

Vers. 5-10. Adonijah seized the opportunity of David's decrepitude to make himself king. Although he was David's fourth son (2 Sam. iii. 4), yet after the death of Ammon and Absalom he was probably the eldest, as Chileab, David's second son, had most likely died when a child, since he is never mentioned again. Adonijah therefore thought that he had a claim to the throne (cf. ch. ii. 15), and wanted to secure it before his father's death. But in Israel, Jehovah, the God-King of His

Solomon b 'lit be thrown still taore Into the Bhade. Pot although Zadok was only high priest at the tabernacle at Gibeon, he appears to have taken the lead; as we may infer from the that he is always mentioned before Abiathar (c£ - Sam. viii. 17, w. 25, and xv. 24 sqq.). Forwe cannot imagine that Joah ami Abiathar had supported Adonijah as having right on his side (Thenius), for the simple reason that Joah did not trouble himself about right, ami for his own part shrank from no crime, when he thought that he had lost favour with the king. — Ver. 8. If Adonijah had powerful supporters in Joab the commander-in-chief and the high priest Abiathar, the rest of the leading officers of state, via. Zadok die high priest (see at 2 Sam. viii 17), Benaiah, captain of the king's body-guard (see at 2 Sam. viii. 18 and.win. 20, 21), the prophet Nathan, Shimei (probably the son of Klah mentioned in ch. iv. 18), and lei (unknown), and the Gibborim of David (see at 2 Sam. xxiii. 8 sqq.), were not with him.— Vers. 9 sqq. Adonijah comim need his usurpation, like Absalom (2 Sara. xv. 2), with a solemn sacrificial meal, at which he was proclaimed king, "at the stone of Zoeheleih by the side of the fountain of Rogel" i.e. the spy's fountain, or, according to the ( lhaldee and Syriac, the fuller's founi tin, the present fountain of Job or Nehemiah, below the junction of the valley of Hinnom with the valley of Jehoshaphat (see at 2 Sara. vii. 17 and Josh. xv. 7). E. G. Schultz (Jerusalem, tins VorUsung, p. 79) supposes the stone or rock of Zochcletli to be " the steep, rocky corner of the southern slope of the valley of Hinnom, which casts so deep a shade." " This neighbourhood (Wady el Ruhdb) is still a place of recreation for the inhabitants of Jerusalem." To this festal meal Adonijah invited all his brethren except Solomon, and " all the men of Judah, the Icing's servants," i.e. all the Judseans who were in the king's service, i.e. were serving at court as being members of his own tribe, with the exception of Nathan the prophet, Benaiah, and the Gibborim. The fact that Solomon and the others mentioned were not included in the invitation, showed very clearly that Adonijah was informed of Solomon's election as successor to the throne, and wa3 also aware of the feelings of Nathan and Benaiah.

Vers. 11-31. Adonijah's attempt was frustrated by the vigilance of the prophet Nathan. — Vers. 11 sqq. Nathan informed Solomon's mother, Bathsheba (see at 2 Sam. xi. 3), that Adonijah i nuking himself king prjo *r. that be hi hm [i | as] king: Theni.1 advised her, in order to ana that of her bod Solomon ww = So that thou mai

1 the long and remind him of ii oath, that her eon S honld be king ai him, and to inquire why Adonjjah h I: Adonijah had really got pom aUv hare put Solomon and hie mi I way,.. the m after berand coi lai kVc

!inn it by similar ai \ ':

l to jah had taken in hand in oppoi will showed ti ison to fear the worst Loniian reati -cause patently a r* Bui here the appearance i^ deo sis to \ ayah thou my lord king must d* to tell them who (whether Adonijah or Solomon) is to sit upon thf throne after thee.*1 MThe decision of this question Ls in thy handj for the people have not yel attached themselves to Adonijah, hut are looking to thee, to Bee what thou wilt do; and they will follow thy judgment* if thou only hastenest to make SoloJ tgain, in ver. 21, to the fate which would await both herself and her BOD Solomon after the death of the king. They would be D*WW?, ■ guilty of a capital crime. " Wo should be punished as though guilty of high treason" (Clericus). — Vers. 22 sqq. While Bathsheba was still speaking, Nathan came.

When he was announced to the king, Bathsheba retired, just as afterwards Nathan went away when the king had Bathsheba called in again (cf. ver. 28 with ver. 32). This was done, not t > avoid the appearance of a mutual arrangement (Cler., Then., etc.), but for is of propriety, inasmuch as, m audiences granted by the king to his wife or one of his counsellors, no third person ought to he present unless the king required his attendance. Nathan confirmed Bathsheba's statement, commencing thus: "My lord king, thou hast really said, Adonijah shall be king after me... I for he has gone down to-day, and red a feast,... and they are eating and drinking before him, and saying, Long live king Adonijah! " And he then closed by asking, " Has this taken place on the part of my lord the king, and thou hast not shown thy servants (Nathan, Zadok, Benaiah, and Solomon) who is to sit upon the throne of my lord the king after him? " The indirect question introduced with EX is not merely an expression of modesty, but also of doubt, whether what had occurred had emanated from the king and he had not shown it to his servants. — Vers. 28-30. The king then sent for Bathsheba again, and gave her this promise on oath: " As truly as Jehovah liveth, who hath redeemed my soul out of all distress (as in 2 Sam. iv. 9), yea, as I swore to thee by Jehovah, the God of Israel, saying, Solomon thy son shall be king after me,... yea, so shall I do this day." The first and third *? serve to give emphasis to the assertion, like imo, yea (cf. Ewald, § 330, b). The second merely serves as an introduction to the words. — Ver. 31. Bathsheba then left the king with the deepest prostration and the utterance of a blessing, as an expression of her inmost gratitude. The benedictory formula, " May the king jive for ever," was only us a ei-jn th.ii at P lie honour, which the kin • is;i large reservoir buill own stones, I and thai slop bably a more coi ible one in a trim knd the I live the kin I I Sam.

tclaxnation after the anointing bad taken p \ the anointing tl re to conduct

Solomon up I Aomon then to ascend the throne, as David was sboi ippoint him prince over I rael and Jodah in his own Btead Both the anointing and the appointment lomon as ]»ii; bt the whole of the coven oatii d to the tin-one bad nbtful through Adonijah's attempt, and t! king w.11 ali\ In qo question, ami the sun followed the Gather afl ith, the unanimous opinion of the Rabbins U, that there was no anointing at all. i 1 and Judah are mentioned, b David had been the all the tribes under hi, and after the fell away from the bouse of David. — \ ponded to the utfc I t be royal will with a confii Amen, thus Baith Jehovah the God of my Lad the 1 may the word of the king becom

: of Jehovah b I, who fulfils what 1I«' pron P xwui. 9); and added the pious wish, " May Jehovah be with nth David, and glorify his throne the throne oi David," — a wish which was uot merely " flat! of Ins paternal vanity" (Thenius), but which had in view the the monarchy, and was also fulfilled by God hi. 11 aointing of Solomon was carried out Hum-.', as the long had commanded. On the.

thi and ridhi see at 2 Sam. viii 18. u The oil-horn out of the tent" (/.<. a vessel made of horn and containing oil) was no doubt one which held the holy anointing oil, with which the priests and the vessels of the sanctuary were anointed (see Ex. xxx. 22 sqcp). The tent (Al^n), however, is not the tabernacle

1 The conjecture of Thenius, that pri3 should be altered into fij?33, is hardly worth mentioning; for, apart from the fact that all the ancient versions confirm the corectness of pri3 the objections which Thenius brings against it amount to mere conjectures or groundless assumptions, such as that Zadok took the oil-horn out of the tabernacle at Gibeon, which is not stated in ver. 39. Moreover, Gibeon was a three hours' journey from Jerusalem, so that it would have been absolutely impossible for the anointing, which was not commanded by David till after Adonijah's feast had commenced, to be finished so quickly that the procession could return to Jerusalem before it was ended, as is distinctly recorded in ver. 41.

fur th-:r granted to him, was offered by I1:ier the return of his anointed BOD Solomon to the royal palace. 0 that it ought strictly to have been mentioned aftor vet. 40. The worship of the grey-headed David upon the bed recalls to mind the worship of the patriarch Jacob after making known hig will (Gen. xlvii.'»1. Vers. 49, 50. The news spread tenor. All the guests of Adonijah tied, every man his way. Adonijah himself sought refuge from Solomon at the horns of the altar. The altar was regarded from time immemorial and among all nations as a place of refuge tor criminals deserving of death; hut, according to Ex xxi 11, in [srael it was only allowed to afford protection in cases of unintentional slaying, and for these special cities of refuge were afterwards provided 'Num. scxxv.). In tin; horns of the altar, as symbols of power and strength, there v. acentrated the true significance of the altar a divine place, from which there emanated both life and health wii. 19). By grasping the horns of the altar the culprit placed himself under the protection of the saving and helping grace i >i God, which wipes away sin, and thereby abolishes punishment (see Bahr, >'; 7 Cult i. ]>. 474). The ark of the covenant in Zion, or to the one at the tabernacle at Gibeon, or to the one built by David on the threshing-floor of Araunah, cannot be determined with certainty. It was probably to the first of these, howev< nothing is said about a flight to

Gibeon, and with regard to the altar of Araunah it is not certain that it was provided with horns like the altars of the two sanctuaries.— Vera 51, 52. When this was reported to Solomon, together with the prayer of Adonijah that the king would swear to him that he would not put him to death with the sword (DK before JW?J, a particle used in an oath), he promised him conditional impunity: " If he shall be brave (/T~i?, vir probus), none of his hair shall fall to the earth," equivalent to not a hair of his head shall be injured (cf. 1 Sam. xiv. 45); " but if evil be found in him," i.e. if he render himself guilty of a fresh crime, " he shall die." — Ver. 53. He then had him fetched down from the altar pn.^n, inasmuch as the altar stood upon an eminence); and w7hen he fell down before the king, i.e. did homage to him as king, he gave him his life and freedom in the words, " Go to thy house." The expression ^n^p r\b does not imply his banishment from the court (compare ch. ii. 13 and 2 Sam. xiv. 24). Solomon did not wish to commence his own ascent of the throne by lies of the realm ma< mon king a sc« whi ted in in the t Jhronicl ling to bhi liar plan of I work, there is qo detailed ption of the installation of

Darid on the throne; o here the author of our books I omitted th< I I national diet, an<l the homage paid by the estates of the realm to the new kin not being required by the purpose of Ins work, and has communicated tinlast oal admonitions and instructions of the dying king Dai I.1

When David saw thai his life was drawing to a close, he first of all admonished his son Solomon to be valiant in the obf the oommandments of God. " I,ur" the way of all ng and he a man," — not "hear my departure hravelv," as apposes, but prove thyself brave (c£ 1 Sam. iv. 9) to keep the commandments of the Lord. Just as in 1 Sam iv. (J the object in which the bravery is to show itself is appended simply by the copula /'.so is it here also with '1X1 fTM The phrase '" rnOB^pTlK -*:■:•, to keep the keeping of Jehovah, which so frequently occurs in the T,i.e. to observe or obey whal is to be observed in relation to Jehovah fcf. Gen. xxvi.

5, Lev. viii 35, xviii 30, etc.), always receives its more precise definition from the context, and is used here, as in (Jen. xxvi. 5, to denote obedience to the law of God in all i bent, or, according to the first definition, to walk in the ways of Jehovah. This is afterwards more fully expanded in the expression 'Ui vnpn TbBO, to keep the ordinances, commandments, rights, and

1 To refute the assertion of De "VVette, Gramberg, and Thenius, that this account of the Chronicles arises from a free mode of dealing with the history, and an intention to suppress everything that did not contribute to the honour of David and his house, — an assertion which can only be attributed to their completely overlooking, not to say studiously ignoring, the different plans of the two works (the books of Kings on the one hand, and those of Chronicles on the other), — it will be sufficient to quote the unprejudiced and thoughtful decision of Bertheau, who says, in his Comm. on 1 Chron. xxiii. 1: " These few words (1 Chron. xxiii. 1) give in a condensed form the substance of the account in 1 Kings i., which is intimately bound up with the account of the family affairs of David in the books of Samuel and Kings, and therefore, according to the whole plan of our historical work, would have been out of place in the Chronicles."

timoniee of Jehovah. 11 I u wot applied to the

• lit; the law, the Brat three of which ai to individualise the rich and main! I mda the ' i^sfew thai thou m Jy and • well, a in ] tent

Btill farther this bleat walking in I I the ]

re shall • a de> in in m i by which he had already twi rved death, namely, his killing the two generals, Abner (2 Sam. in. 27) and Ama a the son of Jether (2 Sam. xx. LO), The name *VJJ is written wS~ln' in 2 Sam. wii. 2 Joab had murdered both of them out of jealousy in a treacherous and malicious manner; and thereby he had not only grievously displeased David and bidden defiance to his loyal authority, but by the murder of Aimer had exposed the king to the suspicion in the eyes of the people of baying instigated the crime (see at 2 Sain. iii. 28, 37). 'OWDBJ " and lie made war-hlood in peace," i.e. lie shed in the time of peace blood that ought only to ilow in war (pfy in the sense of making, as in Dent. xiv. 1, Ex. x. 2, eta), "and brought warblood upon his girdle which was about his loins, and upon his shoes under his feet," BC. in the time of peace. This was the crime therefore: that Joab had murdered the two generals in a time of peace, as one ought only to slay his opponent in time of war. Girdle and shoes, the principal features in oriental attire when a man is pre] taring himself for any business, were covered with blood, since Joab, while saluting them, had treacherously stabbed both of them with the sword. David ought to have punished these two crimes; but when Abner was murdered, he felt himself too weak to visit a man like Joab with the punishment he deserved, as he had only just been anointed king, and consequently he did nothing more than invoke divine retribution upon his head (2 Sam. iii. 29). And when Amasa was slain, the rebellions of Absalom and Sheba had crippled the power of David too much, for him to visit the deed with the punishment that was due. But as king of the nation of God, it was not right for him to allow such crimes to pass unpunished: he therefore transferred the punishment, for which he had wanted the requisite power, to his son and successor. — Ver. 6. " Do according to thy wisdom (" mark the proper opportunity of punishing him" — Seb. Schmidt), and let not his grey hair go down into hell (the region of the dead) in peace (i.e. unpunished)." The punishment of so powerful a man as Joab the commanderin-chief was, required great wisdom, to avoid occasioning a rebellion in the army, which was devoted to him. — Ver. 7. If the demands of justice required that Joab should be punished, the duty of gratitude was no less holy to the dying king. And Solomon was to show this to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and make them companions of his table; because Barzillai had supplii 1 David with provi hia V. from Al

I of tl..w their food bom the.! table," — for tl.- Jar dj in this, at all tl:

ud tip |K»rin hia person t baniahment And if under t li ■ city of DaTidj i.e. upon Mount Zion, where the Bepulchre of David fttil] 'I in tin1 time of Christ (Alls u. 2\)).1 Un the

Length of his reign see 2 Sam. v. 5.

Vera 12-40. Accession of Solomon and Establishment 01 ins C.oykkxment. — Ver. 12 is a heading embracing the substance ct' what follows, and is more fully expanded in 1 Chron. xxix. 23 25. Solomon established his monarchy lirst of all by punishing the rebels, Adonijah (vers. 1 and his adherents

'b-35), and by carrying out the final instructions of his father (vers. 36-46).

Vera 13-25. Adonijah for/cits his life. — Vers. 13-18. Adonijah came to Bathsheba with the request that she would apply to king Solomon to give him Abishag of Shunem as his wife. Bathsheba asked him, " Is peace thy coining?M i.e. comest thou with a peaceable intention? (as in 1 Sam. xvi. 4), because after what had occurred (eh. i. 5 sqq.) she suspected an evil intention. He introduced his petition with these words: " Thou knowest that the kingdom was mine, and all Israel had set its face upon me that I should be king, then the kingdom turned about and became my brother's; for it became his from the Lord." The throne was his, not because he had usurped it, but because it belonged to him as the eldest son at that time, according to the right of primogeniture. Moreover it might have been the case that many of the people wished him to be king, and the fact that he had found adherents in Joab, Abiathar, and others, confirms this; but his assertion, that all Israel had set its eyes upon him as the future king, went beyond the bounds of truth. At the same time, he knew how to cover over the dangerous sentiment implied in his words in a very skilful manner by adding the further remark, that the transfer of the kingdom to his brother had come from Jehovah; so that Bathsheba did not detect the artifice, and pro-

1 The situation of the tombs of the kings of Judah upon Zion, Thenius has attempted to trace minutely in a separate article in Illgen's Zeitschrift fiir die histor. Theol. 1844, i. p. 1 sqq., and more especially to show that the entrance to these tombs must have been on the eastern slope of Mount Zion, which falls into the valley of Tyropoeon, and obliquely opposite to the spring of Siloah. This is in harmony with the statement of Theodoret (qu&st. 6 in iii. Reg.), to the effect that Josephus says, to Bs ftvyipct (ty,$ ra<£%) KctpoL rvju LtXoxfi uvc&t dvTpoiihig 'iyfiv to ff^ij^oc, kccI tv}v fictoi'hix.Yiv or,}.ovu Ko'hvTi'hitciu; although this statement does not occur in any passage of his works as they have come down to us.

iiiid sel ni" «»ii the throne of my father David, and hath n me a hou H I (m-bntim, 2 Sam. vii 1 I shall Adonijah be put to death." Jehovah established Solomon, «>r founded him firmly, by raising him to the throne in spite of Adonijah'8 usurpation, In VOTtoi the central* has ur,,t into the through a copyist's error, rpavnbp, /.,-. He has bestowed upon me a family or po beritj lomon had already on

Rehoboam, about a year old compare \i. 42 with ch, 21 and 2 Chron. xii. L3 } -Vei Solomon had this sentence immediately executed upon Adonijah by Benaiah, the chief of the body-guard, according to the oriental custom of both ancient and modern times. The king ctly just in doing this.

Adonijah, even after Ins first attempt to Beize upon tht' throne had been forgiven by Solomon, endeavoured to ire his end by fresh machinations, duty to God, who had exalted Solomon to the throne, demanded that the rebel should punished with all the severity of the law, without regard to blood-relationship.

27. Deposition -The conduct of Solomon towards the high pri< Abiathar Lb a proof how free his actions were from personal n or too gn by. Abiathar had also forfeited his life through the part he took in A inijah's conspiracy; but Solomon simply Bent him to Anathoth '.<. Anata; see at Josh, xviii 24), to hi- own fields, i.e. to his property then', telling him, u Thou art indeed a man of h." i.r. thou ha red to die, " hut J will not put thee death to-day, because thou hast borne the ark of Jehovah," namely, huth on the occasion of its solemn conveyance to Jerusalem (1 Chron. xv. 1 1 Bqq.) and also on David's flight from ilom (2 Sam. xv. 24, 29), that is I because of his high-priestly dignity, and because thou didst endure all that my father endured,?.<. thou didst share all his afflictions and sufferings, both in the period of Saul's persecution (1 Sam. xxii. 20 sqq., xxiii. 8 sqq.), and during the rebellion of Absalom (2 Sam. xv. 24 sqq.). KWI Dta (to-day) puts a limit upon the pardon, because Solomon could not foresee whether Abiathar would

1 When Thenius denies this, and maintains that Rehoboam cannot have been 41 years old when he began to reign, referring to his discussion at ch. xiv. 21, he answers himself, inasmuch as at ch. xiv. 21 he demonstrates the fallacy of the objections which Cappellus has raised against the correctness of the reading M 41 years."

hand At thr removal of the ark \baalorn a eoosptr*

Bind and coo very will be called carrying the ark. The coo* IK ■ - ace the tfice wae a matter of do ion of my rate, he would

1 -S6 aa to the manner namely, thai y the iword, ■ one of the numerooa flctiooa founded raliatic aatu:.» thu acholar haa ornamented the have adopiad the raadmg nfafaFi *ed both Toaoioi aad K»aM ptopc • to

M no other foundation than an quite fllliitini lot allusion a salotn was in.ij»j-lieable her- i -~s TO: to take a no f 'initiation in the biblical text for the conjecture, that Joab had \.l.mijah the advice to i A.bi bag as bis wife,

Ahithophel had giyen similar advi I Absalom (2 Sam. wi. 21). For oo1 only ii there oo Lntimation> of anything of kind, Imt Solomon punished Joab of hie

Crimea in th< of Aimer and Amasa. M« Abiathar also deposed, without having any fresh machination in Adonijah laid to his char The punishment of Adonijah and Abiathar wn* i|nite sufficient to warn Joab of bis approaching fate, and lead him to seek to Bare his life by fleeing the altar. It is true that, according to Ex, wi. 13, 11, the altar could afford ii' » protection to a man who had committed two muni. ■ But be probably thought no more of which had b. I mmitted a long time before, but simply of his participation in Adonijah's usurpation; and he might very well hope that religious awe would keep Solomon from putting him to death in a holy place for such a crime ftfl that. And it is very evident that this hope was not altogether a visionary one, from the tact that, according to ver. 30, when Joab refused to leave the altar at the summons addressed to him in the name of the kn oaiah did not give him the death- blow at once, but inforn lomon of the tact and received his further commands. Solomon, however, did not arrest the curse of justice, but ordered him to ho put to death there and afterwards bun* The burial of the persons executed was a matter of course, as, according to Deut. xxi. 23, even a person who had been hanged was to be buried before sunset. When, therefore, Solomon gives special orders for the burial of Joab, the meaning is that Benaiah is to provide for the burial with distinct reference to the services which Joab had rendered to his father. " And take away the blood, which Joab shed without cause, from me and my father's house." So long as Joab remained unpunished for the double murder, the blood-guiltiness rested upon the king and his house, on whom the duty of punishment devolved (cf. Num. xxxv. 30, 31; Deut. xix. 13). □an ^ blood without cause, i.e. blood shed in innocence. On the connection of the adverb with the substantive, at which Thenius takes offence, comp. Ges. § 151, 1, and Ewald, § 287, d person's side, would suit very well in the case of Adonijah and Absalom, but not in that of Solomon, whose claim to the throne was not a party affair, but had been previously determined by God.

. 9 the Lord would IfiJ I!

■ the comm tnd of the Lord — Ver.

returns the evil npon thy head," namely, by decreeing the punishment of death, winch he di I for blaspheming the inted of tin* Lord (2 Sam wi. 9). Vei I i Ami king Solomon will be blessed, and the throne of David I blished

Jehovah fox ever," namely, because the king does justice (compare the remark on n Ver. i,;. Solomon then ordered him to be i \> cuted by Benaiah. Tins punishment was also ju L As Solomon had put Shimei's life in his own hand ng apoo him confinement in Jerusalem, and Shimei had promised on oath to obey the long's command, the breach his oath was a i rime for which he had no excu There is no force at all in tl which some commentators adduce in his favour, founded upon the money which his slaves had him, and the wish to recover p ion of them, which was a right one in itself [f Shimei had wished to remain faithful to his oath, he might have informed the king of the flight of his slaves, have entreated the king that they might be brought back, and have awaited the king's decision; hut he had no right thus lightly t»> break the promise given on oath. By the breach of his oath ho had forfeited his life. And this is the first thing with which Solomon charges him, without his being able to off< r any -; and it is not till afterwards that he adduces cond hut in confirmation of the justice of his procedure, the wickedness that he practised towards his lather. — The last clause, " and the kingdom was established by (T?) Solomon," ittached to the following chapter in the Clod Al. of the LXX. (in the Cod. Vat. it is wanting, or rather its place is supplied by a long interpolation), in the Vulgate, and in the Syriac; and indeed rightly so, as Thenius has shown, not merely because of the PI in ch. iii. 2, hut al -au.se of its form as a circumstantial clause, to which the following account (ch. iii. 1 sqq.) is appended.

The establishment of the government in the hands of Solomon having been noticed in ch. ii., the history of his reign commences with an account of his marriage to an Egyptian princess, and with a remark concerning the state of the kingdom at the beginning of his reign (vers. 1-3). There then follows a de- upon it, and ol the fulfil]

»qq.). At the same time, it was only when the foreign wr renounced idolatry and oonfeaeed theii faith in Jehovah, that such marriagee wen in accordance with the spirit of the law. And we may assume thai tins was the case even with Pharaoh's daughter; because Solomon adhered so faithfully t«> tin' I >< >i <1 during the hi n of his reign, that he would not have tole- rated any idolatry in his neighbourhood, and We cannot lind any trace i t Egyptian idolatry in Israel in the time of Solomon, and, lastly, the daughter of Pharaoh is expressly distinguished in ch. \i 1 from the foreign wives who tempted Solomon to idolatry m his old B The assertion of Seb. Schmidt and Thenius he contrary rests upon a false interpretation of ch. XL 1. — "And he brought her into the city of David, till he had finished the building of his palace," etc. Into the city of David: i.e. not into the palace in which his father had dwelt, as Thenius arbitrarily interprets it in opposition to 2 Chron. \ iii. 11, but into a house in the city of David or Jerusalem, from which he brought her up into the house appointed for her after the building of his own palace was linished (ch. i\. 24). The building of the house of Jehovah is mentioned as well, because the sacred tent for the ark of the covenant was set up in the palace of David until the temple was linished, and the temple w\as not consecrated till after the completion of the building of the palace (see at ch. viii 1). By the building of " the wall of Jerusalem" we are to understand a stronger fortilication, and possibly also the extension of the city wall (see at ch. xi. 27). — Ver. 2. " Only the people sacrificed upon high places, because there was not yet a house built for the name of Jehovah until those days." The limiting PI, only, by which this general account of the existing condition of the religious worship is appended to what precedes, may be accounted for from the antithesis to the strengthening of the kingdom by Solomon mentioned in ch. ii. 46. The train of thought is the following: It is true that Solomon's authority was firmly established by the punishment of the rebels, so that he was able to ally himself by marriage with the king of Egypt; but just as he was obliged to bring his Egyptian wife into the city of David, because the building of his palace was not yet finished, so the people, and (according to ver. 3) even Solomon himself, were only able to sacrifice to the Lord at that time upon altars on the high places, because the temple was not yet built The participle D^narp denotes the continuation of this religious condition (see Ewald, § 168, c). The nio?, or high places,1 were places of sacrifice and prayer, which were built upon eminences or hills, because men thought they were nearer the Deity there, and which consisted in some cases probably of an altar only, though as a rule there was an altar with a sanctuary built by the side (ttoa rWI, oh. xiii. 32; 2 Kings xvii. 29, 32, xxiii. 19), so that n9? frequently stands for noa rva (c.q. eh. xi. 7, xiv. 23; 2 Kings xxi. 3, xxiii. 8), and the '"19? is also distinguished from the n?Np (2 Kings xxiii. 15; 2 Chion. xiv. 2). These high \ tted to the worship of Jehovah, and essentially different from the high places of the Canaanil which were cons I to Baal Nevertheless sacrificing upon these high places was opposed to the law, according to which the place which the Lord Himself had chosen for the revelation of His name was the only place where sacrifices were to he offered (Lev. xvii. 3 sqq.); and therefore it is excused lure on the ground that no house temple had yet been built to the name of the I.: 1 \ i - lomon, although he loved ing to eh. ii. 3, in the commandments of th<' Lord as tl written in the law of M 1 and burnt incense upon high place B I re the building of the temple, more 1.lly sine.' the tabernacle had 1 nificance as the centra] pi of the l among 1 1 >ple, through the removal of the ark of ti at, the worship of the high pla a unavoidable; althou n afterwards it still continued as a forbidden euUus, and could not be thoroughly 1 terminated ev< a by the n* hteous kings (ch. xxii. 2

1 The opinion r and I that H03 joines ■ copi ibinations, and can- be proved. And Ewald'i. uallj unfounded, viz. that " high sanctuai h at thai ( ime had become oommon in [srael also, and consisted of a tall stone of 1 m the symbol of the Holy high place, viz. an altar, a

1 tree or gi bo an in. I as vreU b. iii. p.

me band, u cannot be hhown that the tall stone of a conical shape existed eren In the caae of the Canaanitiah bamoth, and, on the other hand, it is impossible to ad loce a shadow of a proof that the I>raelitish bamoth, which were dedicated to Jehorah, were constructed precisely after the pattern of the Baal's- f>amu/A of the Canaauites.

Vers. 4-15. Solomon's Sacrifice and Dream at Gibeon (cf. 2 Chron. i. 1-13). — To implore the divine blessing upon liis reign, Solomon offered to the Lord at Gibeon a great sacrifice— a thousand burnt-offerings; and, according to 2 Chron. i. 2, the representatives of the whole nation took part in this sacrificial festival. At that time the great or principal hamah was at Gibeon (the present el Jib; see at Josh. ix. 3), namely, the Mosaic tabernacle (2 Chron. i. 3), which is called n??ri, because the ark of the covenant, with which Jehovah had bound up His gracious presence, was not there now. " Upon that altar/' i.e. upon the altar of the great hamah at Gibeon, the brazen altar of burnt-offering in the tabernacle (2 Chron. i. 6). — Vers. 5 sqq. The one thing wanting in the place of sacrifice at Gibeon, viz. the ark of the covenant with the gracious presence of Jehovah, was supplied by the Lord in the case of this sacrifice by a direct revelation in a dream, which Solomon received in the nicrht following the sacrifice. There is a connection between the question which God addressed to Solomon in the dream, " What shall I give thee?" and the object of the sacrifice, viz. to seek the help of God for his reign. Solomon commences his prayer in ver. 6 with an acknowledgment of the CTeat favour which the Lord had shown to his father David, and had continued till now by raising his son to his throne (n*fl DV3} as it is this day: cf. 1 Sam. xxii. 8, Deut. viii. 18, etc.); and then, in vers. 7-9, in the consciousness of his incapacity for the right administration of government over so numerous a people, he asks the Lord for an obedient heart and for wisdom to rule His people, nnjn introduces the petition, the reasons assigned for which are, (1) his youth and inexperience, and (2) the greatness or multitude of the nation to be governed. I am, says he, P?r "WJ, i.e. an inexperienced youth (Solomon was only about twenty years old); " I know not to go out and in," i.e. how to behave myself as king, or govern the people (for K3J fiNV compare the note on Num. xxvii. 17). At ver. 8 he describes the magnitude of the nation in words which recall to mind the divine promises in Gen. xiii. 16 and xxxii. 13, to indicate how gloriously the Lord has fulfilled the promises which He made to the patriarchs. — Ver. 9. firm? therefore give. The prayer (commencing with HOT in ver. 7) is appended in the form of an apodosis to the circumstantial clauses 'W1 'tjJni and 'Ml T^yi which contain the giving heed to the law and right of God, " to judge Thv pie, [namely] h bet? vil (i.>. right and wrong " For who could judge this Thy numerous pise, unless Thou gaveet him intelligence I "13?, heavy in multitude: in the i this i lined by Jtij. — Vers, 1" sqq. 'Jin i i plea 1 well " B thou iked this, and h. far thy og life, not riches, nor the life (i.e. the destruction) of thy foes/' all of th d thii which the I but intellig i it, inasmuch as the d thee ing heart," The to be I lily blessi abui > the earth se was not full as in Num. —Sol i oked t: Lord again for this il for ificial meal ■ z-:~ 1 upon d is omitted in r i, as « foOou

•unit in vers. 1' US; not because in the chr

[lion no sacrifices had any legal validity but such as upon the altar of the Mosai- La, as Thenius fan without observing the account in 1 Chron. xxi

26 Bqq., which overthrows this assertion, but because this sacrificial festival had no essential significance in relation to Solo-

Vers. 1G-28. Solomon's Judicial Wisdom. — As a proof that the Lord had bestowed upon Solomon unusual judicial wisdom, there is appended a decision of his in a very difficult case, in which Solomon had shown extraordinary intelligence. Two harlots living together in one house had each given birth to a child, and one of them had " overlaid" her child in the night while asleep (vbv HMP irta, because she had lain upon it), and had then placed her dead child in the other one's bosom and taken her living child away. When the other woman looked the next morning at the child lying in her bosom, she saw that it was not her own but the other woman's child, whereas the latter maintained the opposite. As they eventually referred the matter in dispute to the king, and each one declared that the living child was her own, the king ordered a sword to be brought, and the living child to be cut in two, and a half given to each. Then the mother of the living child, " because her bowels yearned upon her son," i.e. her maternal love was excited, cried out, " Give her (the other) the living child, but do not slay it;" whereas the latter said, " It shall be neither mine nor thine, cut it in pieces." — Ver. 27. Solomon saw from this which wTas the mother of the living child, and handed it over to her.1 — Ver. 28. This judicial decision convinced all the people that Solomon was endowed with divine wisdom for the administration of justice.

Ch. iv. contains a list of the chief ministers of state (vers. 2-6), and of the twelve officers placed over the land (vers. 7-20), which is inserted here to give an idea of the might and glory of

1 Grotius observes on this: " The uyx,i»oiot of Solomon was shown by this to be very great. There is a certain similarity in the account of Ariopharnis, king of the Thracians, who, when three persons claimed to be the sons of the king of the Cimmerii, decided that he was the son who would not obey the command to cast javelins at his father's corpse. The account is given by Diodorus Siculus."

the kingdom of fan 1 andex Sokraion'a reign. So fax as the ntente. I, this list bd..,',,„„,• il" - lomon, as we may we bom the fact that two of named bad daughb f Soloi; their « the chief dignity in the kingdom, wbieh would surely be conferred upon none but men of mature years, we can see no ree on why the Azariah mentioned here should not be called the son oi'

Ahimaaz. It" the Zadok referred to here was the high priest of that name, Azariah ran only have been a brother oi* Ahiiuaaz. And there is no real difficulty in the way, since the name Azariah occurs three times in the line of high priests (1 Chron. v. 3G, 39), and there lore was by no means rare. — Ver. 3. Elichoreph and Achijah, sons of Shisha, who had held the same ollice under David, were secretaries of state (O^Db; see at 2 Sam. viii. 17 and xx. 25, where the different names K8PHP = NHP and rPTP are also discussed). — Jchosha phat the son of Ahilud was the chancellor, as he had already been in the time of David (2 Sam. viii. 17 and xx. 24). The rendering of Thenius, "whilst Jehoshaphat was chancellor," is grammatically impossible. — Ver, 4. On Benaiah, compare ch. ii. o5 and the Commentary on 2 Sam. xxiii. 20. On Zadok and Abiathar, see at 2 Sam. viii. 17. It appears strange that Abiathar should be named as priest, /.'. aa high priest, along with Zadok, since Solomon had deposed him from the priestly ollice (ch. ii. 27, 35), and we cannot imagine any subsequent pardon. The only possible explanation is that proposed by Theodoret, namely, that Solomon had only deprived him of the apxv* *•£. °f the priest's ollice, but not of the lepusavvr) or priestly dignity, because this was hereditary.1 — Ver. 5. Azariah the son of Nathan was over the Mjf?, i.e. the twelve officers named in vers. 7 sqq. Zahud the son of Nathan was |H3 (not the son of " Nathan the priest," as Luther and many others render it). jna is explained by the epithet appended, Sjaan njn: privy councillor, i.e. confidential adviser of the king. Nathan is not the prophet of that name, as Thenius supposes, but the son of David mentioned in 2 Sam. v. 14. Azariah and Zabud were therefore nephewrs of Solomon. — Ver. 6. Ahishar was rpan?yy over the palace, i.e. governor of the palace, or minister of the king's household (compare ch. xvi. 9, 2 Kings xviii. 18, and Isa. xxii. 15), an office met with for the first time under Solomon. Adoniram, probably the same person as Adoram in 2 Sam. xx. 24, was chief overseer of the tributary service. He was so in the time of David also.

as which 001 lent t; the mo t p the their own proper names: r»n1u>r, Bendekcr, eta, after analogy of Benehanan in L Chron. iv. 20 ami others, although such a proper name Abinadab (vex, 11) app hur was.statit.iicd on tin- mountains of Kphraim. These mountains, here only the mountainous district ol the tribe i I Ephraim, were among the most fruitful portions in AfaJcaz, a city only mentioned here, the situation of which is unknown, but which is at any rate to lie BOUght for in the trills oi Dan, I i which the other cities of this district belong. ilbim lias probably been preserved in the present Sclbit, to the north-west of Ydlo (se< i xix. 42). Bethsliemcsh, (he distinguished from Ajalon (Josh. xix. 42 ami 43) by the epithet \ckanant ami belong 1 to the tribe of Dan, has not yet been discovered (see at Josh. xix. 43). The LXX. have arbitrarily interpolated ecu? before Bcthchanan, ami Thenius naturally takes this under his protection, and consequently traces Bcthclianan in the village of Beit Hunuu (liob. Pal. iL p. 3 71), but without considering that eo)? yields no reasonable sense unless preceded by 19, 4k (from; cf. ver. 12). — Yer. 10. Bcnhcscd was in Arabholh, which does not occur again, so that its situation, even if it should be identical with Arab in Josh. xv. 52, as Bottcher conjectures, can only be approximative^ inferred from the localities which follow. To him (it>), i.e. to his district, belonged Sochoh and all the land of Hcj)her. From Sochoh we may see that Benhesed's district was in the tribe of Judah. Of the two Sochohs in Judah, that still exist under the name of SJiuivcikch, it is impossible to determine with certainty which is intended here, whether the one upon the mountains (Josh. xv. 48) or the one in the plain (Josh. xv. 35). The fact that it is associated with the land of Hejpher rather favours the latter. The land of Hepher, which must not be confoimded with the city of Gath-Hcpher in the tribe of Zebulun (Josh. xix. 1 3; 2 Kings xiv. 25), but was the territory of one of the Canaanitish kings wTho were defeated by Joshua, was probably situated in the plain (see at Josh. xii. 17). — Ver. 11. Bcn-Abinadab had the whole of the high range of Dor pan naj, Josh. xii. 23), i.e. the strip of coast on the Mediterranean Sea below the promontory of Carmel, where the city of Dor, which has been preserved in the village of Tantura or Tortura, nine miles to the north of Csesarea, was situated (see at Josh. xi. 2). Whether this diatri braced the fruitful plain of Sharon i> not bo clearly made out aa Xheniua suppo yjyiK-ja stands at khe head absolutely, without any grammatical connection with nnj"/3: "Abinadab: the whole of the therefore Solomon' ind he had married Solom< a brotl Jehoahaphat the chancellor This disti the cities on the Bouthern edge of the plain of -1 and in. T nd Megiddo, which souths »f this plain, and belon at Josh. xxi. 22). According to this, Baanah's district in the -Ionian valley did nut extend so far as Kwrn Sartabeh, but simply to the neighbourhood of Zarthan, and embraced the whole of the tribe-territory of Manasseh on this side of the Jordan. — Ver. 13. Bengeber was in Ilamoth of Gilead in the tribe of Gad (Josh. XX. 8), probably on the site of the modern

't (see at Deut. iv. 43). * To him belonged the Hawoth Jair

(Jair's-lives) in Gilead, to him the region of Argcb in Bashan, sixty great cities with walls and brazen bolts." If we look at this passage alone, the region of Argob in Bashan appears to be distinct from the Hawoth Jair in Gilead. But if we compare it with Num. xxxii. 40, 41, Deut. iii. 4, 5, and 13, 14, and Josh. xiii. 30, it is evident from these passages that the Jair'slives are identical with the sixty large and fortified cities of the region of Arcrob. For, according to Deut. iii. 4, these sixty fortihed cities, with high walls, gates, and bars, were all fortified cities uf the kingdom of Og of Bashan, which the Israelites conquered under Moses, and to which, according to Num. xxxii. 41, Jair the Manassite, who had conquered them, gave the name of Hawoth Jair. Hence it is stated in Josh. xiii. 30, that the sixty Jair-towns were situated in Bashan. Consequently the 'IK bin & in our verse is to be taken as a more precise definition of 'W WJ rrin &, or a clearer description of the district superintended by Bengeber, so that Gilead is used, as is frequently the case, in the broader sense of Percea. Compare with this the Commentary on Deut. iii. 4 and 13, 14, where the names 2rjK and rtn are explained, and the imaginary discrepancy between the sixty Jair's-towns in the passages cited, and the twentythree and thirty cities of Jair in 1 Chron. ii. 22 and Judg. x. 4, is discussed and solved. And when Thenius objects to this explanation on the ground that the villages of Jair cannot be identical with the sixty fortified cities, because villages of nomads and strongly fortified cities could not be one and the same, this objection falls to the ground with the untenable interpretation of rrin as applying to nomad villages. — Ver. 14. Ahinadab the son of Iddo received as his district Mahanaim, a fortified and probably also a very important city to the north of the Jabbok, on the border of the tribe of Gad, which may perhaps have been preserved in the ruin of Mahneh (see at Josh. xiii. 2 6 and Gen. xxxii. 3). nDWTD, to Mahanaim (cf. Ewald, § 216, a, note), with il local, probably referring to the fact that Ahinadab was sent away to Mahanaim.— Ver. 15. Ahimaaz, possibly Zadok's son 2 Sam. xv. 27, xvii. 17 Bqq.), in Naphlali This docs not denote generally " the most northern portion of the land, say from the northern end of tl,

Cad. -Syria" as Theniua supposes; for the tribe-territory of A iher, which had a prefect of its own. v • situated to bably the faithful friend and v.. onsellor of D

' LXX.,Vnl and Aral must I

;1 dfeto d 2 would ne irily I

/; '' ' it i> aot the city of Baaloth in the

The meaning is, that notwithstanding the great extent of this district, iL had only one prefi

In vor. 20 the account of Solomon's officers is closed by a genera] remark as to the prosperous condition of the whole nation; though we miss the copula Vav at the commencement. The words, " J udah and Israel were numerous as the sand by the sea," indicate that the promise given to the patriarchs (Gen. xxii. 17, cf. xxxii. 13) had been fulfilled. To this there is appended in ch. v. 1 the remark concerning the extent of Solomon's sway, which prepares the way for what follows, and shows how the other portion of the promise, " thy seed will possess the gates of its enemies," had been fulfilled. — The first fourteen verses of ch. v. are therefore connected by the LXX., Vulg., Luther, and others with ch. iv. It is not till ch. v. 15 that a new section begins.

Chap. iv. 21-28 (v. 1-8). Solomon's Eegal Splendour. — Ver. 21. "Solomon was ruler over all the kingdoms from the river (Euphrates) onwards, over the land of the Philistines to the border of Egypt, who brought presents and were subject to Solomon his whole life long." Most of the commentators supply W before D^^?Q H£ (even to the land of the Philistines) after the parallel passage 2 Chron. ix. 26, so that the following?toa W would give a more precise definition of the terminus ad quern. But it is by no means probable that W, which appears to be indispensable, should have dropped out through the oversight of a copyist, and it is not absolutely necessary to supply it, inasmuch as 3 may be repeated in thought before 'B H£ from the preceding clause. The participle D^2D is construed ad sensum with niDppD. Bringing presents is equivalent to paying tribute, as in 2 Sam. viii. 2, etc. — Vers. 22 sqq. The splendour of the court, the consumption in the royal kitchen (vers. 22-25), and the well-filled stables (vers. 26-28), were such as befitted the ruler of so large a kingdom. — Vers. 22, 23. The daily consumption of orb (food or provisions) amounted to thirty cors of fine meal (TOO = Q^n TOD, fine sifted meal, Ex. xxix. 2; for rbb see also Lev. ii. 1) and sixty cors of npp, ordinary meal, ten fattened oxen, twenty pasture oxen, which were brought directly from the pasture and slaughtered, and a hundred sheep, beside different kinds of game, *ib, tcopos, the later name for "i^n, the largest dry and also liquid (ch. v. 11) measure of capacity, contained ten ephahs or baths, i.e., according to the calculation made by Thenius, 15,300 cubic inches (Dresden) = about that of breed; I oxen, twenty oxen from the aoooxding bo the ■• 1 wjt]j poeta all thi - }... had doini:

ni- IT-: ed thcep and lamba were alaug;.uly extent of Solomon's kingdom taking Chat as his Btarting-point Solomon's power only extended to the Euphrates, from Tiphsaeh in the north-east to Gaza in the south-west. Hppn (crossing, from nPQ) is Thapsacus, a Urge and wealthy city on the western bank of the Euphrates, at which the armies of the younger Cyrus and Alexander crossed the river (Xen. Anal), i. 4; Arrian, Exped. Alex, iii 7). Gaza, the southernmost city of the Philistines, the present Qusexeh; see at Josh. xiii. 3. The "»?y WD ■tfOH are the kings of Syria who were subjugated by David (2 Sam. viii. 6 and x. 19), and of the Philistines (2 Sam. viii. 1). "And he had peace on all sides round about." This statement does not "most decidedly contradict ch. xi. 23 sqq.," as Thenius maintains; for it cannot be proved that according to this passage the revolt of Damascus had taken place before Solomon's reign (Ewald and others; see at ch. xl 23 sqq.). — Ver. 25. " Judah and Israel sat in safety, every one under his vine and his fig-tree." This expresses the undisturbed enjoyment of the costly productions of the land (2 Kings xviii. 31), and is therefore used by the prophets as a figure denoting the happiness of the Messianic age (Mic. iv. 4; Zech. iii. 1 0). "From Dan to Beersheba," as in Judg. xx. 1, etc. — Ver. 26. This verse is not to be regarded " as a parenthesis according to the intention of the editor," but gives a further proof of the peace and prosperity which the kingdom and people enjoyed under Solomon. Solomon had a strong force of war chariots and cavalry, that he might be able to suppress every attempt on the part of the tributary kings of Syria and Philistia to revolt and disturb the peace. "Solomon had 4000 racks of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 riding horses," which were kept partly in Jerusalem and partly in cities specially built for the purpose (ch. ix. 19, x. 2G; 2 Chron. i. 14, ix. 25). D^ft* (40) is an old copyist's error for ny^X (4), which we find in the parallel passage 2 Chron. ix. 25, and as we may also infer from ch. x. 26 and 2 Chron. i. 14, since according to these passages Solomon had 1400 331 or war chariots. For 4000 horses are a very suitable number for 1400 chariots, though not 40,000, since two draught horses were required for every war chariot, and one horse may have been kept as a reserve. nyiK does not mean a team (Ges.), but a rack or box in a stable, from rntf, carpere. According to Vegetius, i. 56, in Bochart (Hieroz. i. p. 112, ed. Eos.), even in ancient times every horse had its own and useful course to pursue; n^-r>, rather keenneN <>f and r standing to arrive at the correct solution of difficult and complicated problems; 3? 30**, mental capacity to embrace the n divei e departments of knowledge. — Ver. 30. Hi^ wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the sons of the Bast, and all the wisdom of the Egyptiana dtp *ja (sons of the are generally the Arabian tribes dwelling in the east of Canaan, who spread as far as to the Euphrates (cf. Judg. vi. 3, 33, vii 12, viii. 10, Job i. '■'-. I l xi. 11. eta). Hence we find ffJ5 Yl* used in Gen, xw. *"> to denote Arabia in the wid< on the east and south-east, of Palestine; whereas in Gen, xxix. 1 c*ip \ja ps signifies the land beyond the Euphrates, viz. Mesopotamia. Consequently by "the sons of the East" we are to understand here primarily the Arabians, who were celebrated for their gnomic wisdom, more especially the Sabaeans (see at ch. x.), including the Idunueans, particularly the Temanites (Jer. xlix. 7; Obad. 8) j but also, a b% i: ires, the Chaldseans, who were celebrated both for their astronomy and astrology. "All the wisdom of the Egyptians," because the wisdom of the Egyptians, which was so -real Lyrenowned as almost to have become proverbial (cf. Isa xix. 11, xxxi. 2, and Acts vii. 22; Joseph. Ant. viii 2, 5; Herod, ii. 160), extended over the most diverse branches of knowledge, such as geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and astrology (Diod. Sic. i. 73 and 81), and as their skill in the preparation of ointments from vegetable and animal sources, and their extensive acquaintance with medicine, clearly prove, (unbraced natural science as well, in which Solomon, according to ver. 33, was very learned. — Ver. 31. " He was wiser than all men (of his time), than Ethan the Ezrachite and Heman, Chalcol and Darda, the sons of Machol." These four persons are most probably the same as the " sons of Zerach" (Ethan, Heman, Calcol, and Dara) mentioned in 1 Chron. ii. G, since the names perfectly agree, with the exception of VTJ for VTTl, where the difference is no doubt attributable to a copyist's error; although, as the name does not occur again, it cannot be decided whether Dara or Darda is the correct form. Heman and Ethan are also called Ezrachites CTJ!^7) in ^s- lxxxviii. 1 and lxxxix. 1; and *F3!? is another form of WT, the name of the family of Zerach the son of Judah (Num. xxvi. 13, 20), lengthened by k prosthet. But they were both Levites — Heman a Korahite of the line of tfeiarite l i dent of the I planta as \w should expect bo antithesis to the cedar, but "one of tin' wall-in growing in tui'K more especially the ortho- trickum $axat%U (Oken), which forms ■ miniature hyssop with its lancet-shaped Leaves, and from its extreme minuteness furnishes ■ perfect antithesis to the cedar.'1 There is much to favour this view, since we can easily imagine that the Hebrews may have reckoned a nmss, which resembled the hyssop in its leave being itself a species <>t" hyssop. — "And of beasts and bird ping things and tidies;" the four principal cl into which the Hebrews divided the animal kingdom. Speaking of plants and animals presupposes observations and researches in natural

Bcience, or botanical and zoological studies.— Ver. 34. The widespread fame of his wisdom brought many strangers to Jerusalem, and all the man rase of its rarity at that time, especially among princes. The coming of the queen of Sheba to Jerusalem

(ch. x.) furnishes a historical proof of thi

Immediately after the consolidation of his kingdom, Solomon commenced the preparations for the building of a temple, first of all by entering into negotiations with king Hiram of Tyre, to procure from him not only the building materials requisite, viz. cedars, cypresses, and hewn stones, but also a skilled workman for the artistic work of the temple (vers. 1 — 12); and, secondly, by causing the number of workmen required for this great work to be raised out of his own kingdom, and sending them to Lebanon to prepare the materials for the building in connection with the Tyrian builders (vers. 13-18). — We have

1 Greatly as the fame of Solomon's wisdom is extolled in these verses, it was far outdone in subsequent times. Even Josephus has considerably adorned the biblical accounts in his Antiqq. viii. 2, 5. He makes Solomon the author not only of 1005,*>i3~Kict mpl uouu xa\ /AiXZv, and 300 fliflXov; irctpx,3r/Ao)v kcx.1 uko-juv, but also of magical books with marvellous contents. Compare the extracts from Eupolemus in Eusebii prsep. Ev. ix. 31 sqq., the remnants of Solomon's apocryphal writings in Fabricii Cod. apocr. V. T. i. pp. 914 sqq. and 1014 sq., the collection of the Talmudical Sagas in Othonis Lex. rabb. philol. pp. 668 sq., and G. Weil, bibl. Lcgcnden der Mussulmaiiner, pp. 225-279. According to the Koran (Sure xxvii. vers. 17 sqq.), Solomon understood the languages not only of men and demons, but also of birds and ants. The Turkish literature contains a " Book of Solomon," Suleimanname, consisting of seventy volumes, from which v. Hammer (Rosenbl, i. p. 147 sqq.) has given extracts.

^ "^ with;i double b impare the very iimilar pa

■'.Lit there is no necessity bo assume thai \ war, stands

I Ilk given me iv>t round about," such as David nei enjoyed for a permanency cf 2 Sam. vii 1). " No adversary is then This is uot at variance with ch. \i. 14, for Hadad's enterprise belonged to a later peri ee the comm. on that passage). " And no evil occurrence:M such as the rebellions of Absalom and Sheba, the pestilence at the numbering of the people, and other events which took place in David's reign. — Ver. •"». " Behold, I intend to build." ~* * followed by an Infinitive, as in Ex. ii. 1-1, 2 Sun. wi. L6. " As Jehovah spake to command thai they fell me from Lebanon.'1 We may from ver. 3 that Solomon had also asked for cypresses; and irding to the parallel pa 2 Chron. ii. 6 Bqq., he had asked t (rilful artist, which is d over here, so that it is only in ch. vii. L3, 11 thai we find a supplementary notice that Hiram had sent one It is evident from this request, that that portion ol I inon on which the cedars suitable for building aged to the kingdom of Hiram. The cedar forest, which lias been celebrated from very ancient times, was situated at least two days' journey to the north of Beirut, near the northernmost and loftiest summits of the range, by the village of Bjerreh, to the north of the road which leads to Baalbek and not far to the east of the convent of Canobin, the seat of the patriarch of the Maronites, although Seetzen, the American missionaries, and Professor Ehrenberg found cedars and cedar groves in other places on northern Lebanon (see Rob. Pal. iii. 440, 441, and Bibl. Pes. pp. 588 sqq.). The northern frontier of Canaan did not reach as far as Bjcrrch (see at Num. xxxiv. 8, 9). " My servants shall be with thy servants," i. c. shall help them in the felling of the wood (see at vers. 28, 29). "And the wages of thy servants will I give to thee altogether as thou sayest " (see at vers. 25, 26). " For thou knowest that no one among us is skilful in felling trees like the Sidonians." This refers to the knowledge of the most suitable trees, of the right time for felling, and of the proper treatment of the wood. The expression Sidonians stands for Phoenicians generally, since Si don was formerly more powerful than Tyre, and that portion of Lebanon

20.000 baths, and oil 20,000 baths." This is omitted in our acoount, in which the wages promised in vet, 6 bo the Sidonian fellers of wood are not mure minutely defined. On the other hand, the payment for the wood delivered by Solomon to Hiram, which is not mentioned in the ( 'hronicles, is staled here in ver. I l. " Solomon gave Hiram 20,000 oora of wheat as food (n^ao, a contraction of risrs*_\ from battj of Ewald, § 79, b) for his ho (the maintenance of his royal court), and 20 cors of beaten oil; this gave Solomon to Hiram year by year/' probably as long as the delivery of the wood or the erection of Solomon's buildings lasted These two accounts are bo clear, that Jac Capp., Gramb.,

Mov., TheniuSj and Bertheau, who have been led by critical prejudices to confound them with one another, and therefore to attempt to emend the one from the other, are left quite alone. For the circumstance that the quantity of wheat, which Solomon supplied to Hiram for his court, was just the same as that which he gave to the Sidonian workmen, doea not warrant our identifying the two accounts. The fellers of the trees also received barley, wine, and oil in considerable quantities; whereas the only other thing which Hiram received for his court was oil, and that not common oil, but the finest olive oil, namely 20 crs of JVnp px\ i.r. beaten oil, the finest kind of oil, which was obtained from the olives when not quite ripe by pounding them in mortars, and which had not only a whiter colour, but also a purer flavour than the common oil obtained by pressing from the ripe olives (cf. Celsii Hicrobot. ii. pp. 349 sq., and Bahr, Symbolik, i. p. 419). Twenty cors were 200 baths, i.r., according to the calculations of Thenius, about ten casks (1 cask = 6 pails; 1 pail = 72 cans). If we bear in mind that this wras the finest kind of oil, we cannot speak of disproportion to the quantity of wheat delivered. Thenius reckons that 20,000 cors of wheat were about 38,250 Dresden schcffeln (? sacks). — Ver. 12. The remark that " the Lord gave Solomon wisdom" refers not merely to the treaty which Solomon made with Hiram, through which he obtained materials and skilled workmen for the erection of the house of God (Thenius), but also to the wise use which he made of the capacities of his own subjects for this work. For this verse not only brings to a close the section relating to Solomon's negotiations with Hiram, but it also forms an introduction to the following verses, in which the intimation given by Solomon in ver. 6, concerning the labourers who were to fell oonnection with the catting of wood. The hewing and pre] of the wood were amply provided for by 3< Israeli

Thai th I i),000 bearers of burdens and hi bone w

; taken from the [sraelites, La evident from 1 1 u - fact that they are distinguished from the latter, or at all events are not ribed as Israel We < tin certainty on this point from

2 Chron. viii 1 9, according to which Solomon pressed the Canaanites who were I ft in the land to this bond-service. — Ver. lti. ■• Beside 0??)> Le, without reckoning, the princes, Solomon's officers, \s ho were over the work (i.r. the chiefs appointed

Solomon as overlookers of the work), 3300, who ruled over the people who Laboured at tin;, work."' tftron ^\ as Thenius correctly * annot be the chief of the overlookers, i.r. the

I inspectors, as tl: no allusion made to subordinate inspectors, and the number given is much too large for head inspectors, D*?*?j which is governed bj Tf in the construct state, is to be taken as defining the substantive: principes qui pra ant (Yatabl.; c£ Ewald, vj 287, a). Moreover, at the e of the account of the whole of Solomon's buildings (ch.

23), 550 more c^:n *V9 are mentioned as presiding o the people who did the work. The accounts in the Chronicles differ from these in a very peculiar manner, the number of overseers being given in 2 Chron. ii. 17 as 3000, and iir 2 Chron. viii. 10 a- Now, however natural it may be, with the multiplicity of errors occurring in numerical statements, to ime that these differences have arisen from copyists' errors through the confounding together of numerical letters resembling one another, this explanation is overthrown as an improbable one, by the fact that the sum-total of the overseers is the same in both accounts (3300 + 550 = 3850 in the books of Kings, and 3600 + 250 = 3850 in the Chronicles); and we must therefore follow J. H. Michaelis, and explain the differences as resulting from a different method of classification, namely, from the fact that in the Chronicles the Canaanitish overseers are distinguished from the Israelitish (viz. 3600 Canaanites and 250 Israelites), whereas in the books of Kings the inferiores et superiores jprcefecti are distinguished. Consequently Solomon had 3300 inferior overseers and 550 superior (or superintendents), of whom 250 were selected from the Israelites and 300 from the Canaanites. In 2 Chron. ii. 16,17,

64 Tin: FIRST book of kings.

it ifl Diproauly stated that t':i from the D*^ i.e. the Canaanitea wh< Left in the land o( And it equal!].in that the Dumber given in eh. ii intendenl body of build. ling thi that in both passages (ch. v. 10 and eh. i.v 23 the

300 more than in parallel ].m hardly he any doubt that the nui: in which the QUD given in oni chapter Call in the Chraxicl I that in th riiitni,.m- itand not merely the in 1: been all completed by iv marks on this sul

>rs as well; and of the 660 1

| renounces the nun _ I ron. ii

•heau. on the other haiui, in his notes < has rather complicated than eh; the relation in which the two accounts

(beams) and stones mentions! after Wdjj, DNb;i™ is to be taken ixpUnatory, " oven the Gihlites," giving a more precise definition of "' Hiram's build.: The ( Jiblites are the inhabitants Of the town of Gcbal, called Byblofi by the Greeks, to the north of Beirut (see at Josh. xiii. 5), which was the nearest to the celebrated cedar forest of the larger Phoenician towns. According to Ezek. xxvii. \\ the Giblites (Byblians) were experienced in the art of shipbuilding, and therefore were probably skilful builders generally, and as such the most suitable of Hiram's subjects to superintend the working of the wood and stone for Solomon's buildings. For it was m the very nature of the case that the number of the Phoenician builders was only a small one, and that they were merely the foremen; and this may also be inferred from the large number of his own subjects whom Solomon appointed to the work. l

The account of the building of the temple commences with a statement of the date of the building (ver. 1); and this is followed by a description of the plan and size of the temple-house (vers. 2-10), to which there is also appended the divine promise made to Solomon during the erection of the building (vers. 1 1-13). After this we have a further account of the internal fittings and

1 Without any satisfactory ground Thenius has taken offence at the word Dv23m% and on the strength of the critically unattested kccI?/3aAoi/ ccvtov( of the LXX. and the paraphrastic a.pfx.ooai'roc; kocI avvo^aotvrcc; of Josephus, which is only introduced to fill in the picture, has altered it into D^ZpVb " they bordered them (the stones)." This he explains as relating to the 11 bevelling " of the stones, upon the erroneous assumption that the grooving of the stones in the old walls encircling the temple area, which Robinson (Pal. i. 423) was the first tc notice and describe, " occurs nowhere else in precisely the same form; " whereas Robinson found them in the ancient remains of the foundations of walls in different places throughout the land, not only in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, viz. at Bethany, but also at Carmel on the mountains of Judah, at Hebron, Seraua (Esthemoa), Beit Nusib (Nezib), on Tabor, and especially in the north, in the old remains of the walls of the fortifications es Shukif, Hunin, Banias, Tyrus, Jebail (Byblus), Baalbek, on the island of Ruwad (the ancient Aradus), and in different temples on Lebanon (see Rob. Pal ii. 101, 198, 434, 627; hi. 12, 213, 214; and Bill. Researches, p. 229). Bbttcher (n. ex. Krit. Aehrenl. ii. p. 32) has therefore properly rejected this conjecture as " ill-founded," though only to put in its place another which is altogether unfounded, namely, that before Q^aani the word

I of the different of the temple (ch. vii. 13-51).1 v i parallel to this in

2 Chron. iii and: iption is differently formed an Important epoch so far as the Old Testament kingdom of God was concerned, inasmuch as, according to the declaration of God made through the prophet Nathan, an end would thereby be put to the provisional condition of the people of Israel in the land of Canaan, since the temple was to become a substantial pledge of the permanent possession of the inheritance promised by the Lord. The importance of this epoch is indicated by the fact, that the time when the temple was built is defined not merely in relation to the year of Solomon's reign, but also in relation to the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt. " In the 480th year after the exodus of the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign, in the second month of the year, Solomon built the house of the Lord." The correctness of the number 480, as contrasted with the 440th year of the LXX. and the different statements made by Josephus, is now pretty generally admitted; and we have already proved at Judg. iii. 7 that it agrees with the duration of the period of the Judges when rightly estimated.1 The name of the month Ziv, brilliancy, splendour, probably so called from the splendour of the flowers, is explained by the clause, " that is, the second month," because the months had no fixed names before the captivity, and received different names after the captivity. The second month was called Jyar after the captivity. — The place where the temple was built is not given in our account, as having been sufficiently well known; though it is given in the parallel

1 In opposition to the hypothesis of Bottcher, which has been repeated by Bertheau, viz. that the number 480 merely rests upon the computation of 12 x 40 years, or twelve generations of forty years each, Thenius himself has observed with perfect justice, that " where both the year and the month of the reign of the king in question are given, the principal number will certainly rest upon something more than mere computation; and if this had not been the case, the person making such a computation, if only for the purpose of obtaining the appearance of an exact statement, would have made a particular calculation of the years of Solomon's reign, and would have added them to the round number obtained, and written 4 in the year 484.' Moreover, the introduction to our chapter has something annalistic in its tone; and at this early period it would be undoubtedly well known, and in a case like the present a careful calculation would be made, how long a time had elapsed since the most memorable period of the Israelitish nation had passed by." Compare with this Ed. Preuss {Die Zeitrechnung der LXX., p. 74 sqq.), who has endeavoured with much greater probability to show that the alteration made by the LXX. into 440 rests upon nothing more than a genealogical combination.

':. iii. 1, namely, ■ Mount Mcriak, where the Lord had ap] David " at the time of the and when

^-au Um J: • 'he tower lad that i I it is only in the cathrtlral ■ almos:had been

Btabilil We oannot certainly think of an intentional exaggeration of the height in the Chronicles, since the other measures agree with the account before us; but the assumption that there has been a corruption of the text is rendered natural enough by many other errors in the numerical statements. This still leaves it undecided whether the true height was twenty or thirty cubits; for whereas the Syriac, Arabic, and LXX. (Cod. Al.) have twenty cubits, the height of thirty cubits is favoured partly by the omission of any statement of the height from our text, which is much easier to explain if the porch was of the same height as the temple-house than if the heights were different, and partly by the circumstance that the side building had an external luight of twenty cubits, and therefore the porch would not have stood out with any especial prominence if its elevation had been just the same. — Ver. 4. After the account of the proportionate spaces in the temple-house, the windows through which it received light and air are mentioned. E'&pN D>??^ w? does not mean fenestra intus latcc, /oris angustce (Chald., Ar., Rabb., Luther, and others), but windows with closed beams, i.e. windows the lattice-work of which could not be opened and closed at pleasure, as in ordinary dwelling-houses (2 Kings xiii. 17; Dan. vi. 11). For DWP signifies beams overlaid in ch. vii. 4, and r(P^ beams in ch. vii. 5. The opening of the windows was probably narrower without than within, as in the older Egyptian buildings, as the walls were very strong; and in that case such windows would more thoroughly answer their purpose, viz. to admit light and air, and let out the smoke, so that the interpretation given by the Chaldee is most likely founded upon an ancient tradition, and is in accordance with the fact, though not with the words. It is a disputed point among the commentators where the windows were placed: whether merely in the front over the porch, provided, that is to say, that this was ten cubits lower than the temple-house, or on the side walls above the side stories, which wTere at the most about twenty cubits high, in which case the Most Holy Place, which was only twenty cubits high, remained quite dark, according to ch. viii. 12. We regard the latter view as the correct one, inasmuch as the objections to it rest upon assumptions which can be proved to be false.

Vers. 5-8. The side building. — Ver. 5. " He built against the wall of the house an outwork round about (i.e. against the two the run booi 01 nv tine that there were four such rebates: three for the three floors of the Bide stories, and one for the roof It still remains doubtful, however, whether these rebates were merely laid along the temple wall, or along the outer wall of the Bide buildinj well, bo as to en nnmetry and make each of the two walls hall' a cubit thinner or weaker at every rebate. The former is the more probable. And rdingly the temple wall was one cubit weaker at each i that is to Bay, in lour places. If, thei it still remained two thick at the top, it must have been >i\ cubits thick below. This extraordinary thick-

-, however, would he quite in keeping with the remains of buildings of great antiquity, the walls of which have generally

— Ver, 7 contains a circumstantial clause, inserted as an explanation of i The house, (namely) when building, was built of perfectly finished stones of the quarry, and hammer and axe; no kind of instrument whatever was heard at the house when it was building." PDD HDT^ |3K (on the construction b< ^114. 1, ErL, and Ewald d,b) does not mean n, which Grod had SO caused to grow that they did not require to be hewn (Theodoret); for although D^an rrtDPV is used in Dent, xxvii. 6 (compare with Ex. xx. 25) to ify uninjured, i.6. unhewn stones, yet this meaning is precluded here by the context (cf. v. 32). c?^ signifies finished here, that is to say, stones which were so perfectly tooled and prepared when first broken in the quarry, that when the temple walls were built no iron instruments were required to prepare them any further. Ipa, an axe, here a stone-mason's cutting tool corresponding to the axe. — In ver. 8 the description of the side building is continued. u A door (pn&, an opening for the entrance) to the middle side chamber (of the lower story) was on the right side (the southern side) of the house, and a winding staircase led up into the middle (room of the middle story) and out of the middle into the third rooms," i.e. the rooms of the third story. This is the rendering according to the Masoretic text; and the only thing that appears strange is the use of PljbW first of all for the middle room of the lower story and then for the middle story; and the conjecture is a very natural hut is used in a OolL n for the EOW - in from the on: • ide building and did not lead int<» the bom the interior of the Holy

The only quest. was mad.- in the middle of the right side or m the front by tb ■ of tl i h. If the M no fail former

Ver. 1 0. " And lie built the outbuildings to the whole house [i.e. all round the temple-house, with the exeeption of the front: see \vr. 5); live cubits was its height," i.e. the height of each storv, the suilix in tooip being made to agree withJHVjn through an inaccuracy which has arisen from condensation, although, as in ver. 5, it denotes the whole of the side buildings, which consisted of three stories. The height given must also be understood as referring to the height within. Consequently tie* side buildings had an internal height of 3 X 5 cubits, and reckoning the lloorings and the roof of the whole building an external height of 18 or 20 cubits; so that the temple-house, which was thirty cubits high within and about thirty-two without, rose about twelve or fourteen cubits above the side building, and there was plenty of room for the windows in the side wralls. '1:1 rriKJ: " and it (the side building) held to the house with cedar beams." The meaning is, that the building was fastened to the house by the joists of the cedar beams belonging to the diiferent stories, which rested upon rebates of the temple wall, so that it was firmly attached to the temple-house, without any injurious insertions into the sanctuary itself. This is apparently the only explanation, that can be grammatically sustained, of words that have received such different interpretations. For the translation given by Thenius, which coincides with this, — viz. " he fastened it (each separate story of the building) to the temple-house with cedar wood, namely, with the cedar beams which formed the flooring and roofing of the three stories," — is exposed to this grammatical objection, that the suffix is wanting in thx^ and that Tn? is never followed by rix in the sense of with. All the other explanations are unsuitable. TJW signifies neither " he covered the house " (Chald., Vulg., Luther), nor " he overlaid the house; " moreover, the roofing of the house has been already mentioned in ver. 9, and there is no trace to be found of any overlaying or covering of the outside with cedar wood.

If, therefore, we reckon the thickness of the temple wall at six cubits, and that of the outer wall of the side building and the front wall of the porch at three cubits each, the whole building would be ninety-three cubits long (externally) and forty-eight cubits broad. The height of the temple-house was about thirtytwo cubits externally, and that of the side stories from eighteen, to twenty cubits, without the socle upon which the whole building rested. This is not mentioned indeed, as being a subordinate of the throne of David Involved the dwelling of God among His people, or rather is founded upon it. Thia dwelling of God is now to i- c ive a new and Lasting realization. The temple is to be a pledge thai the Lord will maintain for His people His covenant of grace and His gracious presence. In this respect the promise/' I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel, and not forsake my people farad/* is a confirmation of the word which Jehovah had spoken to David, although, so far as the actual words are concerned, it is more closely connected with Lev. xxvi. 11, when the highest blessing attendant upon the faithful observance of the commandments of God is summed up in the promise, "I will make my abode among yon, and my soul will not despise you."

Vera 14-35. The Internal Arrangements of the Templehouse. — Vers. 14-12 '2. Internal covering of the house, and division into Holy and Mod Holy. — Ver. 14 (cf. ver. 9) resumes the description of the building of the temple, which had been interrupted by the divine promise just communicated. — Ver. 15. " He built (i.e., so far as the sense is concerned, he covered) the walls of the house within with boards of cedar; from the floor of the house to the walls of the ceiling he overlaid it with wood within, and overlaid the floor with cypress boards." The expression J"rinsp jBDn, " avails of the ceiling," is very striking here, and renders it probable that rtVp is only a copyist's error for nhip, " beams of the ceiling." The whole of the inside of the house was covered with wood, so that nothing was to be seen of the stone wall (ver. 18). On the other hand, the biblical text knows nothing of any covering of the outer walls also with wood, as many have assumed. — Vers. 16, 17. "And he built D^BTTIK HttK, the twenty cubits (i.e. the space of twenty cubits), of the hindermost side of the house with boards of cedar," from the floor to the beams (of the roof), rrivprnj; is to be explained from jBDn rriTp ny in ver. 15. "And built them for it (the house — V pointing back to n*3rt) into the hinder room, into the Most Holy." "Pafl is more precisely defined by the apposition KHP DT7i?.?, and therefore denotes the Most Holy Place. But there is a doubt as to its derivation and true meaning. Aquila and Symmachus render it ^prj/jLaTLo-TijpLov, Jerome \a\rjTijpiov, or in the Vulg. oraculum, so that they derive it from "OT, to speak; and Hengstenberg adopts this derivation in Ps. xxviii. 2: ^ lit. that which is spoken, then the place where the speaking takei place. Most of the more recent coinn. the and render il r portion or back or p cannot sense of loo^

(= namely) be prepared a hindei room in the house within, to plaoe the ark of the oorenant of Jehovah there." pn, as oh. wii. 11 Bhows, is not • future (ui reponens), but the infinitive nw with a repeated syllable P m e Ewald, § 238, c). — Ver. 20. " And tlu' interim of the hindei km.ih was twenty cubits the length, twi nty enbits the breadth, and twenty cubits its height" The i *JW 1 with Kimclii in regarding as the construct state of the noun tiftp?. which occurs again in ver. 29 in the sense of the inner part or interior, as is evident from the antithesis |bPfl? (on the outside). "And lie overlaid it with fine gold." "WD 3H| (s= *»ud in Job xxviii 15) unquestionably signifies line or costly gold, although the derivation of this meaning is still questionable; viz. whether it is derived from "ud in the sense of to shut up, i.e. gold shut up or carefully preserved, after the ana! f DHJ; or is used in the sense of taking out or selecting. i.e. gold selected or pure; or in the sense of closed, i.e. gold condensed or unadulterated (Flint and Delitzsch on Job xxviii. 15).

The Most Holy Place had therefore the form of a perfect cube in the temple as well as in the tabernacle, only on an enlarged scale. Now, as the internal elevation of the house, i.e. of the whole of the temple-house, the hinder portion of which formed the Most Holy Place, was thirty cubits, there was a space of about ten cubits in height above the Most Holy Place and below the roof of the temple-house for the upper rooms mentioned in 2 Chron. iii. 9, on the nature and purpose of w7hich nothing is said in the two accounts.1 " And he overlaid (clothed) the altar with cedar wood." There is something very striking in the allusion to the altar in this passage, since the verse itself treats simply of the Most Holy Place; and still more striking is the expression "^i? "^ 0?.r??n, n the altar belonging to the Dcbir" in ver. 22, since there was no altar in the Most Holy

1 This upper room does not presuppose, however, that the party wall, which follows as a matter of course from ver. 16, was not merely a cedar wall, but a wall two cubits thick. The supposed difficulty of setting up a cedar wall thirty cubits high is not so great as to necessitate assumptions opposed to the text. For we cannot possibly see why it could not have been made secure u without injuring the temple wall." The wood panelling must have been nailed firmly to the wall without injuring the wall itself; and therefore this could be done just as well in the case of the cedar beams or boards of the party wall.

Place. cannot i the al much I mplical d to ti a in both tl. i is lained from t to 1 the altar of b ■ Thou sion, ani wiayi/'and he overlaid it with gold," can only refer to the altar mentioned in the previous verse, the gilding of which has not yet been noticed, however surprising the separation of d stated with regard to the gildii repeated once more in a comprehensive manner, which brings this subject to a clo

The whole house (JV3rri>:p) is the Holy Place and the Most Holy, but not the porch or hall, as this is expressely distinguished from the house. C1?!^?, the whole altar, not merely a portion of it.

Vers. 23—28. The large cherub-figures in the Most Holy Place. — Ver. 23. He made (caused to be made) in the hinder room two cherubs of olive wood, i.e. wood of the oleaster or wild olivetree, which is very firm and durable, and, according to 2 Chron. iii. 10, D^VWf nr~TO, i.e., according to the Vulgate, opus slatuaria m, a peculiar kind of sculpture, which cannot be more precisely defined, as the meaning of Ifflf is uncertain. " Ten cubits was the height of it" (i.e. of the one and of the other). The figures had a human form, like the golden cherubs upon the ark of the covenant, and stood upright upon their feet (2 Chron. iii. 13), with extended wings of five cubits in length, so that one wing of the one reached to one wing of the other in the centre of the room, and the other wing of each reached to the opposite wall, and consequently the four extended wings filled the entire breadth of the Most Holy Place (a breadth of twenty cubits), and the two cherubs stood opposite to one another and ten cubits apart. The wings were evidently fastened to the back and placed close to one another upon the shoulder-blades, so that the small space between their starting-points is not taken into consideration in the calculation of their length. The figures were completely overlaid with gold. The ark of the covenant was placed between these cherubs, and under the wings which pointed towards one another. As they were made like those upon the ark, they had evidently the same meaning, and simply served to strengthen the idea which was symbolized in the cherub, and winch we have expounded in the Com- the missing words, chains would have impeded the moving of the curtain. It is true that, according to 2 Chron. iii. 14, there was a curtain before the Most Holy Place; but as it is not mentioned so early as this even in the Chronicles, this would not be its proper position in the account before us, but it would be most suitably mentioned either in connection with or after the reference to the doors of the Most Holy Place in vers. 31 and 32.

80 Tin: first book ok kings.

mental iq. Only theii faces - not ton c and bent down i the berabim i.:, act vr$ and door- — rails of f lace ami I f the nature of t:. 1. In addil nihim ami palm-trees carv is said as pmfans, so tliat there was alwa framework of the d upied the fifth part of the breadth of the wall. For the explanation given by Bottcher and Thenius,

*• the entrance framework with posts of tilth Btrength," ha; no real support in Ezek..\li 3, To justify the rendering given to n*tfon (fifth strength), 7W} is supplied, though not in the. of proton, but in the thoroughly unwarranted Bense of Btrength or thickness of the wall; and in addition to this, a wall two cubits thick is postulated between the Holy Place and the Mo I Holy

1'. in direct contradiction tover. 16. The further evidence, which Thenius finds in ch. viii. 8, in support of this explanation, n already rejected by Bottcher as unsustained It would indeed \treinely strange for the thickness of the door- which formed the Betting of the entrance to he given, whereas nothing is said about the size of the doors. According >UT explanation, " a iifth of the breadth of the wall," the entrance was four cubits broad including the projecting doorand each of the two wings of the folding doors about a cubit and a half broad, if we reckon the projecting framework on either side at half a cubit in breadth. — Ver. 32. " And two doors (i.e. folding doors, sc. he made; Wfl is also governed by nbj) in ver. 31) of olive wood, and carved upon them carved work," etc., as upon the walls (ver. 29), "and overlaid them with gold, spreading the gold upon the cherubs and palms" (TV, hiphil of *m)i *•& ne spread gold-leaf upon them, so that, as Rashi observes, all the figures, the elevations and depressions of the carved work, were impressed upon the coating of gold-leaf, and were thus plainly seen. Thenius infers from this explanatory clause, that the gilding upon the walls and doors was most probably confined to the figures engraved, and did not extend over the whole of the walls and doors, because, if the doors had been entirely overlaid with gold, the gilding of the carved work upon them would have followed as a matter of course. But this inference is a very doubtful one. For if it followed as a matter of course from the gilding of the entire doors that the carved work upon them was overlaid with gold, it would by no means follow that the overlaying was such as to leave the carved work visible or prominent, which this clause affirms. Moreover, a partial gilding of the walls would not coincide with the expression JV3TT73 Drny in ver. 22, since these words, which are used with emphasis, evidently affirm more than " that such (partial) gilding was carried out everywhere throughout the temple proper.' '

Tl. nt of the M • II \y did n ler the divided into two halv< i that only the lower half (of I oubits in breadth and about four in height) was opened for the daily entrance of the priests into the Holy Plai These do probably opened outwards, Like those Lb front of the M Holy Place.- Ver, 3 l arving and gilding: as upon the do< before the hinder room. The gold was levelled or smoothed over that which had been engraved, ua it was beaten out thin and laid upon the carving in such a manner that the gold plate fitted closely to the figures. Gilding was generally effected in ancient times by the Laying on of gold plate, which was fastened with lacks (compare 2 Chron. iii. 9),

Ver. 36. Tkt courts. — " He built the inner court three rows of hewn stones and one row of hewn cedar beams." The epithet inner court applied to the " court of the priests" (2 Chron. iv. 9) presupposes an outer one, which is also mentioned in 2 Chron. iv. 9, and called " the great court/' The inner one is called the upper (higher) court in Jer. xxxvi. 10, from which it follows that it was situated on a higher level than the outer one, which surrounded it on all sides. It was enclosed by a low wall, consisting of three rows of hewn stones, or square stones, laid one upon another, and a row of hewn cedar beams, which were either laid horizontally upon the stones, after the analogy of the panelling of the temple walls on the inside, or placed upright so as to form a palisading, in order that the people might be able to see through into the court of the priests. According to 2 Chron. iv. 9, the outer court had gates lined with brass, so that it was also surrounded with a high wall. Around it there were chambers and cells (2 Kings xxiii. 1 1; Jer. xxxv. 4, xxxvi. 10) for the priests and Levites, the plans for which had already been made by David (1 Chron. xxviii. 12). The principal gate was the east gate (Ezek. xi. 1). Other gates are mentioned in 2 Kings xi. 6, 2 Chron. xxiii. 5, Jer. xx. 2, 2 Kings xii. 10, 2 Chron. xxiv. 8. The size of these courts is not given. At the same time, following the analogy of the tabernacle, and with the reduplication of the rooms of the tabernacle which is adopted in other cases in the temple, we may set down the length of the court of the priests from east to west at 200 cubits, and the breadth from south to north at 1 0 0 cubits; so that in front of the temple -building on the east there was a space of 100 cubits in length and breadth, or 10,000 square cubits, left free for the altar of burnt-offering and the other in otli -*hip.:tor in fa I years and a ha. _j to all its r iost part preceded the la <f u.T.-^arv i- ] r paw the spaoe required for them, and of which

1 lie account gxren by Josepbas of tht-se substructures does not show lomoo, and bow much belongs to •

. he states that, in order to obtain the same lev cubits, so as to make them

1 " kffOa \ uu Oth It was tO I"'

Dot Indeed bo any Buch the hoi oould contain God within its space, when the heavens of h< oannot oontain Him ch. viii 27), but a house where the name of Jehovah is of dwells (ch. viii l<> sqq.; 2 Chron. vi. 5; cf

..in. \n. 1. where God manifd I II. presence in descril'U: temple-mountain 11 ■ mighty bill, the mmmit of which hardly Boffioed for the toinj>K- 1. iid altar when tin- building was com- meoc pad off on all tides, fa: u Solomon therefore

caused a wall to 1 fcern -. la, and had ■ porch l'mlt upon the ground thai was heaped op, end on the other aides the temple (**o;) was naked (yv/*> r).*1 Hut in the description of tin* temple of Herod {Ant. it. 11,8) b< u The temple was surrounded bjenormooe portiooe (otoxI),

which rested upon a large wall, an 1 w< re the 1 of which men hare

erer heard [I wa I p rocky hill, rising gradually towarda the part of the city up to the highest p<»int. This hill Solomon Borrounded with a wall by N- ry great arorka up to the rery apex, ami walled it round, coming at the root, which is surrounded I I p ravine, with BtoneS which ther with lead,... ami continuing to the top, so that the size ami height of the building, which was completed [uare, were imm< The Sat obtained in this manner i- then described by J

phus SI a —.:.;o>.o; of four stadia in circiimf ereiicr, namely, one stadium on each side..'.though it was the OUl;rt of the temple of Herod

(the court of the Gentiles) which first had this circumference (see my WW. <■■/. i. pp. 143, 111), and Josephn Jud, v. 5, 1, relates that subsequently (toi* rolling of the hill was carried out to even a greater extent, aa the people still continued to heap op earth, it is quite conceivable that Solomon may have planned the area of the temple with this circumference. And this conjecture acquires great probability from the fact that, according to the researches of Robinson (Pal. i. pp. 420 sqq.; itigations concerning the r]'t>]i(t(jfaj>}t isaletn, pp. 08 sqq.; and

Later Biblical Researches, pp. 173 aqq.), there are layers of enormous square stones in the lowest part of the south-western and south-eastern corners of the present Haram wall, the dimensions of which, apart from the fact that they are hewn with grooved edges, point to an early Israelitish origin, so that they might very well be relics of the Solomonian substructures of the templebill. There is also the remnant of the arch of a bridge of the same construction on the southern portion of the western wall of the Haram, which points to a bridge that led across from Moriah to Zion, and " appears to remove all the objections to the identity of this part of the enclosure of the mosque with that of the ancient temple" (Rob. Pal. i. p. 426). " Here then," adds Robinson (Pa/, i. pp. 427, 428), fct we have indisputable remains of Jewish antiquity, consisting of an important portion of the western wall of he accounts wo have of the dettni vl«U to aorta wall, t anfc

: an an o weateni Haram •

10; 2 ("limn. v. 14). The temple thereby became not only a \ bio pledge of the Lasting duration of the covenant, by virtue of which God would dwell amonj ii people, but also a cop} of the kingdom of God, which received at its erection an embodiment answering condition at the time. As the rnacle, with ambiance to a nomad's tent, answered to the unit' when Israel had not yet found rest in the promi d land of the Lord; bo was the temple an immoveable house, a pledge thai Israel had now acquired its lasting Inheritance in Canaan, and thai the kingdom of God on earth had obtained a firm foundation in the midst of it.— This relation a tlic temple and the tabernacle will cplain all the poij which present themselves between th two withstanding their agreement in fundamental forms ami in all ial particulai A i house or palace of

Jehovah, the temple was not only built of solid and costly ds, with massive walla of square stones, and with flo ceilings, walls, and doors of cedar, cypress, and olive woods — ■ imperishable kinds of v. but was also provided with a hall like the palaces of earthly kings, and with side buildings in three stories in which to keep the utensils requi for a magnificent ceremonial, though care waa taken that th adjoining and side buildings were not attached directly to the main building so as to violate the indestructibility and perfi ness of the house oi but merely helped to exalt it and elevate its dignity. And the increased size of the inner rooms, whilst the significant forms and measures of the tabernacle were pre;. was also essentially connected with this. Whereas the length and breadth of the dwelling were doubled, and the height of the whole house tripled, the form of a cube was still retained for the Most Holy Place as the stamp of the perfected kingdom of God (see Comm. on Pent. vol. ii. p. 184), and the space was fixed at twenty cubits in length, breadth, and height. On the other hand, in the case of the Holy Place the sameness of height and breadth were sacrificed to the harmonious proportions of the house or palace, as points of inferior importance; and the measurements wrere thirty cubits in height, twenty cubits in breadth, and forty cubits in length; so that ten as the number of perfectness was preserved as the standard even here. And in order to exhibit still further the perfectness and glory of the house of God, the walls were not constructed of ordinary quarry- t fori um as the land of pal:

ark of the he de Canaan, was he:

account uf the building,. described in thirteen years, and finished in thai time) all I The temple in seven thai the two building wren ier; namely, (1) the house of th I of Lebanoi and thf lmu iis daughter vei Thai all tl buildings rare onl} different | I the one royal pal

(U'li >mon • I on Lebanon itself, as many of the earl: mmentatoi ip] I, indisputably evident, not only the first verse whei ly interpreted, but also and still in from th< ben the buildings of Solo- poken of afterwards ch. i.\. 1, 10, 15, and x. L2, we only read of the hi I Jehovah and the house of the king, that is to The description of thf I portions of this pal ry brief, that it impossible to form a distinct idea of its character. The different divisions are given in vera 1-8 in their natural order, commencing at the back and terminating with the front (ver. 8), and there then follows in \ >-12 the description of I that w< L V. i 2-5. TK / Lebanon. —

This building — so named m it was built, peak, of a t of cedar pillars — is called in the Arabic the * h< his arm-,' because, according to ch. x. 17, it also served a ping-place for arms:" it is hardly to be regarded, however, as simply an arsenal, but was probably intended for other pur- | lso. He built it "a hundred cubits its length, fifty cubits its breadth, and thirty cubits its height, on four rows of cedar pillars, and hewn cedar beams (were) over the pillars." As the building was not merely a hall of pillars, but, according to ver. 3, had siderooms (P'V??, cf. ch. vi. 5) above the pillars, the construction of it can hardly be represented in any other way than this, that the rooms were built upon four rows of pillars, w?hich ran round all four sides of the building, which was 100 cubits long and fifty cubits broad in the inside, and thus surrounded the inner courtyard on all sides. Of course the building could not rest merely upon pillars, but was surrounded on the outside with a strong wall of he wit square stone thai the hewn which re laid upon the pillars had theii Is built into the by it, so build- ing the requ ] — V,r. '• And roofing in (oi upon the pillars, five and fifteen the I&9 is 1 and fifteen the row-' i to D*"rct2yn.• mu pillars, as J myself have I raid 1 therefore, bu ]>ji each oly 1 as in I we cannot suppose to have Uco lea*

• fur toe court I: neat, stood aide by i in eh. vi. 4) were three rows, and outlook against outlook three times;" i.e. the rows of side-rooms were built one over the other by means of layers of beams, so that the rooms had windows opposite to one another three times; that is to say, the windows looking out upon the court were so arranged in the three stoi that those on the one side were vis avis to those on the opposite Bide of the building. Tin1 expression in ver. 5, ntriD"7WI fljno tid "window over against window," compels us to take nrnD'TK in the sense of "opposite to the window" (/K, versus), and not, as Thenius proposes, "outlook against outlook," according to which?K is supposed to indicate that the windows were only separated from one another by slender piers. H}™?, winch only occurs here, is different from |fen, the ordinary window, and probably denotes a large opening affording a wide outlook. — Ver. 5. " And all the doorways and mouldings were square of beams" ''r""-" is an accusative of free subordination, denoting the material or the mode of execution; cf. Ewald, ^ 284, a, /3). "Square with a if we should not suppose the rooms in these stories to be very broad, since the further three rows of pillars, which Weiss assumes in addition, according to ver. I), as the actual supporters of the upper building, have no foundation in the text. The words "four rows of cedar pillars " do not absolutely require the assumption that there were four rows side by side or one behind the other on every side of the building; for the assertion that "no does not denote a row in the sense of a straight line, but generally signifies a row surrounding and enclosing a space, is refuted by Ex. xxviii. 17, where we read of the four D*~)VO of precious stones upon the breastplate of the high priest. — Is it not likely that the truth lies midway between these two views, and that the following is the view most in accordance with the actual fact, namely, that there were four rows of pillars running along the full length of the building, but that they were distributed on the two sides, so that there were only two rows on each side? In this case a person entering from the front would see four rows of pillars running the whole length of the building. In any case the rows of pillars would of necessity be broken in front by the entrance itself.