1 Instead of D^nb in ver. 3, we have D5<6n in 2 Chron. v. 4; and instead of D»^>m Dorian in ver. 4, we have D^n D^nbn, "the Levitical priests." These variations are to be attributed to inexactness in expression. For it is obvious that Thenius is wrong in his notion that the chronicler mentioned the Levites instead of the priests, from the simple fact that he states in ver. 7 that " the priests carried the ark," etc., in exact agreement with our account.
vi. 2 3 sqq.). The latter statement is explained in ver. 7. " For the cherubim were spreading out wings towards the place of the ark, and so covered (lit. threw a shade) over the ark and over its poles from above." If the outspread wings of the great cherubic figures threw a shade not only over the ark of the covenant, but also over its poles, the ark was probably so placed that the poles ran from north to south, and not from east to west, as they are sketched in my Archaologie. — Ver. 8. " And the poles were long, and there were seen their heads (i.e. they were so long that their heads were seen) from the Holy Place before the hinder room; but on the outside (outside the Holy Place, say in the porch) they were not seen." *3*W! cannot be rendered: they had lengthened the poles, from which Kimchi and others have inferred that they had made new and longer carrying-poles, since the form of the tense in this connection cannot be the pluperfect, and in that case, moreover, the object would be indicated by ns as in ch. iii. 14; but T"]?*? is used intransitively, " to be long," lit. to show length, as in Ex. xx. 12, Deut. v. 16, etc. The remark to the effect that the poles were visible, indicates that the precept of the law in Ex. xxv. 15, according to which the poles were to be left in the ark, was observed in Solomon's temple also. Any one could convince himself of this, for the poles were there " to this day." The author of our books has retained this chronological allusion as he found it in his original sources; for when he composed his work, the temple was no longer standing. It is impossible, however, to ascertain from this statement how the heads of the poles could be seen in the Holy Place, — whether from the fact that they reached the curtain and formed elevations therein, if the poles ran from front to back; or whether, if, as is more probable, they ran from south to north, the front heads were to be seen, simply when the curtain was drawn back.1 — Ver. 9. " There was nothing in the ark but the two tables of stone, which Moses had put there at Horeb, when Jehovah concluded the covenant with Israel." The intention of this remark is
1 The proof which Thenius has endeavoured to give by means of a drawing of the correctness of the latter view, is founded upon untenable assumptions (see Bottcher, jEhrenl. ii. p. G9). It by no means follows from the expression H*21 ^B~?]) that the heads of the poles were visible as far off as the door of the Holy Place, but simply that they could be seen in the Holy Place, though not outside.
also simply to show that the law, which enjoined that the ark should merely preserve the stone tables of the covenant (Ex. xxv. 1 6, xl. 20), had not been departed from in the lapse of time. "»BW before nna is not a pronoun, but a conjunction: when, from the time that, as in Deut. xi. 6, etc. rna without rra, signifying the conclusion of a covenant, as in 1 Sam. xx. 16, xxii. 8, etc. Horeb, the general name for the place where the law was given, instead of the more definite name Sinai, as in Deuteronomy (see the Comm. on Ex. xix. 1, 2).1 — Vers. 10, 11. At the dedication of the tabernacle the cdorv of Jehovah in the cloud filled the sanctuary, so that Moses could not enter (Ex. xl. 34, 35); and so was it now. When the priests came out of the sanctuary, after putting the ark of the covenant in its place, the cloud filled the house of Jehovah, so that the priests could not stand to minister. The signification of this fact was the same on both occasions. The cloud, as the visible symbol of the gracious presence of God, filled the temple, as a sign that Jehovah the covenant-God had entered into it, and had chosen it as the scene of His gracious manifestation in Israel. By the inability of the priests to stand, we are not to understand that the cloud drove them away; for it was not till the priests had come out that it filled the temple. It simply means that they could not remain in the Holy Place to perform service, say to offer an incense-offering upon the altar to consecrate it, just as sacrifices were offered upon the altar of burnt-offering after the dedicatory prayer (vers. 62, 63).2
1 The statement in Heb. ix. 4, to the effect that the pot of manna and Aaron's rod that budded were also to be found in the ark, which is at variance with this verse, and which the earlier commentators endeavoured to bring into harmony with it by forced methods of different kinds, simply rests upon an erroneous interpretation of nnyn "oe£> in Ex. xvi. 33, 34, and Num. xvii. 25, which had become traditional among the Jews; since this merely affirms that the objects mentioned had been deposited in front of the testimony, i.e. in front of the ark which contained the testimony, and not within it, as the Jews supposed. — Still less are De "Wette and others warranted in deducing from this verse an argument against the existence of the Mosaic book of the law in the time of Solomon, inasmuch as, according to the precept in Deut. xxxi. 26, the book of the law was not to be kept in the ark, but by the side of it, or near it.
2 Bertheau's opinion (on 2 Chron. v. 14), that the priests could not remain in the hall and in front of it on account of the cloud, namely, " the cloud of smoke, which, ascending from the sacrifices burned upon the altar of burntoffering, concealed the glory of the Lord," is decidedly erroneous. For the
The glory of the Lord, which is like a consuming fire (Ex. xxiv. 17; Deut. iv. 24, ix. 3), before which unholy man cannot stand, manifested itself in the cloud. This marvellous manifestation of the glory of God took place only at the dedication; after that the cloud was only visible in the Most Holy Place on the great day of atonement, when the high priest entered it. — The Chronicles contain a long account at this place of the playing and singing of the Levites at these solemnities (vid. 2 Chron. v. 12-14).
Vers. 12-21. Solomon extols this marvellous proof of the favour of the Lord. — Ver. 12. Then spake Solomon, "Jehovah hath spoken to dwell in the darkness." u Solomon saw that the temple was filled with a cloud, and remembered that God had been pleased to appear in a cloud in the tent of Moses also. Hence he assuredly believed that God was in this cloud also, and that, as formerly He had filled the tabernacle, so He would now fill the temple and dwell therein " (Seb. Schmidt). *»DK ')X\ T\SjV*f which Thenius still renders incorrectly, " the Lord intends to dwell in the darkness," refers, as Kashi, C. a Lap., and others have seen, to the utterances of God in the Pentateuch concerning the manifestation of His gracious presence among His people, not merely to Lev. xvi. 2 (I will appear in the cloud), but also to Ex. xix. 9, where the Lord said to Moses, " I come to thee PV\} 3#3," and still more to Ex. xx. 2 1 and Deut. iv. 11, v. 19, according to which God came down upon Sinai??"JV3. Solomon took the word ^"W from these passages. That he meant by this the black, dark cloud which filled the temple, is perfectly obvious from the combination 7Q"jyn^ Jjyn in Deut. v. 19 and iv. II.1 Solomon saw this word of Jehovah realized in cloud -which hindered the priests from performing the service was, according to the distinct words of the text, the cloud which filled the house; and the explanatory clause, " for the glory of the Lord filled the house of Jehovah," indicates in the most unmistakeable terms that it was the vehicle of the glory of God, and therefore was not a cloud of smoke formed by the burning sacrifices, but the cloud in which God manifested His invisible being to His people, — the very same cloud in which Jehovah was to appear above the Capporeth, when the high priest entered the Most Holy Place on the day of atonement, so that he was commanded not to enter it at all times, and, when he entered, to cover the Capporeth with the cloud of the burning incense (Lev. xvi. 2, 13).
1 Thenius, however, has built up all kinds of untenable conjectures as to alterations of the text, upon the erroneous assumption that py means the the filling of the temple with the cloud, and learned therefrom that the Lord would dwell in this temple. Hence, being firmly convinced of the presence of Jehovah in the cloud which filled the sanctuary, he adds in ver. 13: "I have built Thee a house to dwell in, a place for Thy seat for ever." We are not to understand DWiJJ as signifying that Solomon believed that the temple built by him would stand for ever; but it is to be explained partly from the contrast to the previous abode of God in the tabernacle, which from the very nature of the case could only be a temporary one, inasmuch as a tent, such as the tabernacle was, is not only a moveable and provisional dwelling, but also a very perishable one, and partly from the promise given to David in 2 Sam vii. 14-16, that the Lore" would establish the throne of his kingdom for his seed for ever. This promise involved the eternal duration of the gracious connection between God and Israel, which was embodied in the dwelling of God in the temple. This connection, from its very nature, was an eternal one; even if the earthly form, from which Solomon at that moment abstracted himself, was temporal and perishable. — Solomon had spoken these words with his face turned to the Most Holy Place. He then (ver. 14) turned his face to the congregation, which was standing in the court, and blessed it. The word " blessed " (D^) denotes the wish for a blessing with which the king greeted the assembled congregation, and introduced the praise of God which follows. — In vers. 15-21 he praises the Lord for having now fulfilled with His hand what He spake with His mouth to his father David (2 Sam. vii.). — Ver. 16. The promise of God, to choose Jerusalem as the place for the temple and David as prince, is taken freely from 2 Sam. vii. 7, 8. In 2 Chron. vi. 6, before " I chose David," we find " and I chose Jerusalem, that my name might be there;" so that the affirmation answers more precisely to the preceding negation, wThereas in the account before us this middle term is omitted. — Vers. 17-19. David's intention to build the temple, and the answer of God that his son was to execute this work, are so far copied from 2 Sam. vii. 2, 12, 13, that God approves the intention of David as such. rtPW, "Thou didst well that it was in thy mind."— Vers. 20, 21. light and radiant cloud, and cannot be synonymous with psiy. Bottcher adopts the same opinion, without taking any notice of the striking remarks of Bertheau on 2 Chron. v. 14.
" And Jehovah has set up His word." 'til D|£1 supplies the explanation of l*F3 KPD (hath fulfilled with his hand) in ver. 15. God had caused Solomon to take possession of the throne of David; and Solomon had built the temple and prepared a place there for the ark of the covenant. The ark is thereby declared to be the kernel and star of the temple, because it was the throne of the glory of God.
Vers. 22-53. Second Act of the feast of dedication: Solomons dedicatory 'prayer (cf. 2 Chron. vi. 12-42). — Ver. 22. "Then Solomon stood before the altar of Jehovah in front of all the assembly of Israel, and stretched out his hands towards heaven." It is evident from ver. 54 that Solomon uttered the prayer which follows upon his knees. The Chronicles contain the same account as we have here, with this addition, that it is said to have taken place on a " scaffold," or kind of pulpit C^1?) specially erected for the purpose.1 The altar, to the front of which Solomon went, was the altar of burnt-offering in the court, where the congregation was gathered together. The expression "MJ 'B*?np"73 favours the idea that Solomon offered the prayer upon his knees with his face turned towards the congregation, and not with his back to the people and his face turned towards the temple, as Thenius supposes. — The substance of the prayer is closely connected with the prayer of Moses, especially with the blessings and curses therein (rid. Lev. xxvi. and Deut. xxviii.). Commencing with the praise of God, who " keepeth covenant and truth " towards His servants, and has thus far performed to His servant David the promise that He gave him (vers. 23, 24), Solomon entreats the Lord still further to fulfil this promise of His (vers. 25, 26), and to keep His eyes constantly open over the temple, to hearken to the prayers of His people, and to avert the curse threatened against sinners from all who shall call upon Him in this temple (vers. 27-53). — Vers. 23, 24. By granting the blessing promised to His people, the Lord has
1 Bbttcher is right in his assertion, that the opinion expressed by Thenius and Cappellus, that this passage in the Chronicles has been dropped out of our text through a copyist's oversight, is a very improbable one; although the reasons he assigns are for the most part untenable. The omission may be explained in a very simple manner, from the fact that the introduction of this circumstance had no bearing upon the design or contents of the dedicatory prayer.
hitherto proved Himself to be the true and only God in heaven and on earth, who keepeth covenant and mercy with those who walk before Him with all their heart. This acknowledgment produces the requisite confidence for offering the prayer which is sure of an answer (Matt. xxi. 22; Mark xi. 24; Jas. i. 6). For 'i* ^&?TK compare Ex. xv. 11 with Deut. iv. 39; 2 Sam. vii. 22, xxii. 32; Ps. lxxxvi. 8. "Who keepeth covenant and mercy/' verbatim the same as in Deut. vii. 9. The promise given to His servant David (2 Sam. vii.), the fulfilment of which the commencement now lay before their eyes (cf. vers. 20, 21), was an emanation from the covenant faithfulness of God. " As it is this day," as in ch. iii. 6. — Ver. 25. The expression "and now" (nrun) introduces the prayer for the further fulfilment of the promise, never to allow a successor upon the throne to be wanting to David, in the same conditional form in which David had uttered the hope in ch. ii. 4, and in which the Lord had renewed the promise to Solomon during the building of the temple (ch. vi. 12, 13). In KBST^ &* **ffb$ instead of KD3 byn in ch. ii. 4, the divine rejection is more distinctly indicated.— Ver. 26 is not merely a repetition of the prayer in ver. 25, as Thenius supposes, but forms the introduction to the prayers which follow for the hearing of all the prayers presented before the Lord in the temple. The words, " let Thy words be verified, which Thou spakest unto Thy servant David," contain something more than a prayer for the continual preservation of the descendants of David upon the throne, for the fulfilment of which Solomon prayed in ver. 25. They refer to the whole of the promise in 2 Sam. vii. 12-16. The plural T"OT (Chethib) points back to D'WfTTa in 2 Sam. vii. 17, and is not to be altered into the singular after the Kcri. The singular |BK* is used as it frequently is with the subject in the plural, when the verb precedes (cf. Ewald, § 316, a, 1). Solomon has here in mind one particular point in the promise, viz. that God would not withdraw His mercy from the seed of David, even when it sinned. This is evident from what follows, where he mentions simply cases of transgression, and prays that they may be forgiven.— Vers. 26-28 sqq. are closely connected in this sense: keep Thy words that were spoken to David; for although this temple cannot hold Thine infinite divine nature, I know that Thou wilt have respect to the prayer of Thy servant, to keep Thine eyes open over this temple, to hear every prayer which
Thy people shall bring before Thee therein. 1V3B* in ver. 28 continues the optative Nj ipxN in ver. 26; and ver. 27 contains an intermediate thought, with which Solomon meets certain contracted ideas of the gracious presence of God in the temple. *3 (ver. 27) signifies neither but, nevertheless, atqui (Bottcher), nor " as " (Thenius, Bertheau); and the assertion that ver. 2 7 is the commencement of a new section is overthrown by the inadmissible rendering of JJ^B*, " but Thou turnest Thyself" (Thenius). — With the words, " Should God really dwell upon the earth! behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens (i.e. the heavens in their widest extent, cf. Deut. x. 14) cannot contain Thee, to say nothing (*3 *|X; cf. Ewald, § 354, c) of this house which I have built," in which the infinitude of God and His exaltation above the world are expressed as clearly and forcibly as possible, Solomon does not intend to guard against the delusion that God really dwells in temples (J. D. Mich.), but simply to meet the erroneous idea that He dwells in the temple as men dwell in a house, namely, shut up within it, and not also outside and above it, — a delusion which sometimes forced its way into the unspiritual nation, but which was always attacked by the prophets (cf. Mic. iii. 1 1; Jer. vii. 4, etc.). For it is evident that Solomon did combine with his clear perception of the infinite exaltation of God a firm belief in His real presence in the temple, and did not do homage to the abstract idealism of the rationalists, not merely from his declaration in vers. 12 sqq. that he had built this temple as a dwellingplace for God, but also from the substance of all the following prayers, and primarily from the general prayer in vers. 28 and 29, that God would take this temple under His special protection, and hearken to every prayer directed towards it. The distinction between npaPi nanm and nm is the following: n?an denotes prayer in general, praise, supplication, and thanksgiving; »i3nri> supplication or entreaty, prayer for help and mercy; and nri, jubilation, prayer as the joyous utterance of praise and thanksgiving. — Ver. 29. "That Thine eyes may be open upon this house night and day." fl^rrpN, speciali quadam providentia in hanc domum directi (Mich.). The following clause, " upon the place of which Thou hast said, My name shall be there" (namely, 2 Sam. vii. 13, wypliciti), contains within itself the ground upon which the prayer rests. Because the name of God will be in the temple, i.e. because God will manifest His gracious presence there, He will also keep His eyes open upon it, so as to hear the prayer of Solomon directed towards it. njn Dipran?k (toward this place): because Solomon also was praying in the court towards the temple. — In ver. 30, " and hear the supplication of Thy servant and of Thy people Israel," he begins by asking that those prayers may be heard which the king and people shall henceforth bring before God in the temple. ^VP'f1. corresponds to JVJQi in ver. 28, and is more precisely defined by the following yp^n nnxi (as for these prayers), Thou wilt hear them up to the place of Thine abode, to heaven.?N VVW is a pregnant expression: to hear the prayer, which ascends to heaven. In the Chronicles we find throughout the explanatory |D. The last words, " hear and forgive," must be left in their general form, and not limited by anything to be supplied. Nothing but forgiveness of sin can remove the curse by which transgression is followed.
This general prayer is then particularized from ver. 31 onwards by the introduction of seven special petitions for an answer in the different cases in which, in future, prayers may be offered to God in the temple. The first prayer (vers. 31,32) has reference to the oaths sworn in the temple, the sanctity of which God is asked to protect. " If a man sin against his neighbour, and an oath be laid upon him, to cause him to swear, and he come (and) swear before the altar in this house, then wilt Thou hear," etc. ikw nt* does not mean either " granted that " (Thenius) or " just when " (Ewald, § 533, a), although DN is used in the Chronicles, and we might render it freely " when; " but AN is simply an accusative particle, serving to introduce the following clause, in the sense of " as for," or H with regard to (such a case as) that a man sins" (vid. Ewald, § 277, a). «"yK n:pi cannot be taken as anything but an asyndeton. For if n?K were a substantive, it would have the article (n?NH) provided it were the subject, and the verb would be written nsa; and if it were the object, we should have '"y^, as in Neh. x. 30 (cf. Ezek. xvii. 13). The prayer refers to the cases mentioned in Ex. xxii. 6-12 and Lev. v. 21-24, when property entrusted to any one had been lost or injured, or when a thing had been found and the finding was denied, or when an act of fraud had been committed; in which cases the law required not only compensation with the addition of a fifth of its value, but also a trespass-offering as an expiation of the sin committed by taking a false oath. But as this punishment could only be inflicted when the guilty person afterwards confessed his guilt, many false oaths might have been sworn in the cases in question and have remained unpunished, so far as men were concerned. Solomon therefore prays that the Lord will hear every such oath that shall have been sworn before the altar, and work (fl'W), i.e. actively interpose, and judge His servants, to punish the guilty and justify the innocent. The construction DsE$n y£OT (vers. 32, 34, 36, etc.) can be explained more simply from the adverbial use of the accusative (Ewald, § 300, b), than from?N DJDtfn in ver. 30. te>K"i2 Syn nn, to give (bring) his way upon his head, i.e. to cause the merited punishment to fall upon him (cf. Ezek. ix. 10, xi. 21, etc.). Vf]V't]\} and P*«f pTOn recall Deut. xxv. 2. For Inflffl b nn compare' 2 Sam. xxii. 21, 25.— The following cases are all taken from Lev. xxvi. and Deut. xxviii.
Vers. 3 3 and 3 4. The second petition, — " If Thy people Israel are smitten by the enemy, because they have sinned against Thee, and they turn to Thee and confess Thy name,... then hear... and bring them back into the land," — refers to the threatenings in Lev. xxvi. 17 and Deut. xxviii. 25, where the nation is threatened with defeat and subjugation on the part of enemies, who shall invade the land, in which case prisoners of war are carried away into foreign lands, but the mass of the people remain in the land, so that they who are beaten can pray to the Lord in the temple, that He will forgive them their sin, save them out of the power of the enemy, and bring back the captives and fugitives into their fatherland.
Vers. 35 and 36. The third prayer refers to the remission of the punishment of drought threatened against the land, when the heaven is shut up, according to Lev. xxvi. 1 9, Deut. xi. 1 7, xxviii. 23. ftjSn "3, because Thou humblest them (LXX.,Vulg.); not "that Thou nearest them " (Chald. and others). DTin ^ because Thou teachest them the good way. These words correspond to Dayn *o, and contain a motive for forgiveness. Because God teaches His people and seeks by means of chastisements to bring them back to the good way when they fail to keep His commandments, He must forgive when they recognise the punishment as a divine chastisement and come to Him with penitential prayer.
Vers. 37-40. The fourth prayer relates to the removal of other land-plagues: famine (Lev. xxvi. 19, 20, and 26; Deut. xxviii. 23); pestilence (Lev. xxvi. 25); blight and mildew in the corn (Dent, xxviii. 22); locusts (^p?, devourer, is connected with ninx without a copula, — in the Chronicles by Vdv, — to depict the plague of locusts more vividly before their eyes after Deut. xxviii. 38); oppression by enemies in their own land; lastly, plagues and diseases of all kinds, such as are threatened against the rebellious in Lev. xxvi. 16 and Deut. xxviii. 59-61. "W is not the imperfect Kal of TW (Ges., Dietr., Fiirst, Olsh, Gramm. p. 524), but the imperfect Hipliiloi 1¥n in Deut. xxviii. 52, as in Neh. ix. 27; and the difficult expression H?FH*?? is probably to be altered into 'V P.??, whilst vnyc> is either to be taken as a second object to W, as Luther supposes, or as in apposition to HN!?> m tne ^an(^ (m) hi*3 gates, as Bertheau assumes. The assertion of Thenius, that all the versions except the Vulgate are founded upon the reading V"jy nns3? is incorrect. HJff "3 is omitted after "ynp-TS, since Solomon dropped the construction witli which he commenced, and therefore briefly summed up all the prayers, addressed to God under the various chastisements here named, in the expression nanrrSzi rferp3^ which is placed absolutely at the opening of ver. 38. 1PN '131 pyT, " when they perceive each one the stroke of his heart," i.e. not dolor animi quem quisqnc sentit (Vatab., C. a Lap.), but the plague regarded as a blow falling upon the heart, in other words, as a chastisement inflicted upon him by God. In all these cases may God hear his prayer, and do and give to every one according to his way. inn tj's^ " as Thou knowest his heart," i.e. as is profitable for every one according to the state of his heart or his disposition. God can do this, because He knows the hearts of all men (cf. Jer. xvii. 10). The purpose assigned for all this hearing of prayer (ver. 40), viz. " that they may fear Thee," etc., is the same as in Deut. iv. 1 0.
Vers. 41-43. The fifth prayer has reference to the hearing of the prayers of foreigners, who shall pray in the temple. Solomon assumes as certain that foreigners will come and worship before Jehovah in His temple; even Moses himself had allowed the foreigners living among the Israelites to offer sacrifice at the temple (Num. xv. 14 sqq.), and the great name and the arm of the Lord, that had manifested itself in deeds of omnipotence, had become known in the times of Moses to the surrounding nations (Ex. xv. 14, xviii. 1; Josh. v. 1), and the report of this had reached Balaam even in Mesopotamia (see the Comm. on Num. xxii.). ^"psn?$ does not mean " as for the foreigners " (Thenius), for ^ is never used in this sense; but it is to be connected with ynwn in ver. 43, as % yvy frequently occurs (Bertheau). — Ver. 42 is a parenthesis inserted in explanation of ^9F ®$: " f°r tney w^ hear," etc. The strong hand and the outstretched arm are connected together as a standing expression for the wondrous manifestations of the divine omnipotence in the guidance of Israel, as in Deut. iv. 34, v. 15, etc. With &Bnni Kni the p.$? a:n in ver. 41 is resumed, and the main thought continued. — Ver. 43. The reason for the hearing of the prayers of foreigners is " that all nations may know Thy name to fear Thee," etc., as in Deut. xxviii. 10. An examination of this original passage, from which N"Ji?? 1*?^ *3 'Ml by is taken and transferred to the temple, shows that the common explanations of this phrase, viz. " that this house is called after Thy name," or " that Thy name is invoked over this temple (at its dedication)," are erroneous. The name of the Lord is always used in the Scriptures to denote the working of God among His people or in His kingdom (see at 2 Sam. vi. 2). The naming of this name over the nation, the temple, etc., presupposes the working of God within it, and denotes the confession and acknowledgment of that working. This is obvious from such passages as Jer. xiv. 9, where the expression " Thy name is called over us " is only a further explanation of the word " Thou art in the midst of us;" and from Isa. lxiii. 19, where "we are they over whom Thou hast not ruled from eternity " is equivalent to " over whom Thy name has not been called." The name of Jehovah will be named over the temple, when Jehovah manifests His gracious presence within it in such a manner, that the nations who pray towards it experience the working of the living God within His sanctuary. It is in this sense that it is stated in 2 Sam. vi. 2 that the name of Jehovah is named above the ark of the covenant (see the Comm. in loc). — There are no cases on record of the worship of foreigners in connection with Solomon's temple, though there are in connection with the temple built after the captivity (vid. Josephus, Ant. xi. 8, 5, that of Alexander the Great; xii. 2, 5 sqq., that of Ptolemaeus Philadelphus; and 2 Mace. iii. 2, 3, that of Seleucus).
Finally, in vers. 44-50 Solomon also asks, that when prayers are directed towards the temple by those who are far away both from Jerusalem and the temple, they may be heard. The sixth case, in vers. 44 and 45, is, if Israel should be engaged in war with an enemy by the appointment of God; and the seventh, in vers. 46-50, is, if it should be carried away by enemies on account of its sins.1 By the expression in ver. 44, " in the way which Thou sendest them," the war is described as one undertaken by the direction of God, whether waged against an enemy who has invaded the land, or outside the land of Canaan for the chastisement of the heathen dwelling around them. " And shall pray 131 Vjjjn T}?.: " i.e. in the direction towards the chosen city and the temple, namely, in faith in the actual presence of the covenant God in the temple. >"|j,T?&, " to Jehovah," instead of " to Thee," is probably introduced for the sake of greater clearness. Dssiro rvb'jn and secure them justice (cf. Deut. x. 18, Ps. ix. 5, etc.). — Vers. 46 sqq. In the seventh prayer, viz. if Israel should be given up to its enemies on account of its sins and carried away into the land of the enemy, Solomon had the threat in Lev. xxvi. 33 and 44 in his eye, though he does not confine his prayer to the exile of the whole nation foretold in that passage and in Deut. xxviii. 45 sqq., 64 sqq., and xxx. 1—5, but extends it to every case of transportation to an enemy's land. D3? bx VXVty " and they take it to heart," compare Deut. iv. 39, and without the object, Deut. xxx. 1; not " they feel remorse," as Thenius supposes, because the Hiphil cannot have this reflective signification (Bottcher). The confession of sin in ver. 47, HXR8n WJjni HKDri, was adopted by the Jews when in captivity as the most exhaustive expression of their deep consciousness of guilt (Dan. ix. 5; Ps. cvi. 6). Nt?n, to slip, labi, depicts sin as a wandering from right;
1 Bertheau (ou Chron.) has already proved that there is no force in the arguments by which Thenius attempts to show, on doctrinal grounds, that vers. 44-51 are an interpolated addition. As he correctly observes, " it is, on the contrary, quite in harmony with the original plan, that the two cases are also anticipated, in which the prayers of Israelites who are at a distance from the seat of the sanctuary are directed towards the temple, since it is perfectly appropriate that the prayers of the Israelites at the place of the sanctuary are mentioned first, then the prayers of foreigners at the same place, and lastly the prayers of Israelites, who, because they are not in Jerusalem, are obliged to content themselves with turning their faces towards the temple. We might also point to the fact that it is probably intentional that exactly seven cases are enumerated, inasmuch as in enumerations of this kind, which are not restricted by the nature of the case to any definite measure, such a number as seven easily furnishes an outward limit," — or more correctly: because seven as a sacred or covenant number was more appropriate than any other to embrace all prayers addressed to God.
'iU,n> to act perversely, as a conscious perversion of justice; and VV~} as a passionate rebellion against God (cf. Isa. lvii. 20). — Ver. 5 0. D<»rT^ DJirui: literally, " and make (place) them for compassion before their captors, that they may have compassion upon them," i.e. cause them to meet with compassion from their enemies, who have carried them away. — In vers. 51-53 Solomon closes with general reasons, which should secure the hearing of his prayer on the part of God. Bertheau follows the earlier commentators in admitting that these reasons refer not merely to the last petitions, but to all the preceding ones.1 The plea "for they are Thy people," etc. (ver. 51), is taken from Deut. iv. 10; and that in ver. 53, "Thou didst separate them," etc., is taken from Lev. xx. 24, 26, compared with Ex. xix. 5. 'til *p3*|f niw, " that Thine eyes may be opened," follows upon n^Ofh ("then hear Thou") in ver. 49; just as ver. 29 at the commencement of the prayer follows upon rMW in ver. 28. The recurrence of the same expression shows that the prayer is drawing to a close, and is rounded off by a return to the thought with which it opened. " As Thou spakest by Moses" points back to Ex. xix. 5. — In 2 Chron. vi. 40-42 the conclusion of the prayer is somewhat altered, and closes with the appeal to the Lord to cause salvation and grace to go forth from the temple over His people.
Vers. 54-66. Concluding Act of the dedication of the temple. Vers. 54-61. Blessing the congregation. — After the conclusion of the prayer, Solomon rose up from his knees and blessed all the assembled congregation. niBTtB VS31 is a circumstantial clause, which must be connected with the previous words and rendered thus: " from lying upon his knees with his hands spread out towards heaven." " And he stood," i.e. he came from the altar and stood nearer to the assembled congregation. The blessing begins with praise to the Lord for the fulfilment of His promises (ver. 16), and consists in the petition that the Lord will always fulfil his (Solomon's) prayers, and
1 Seb. Schmidt has already given the following explanation: " These things which I have asked for myself and for my people do Thou, 0 Lord, because it is for Thy people that I have prayed, and I am their king: therefore hear Thou the prayers of Thy servant and Thy people. For in ver. 52 he makes mention of his own case and of the cases of all the rest, in which they would call upon the Lord.
grant His people the promised salvation.1 — Ver. 56. The praise of Jehovah rests, so far as the first part is concerned, upon the promise in Dent. xii. 9, 10, and upon its fulfilment in Josh, xxi. 44, 45 and xxiii. 14; and the second part is founded upon Lev. xxvi. 3—13 and Deut. xxviii. 1-14, where the "good word, which the Lord spake by Moses," is more precisely described as the blessing which the Lord had promised to His people and had hitherto bestowed upon them. He had already given Israel rest by means of Joshua when the land of Canaan was taken; but since many parts of the land still remained in the hands of the Canaanites, this rest was only fully secured to them by David's victories over all their enemies. This glorious fulfilment warranted the hope that the Lord would also fulfil in the future what He had promised His servant David (2 Sam. vii. 10), if the people themselves would only faithfully adhere to their God. Solomon therefore sums up all his wishes for the good of the kingdom in vers. 57-G1 in the words, " May Jehovah our God be with us, as He was with our fathers; may lie not leave us nor forsake us, to incline our heart to Himself, that we may walk in all His ways," etc. — that the evil word predicted by Moses in Lev. xxvi. 14 sqq., Deut, xxviii. 15, may not fall upon us. For ver. 57 compare Deut. xxxi. G, 8, and Josh. i. 5. VV& '$ corresponds to *JS"V bit in these passages. In the Pentateuch tt'B3 is used but once of men who forsake the Lord, viz. Deut. xxxii. 1 5; in other cases it is only used in the general sense of casting away, letting alone, and other similar meanings. It is first used of God, in the sense of for-
1 This blessing is omitted from the Chronicles, because it is simply a recapitulation of the longer prayer; but instead of it we have a statement, in 2 Chron. vii. 1-4, to the effect that fire fell from heaven and consumed the burnt-offering upon the altar. This statement, which even Movers regards as a traditional, i.e. a legendary addition, according to his erroneous view of the sources of the Chronicles, is confirmed by the similar miracle which occurred at the dedication of the temple. It is omitted, like so many other things in the account before us, because all that was essential in this occurrence was contained implicite in the filling of the temple with the glory of the Lord. Just as at the consecration of the Mosaic sanctuary the Lord did not merely manifest His gracious presence through the cloud which filled the tent, but also kindled the first sacrifice with fire from heaven (Lev. ix. 24), to sanctify the altar as the legitimate place of sacrifice; so also at the temple the miraculous kindling of the first sacrifice with fire from heaven was the immediate and even necessary consequence of the filling of the temple with the cloud, in which the presence of Jehovah was embodied.
Baking His people, in Ps. xxvii. 9 in connection with 3jy; and it frequently occurs afterwards in Jeremiah. — Ver. 59. May these my words, which I have prayed (vers. 25-43), be near to Jehovah our God day and night, that He may secure the right of His servant (the king) and of His people, as every day demands, toto ^ W, as in Ex. v. 13, xvi. 4. — For ver. 60 compare ver. 43. — Ver. 61. Let your heart be '" Ey ubw, wholly, undividedly devoted to the Lord (cf. ch. xi. 4, xv. 3, 14, etc.).
Vers. 62-66. Sacrifices and feast. — Vers. 62, 63. The dedicatory prayer was followed by a magnificent sacrifice offered by the king and all Israel. The thank-offering (Cipj^ n?J) consisted, in accordance with the magnitude of the manifestation of divine grace, of 2 2,0 0 0 oxen and 120,000 sheep. This enormous number of sacrificial animals, in which J. D. Michaelis found serious difficulties, Thenius endeavours to set aside as too large, by calculating that as these sacrifices were offered in seven days, reckoning the sacrificial day at twelve full hours, there must have been about five oxen and about twenty-five sheep slaughtered and offered in sacrifice every minute for the king alone. This calculation would be conclusive, if there were any foundation for the three assumptions upon which it rests: namely, (1) that the number of sacrifices mentioned was offered for the king alone; (2) that the slaughtering and preparation of the sacrificial animals could only be performed by the priests and Levites; and (3) that the whole of the flesh of these sacrificial animals was to be consumed upon the altar. But these three assumptions are all erroneous. There is nothing in the account about their being " for the king alone." For it is obvious that the wrords " and Solomon offered a sacrifice " are not to be understood as signifying that the fking had these sacrifices offered for himself alone, but that the words refer to the sacrifices offered by the king and all Israel for the consecration of the temple, from the simple fact that in ver. 62 " Solomon and all Israel " are expressly mentioned as offering sacrifice, and that after the statement of the number of the sacrifices we find these words in ver. 63: "so the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of Jehovah." Moreover it is very evident from the law in Lev. i. and iii. that at the offering of sacrifice the slaughtering, flaying, and preparation of the sacrificial animals were performed by any Israelite, and that it was only the sprinkling of the blood against the altar and the burning of the sacrificial portions upon the altar which were the exclu/iive province of the priests. In order to form a correct idea of the enormous number of sacrifices which could be slaughtered on any one day, we will refer again to the notice in Josephus {Bell. Jud. vi. 9, 3) already mentioned in the Comm. on the Pentateuch, vol. iii. p. 51 (translation), that in the reign of the emperor Nero the procurator Cestius directed the priests to count the number of the paschal lambs, and that they counted 250,000, which were slaughtered for the passover between the ninth and eleventh hours of the day, and of which the blood was sprinkled upon the altar. If then it was possible at that time to slaughter more than 250,000 lambs in three hours of the afternoon, and to sprinkle the blood upon the altar, there can have been no difficulty in slaughtering and sacrificing 3000 oxen and 18,000 sheep at the dedication of the temple on each of the seven days of the festival. As all Israel from Hamath to the brook of Egypt came to Jerusalem to this festival, we shall not be above the mark if we estimate the number of the heads of houses present at 100,000. And with very little trouble they could have slaughtered 3000 oxen and 18,000 sheep a day and prepared them for sacrificing. How many priests took an active part in this, we do not indeed know, in fact we have no information as to the number of the priests in Solomon's time; but we know that in the time of David the number of Levites qualified for service, reckoning from their thirtieth year, was 38,000, so that we may certainly assume that there were two or three thousand priests. Now if only the half of these Levites and priests had come to Jerusalem to the dedication of the temple, they alone could have slaughtered 3000 oxen and 18,000 sheep every day. And would not a thousand priests have been sufficient to sprinkle the blood of so many animals upon the altar and to burn the fat between the morning and evening sacrifice? If we divided these sacrifices among a thousand priests, each one would only have had to attend to the sprinkling of the blood and burning of the fat of three oxen and eighteen sheep each day. — But the brazen altar of burnt-offering might not have been large enough for the burning of so many sacrifices, notwithstanding the fact that only the fat portions of the thank-offerings were consumed, and they did not require much room; since the morning and evening burnt-offerings were added daily, and as festal offerings they would certainly not consist of a lamb only, but at least of one bullock, and they were burned whole, although the altar of burntoffering with a surface of 144 square yards (see my bibl. Archaol. i. p. 127) would hold a very large quantity of sacrificial flesh at once. In ver. 64, however, it is expressly stated that Solomon sanctified the middle of the court, which was before the house of Jehovah, to burn the burnt-offering and meat-offering and the fat portions of the thank-offerings there, because the brazen altar was too small to hold these sacrifices. " The middle of the court" pvnn Tjin) is the whole of the inner portion of the court of the priests, which was in front of the temple-house and formed the centre of the court surrounding the temple. Of course we have not to imagine that the sacrifices were offered upon the stone pavement of the court, but must assume that there were auxiliary altars erected in the inner court around the brazen altar. By the burnt-offering and the meat-offering (belonging to it: rpiyrrnx nru&rrn&o) we are not to understand certain burnt-offerings, which were offered for a definite number of thank-offerings, as Thenius supposes. The singular and the definite article are both at variance with this. The reference is rather to the (well-known) daily morning and evening burnt-offerings with their meat-offering, and in this case, no doubt, to such a festal sacrifice as is prescribed in Num. xxviii. for the great yearly feasts. — Ver. 65. Thus Solomon held the feast at that time, and all Israel with him, a great assembly from the neighbourhood of Hamath to the brook of Egypt, i.e. from the whole land in its fullest extent from north to south. " The district of Hamath" i.e. Epiphania on the Orontes, is mentioned as the northern boundary (cf. Num. xxxiv. 8, xiii. 21, Josh. xiii. 5, etc.); and " the brook of Egypt" (Q^IVP 'DP)» JRhinocorura, as the southern boundary (cf. Num. xxxiv. 8, Josh. xv. 4). " The feast " 0??)* which Solomon held with the people " seven days and seven days, fourteen days," is not the feast of the dedication, but, as in ver. 2, the feast of tabernacles, which fell in the seventh month; and the meaning of the verse is, that on that occasion the feast of the seventh month was kept for fourteen days, namely, seven days as the feast of the dedication, and seven days as the feast of tabernacles. We are obliged to take the words in this way, partly on account of the evident reference to 3ro (at the feast) in ver. 2 in the expression ^nrrriN (the feast) in this verse, and partly on account of the statement which follows in ver. 66, "and on the eighth day he sent the people away." The " eighth day" is not the first day of the feast of tabernacles (Thenius); but the eighth day, as the conclusion of the feast of tabernacles, rnv$| (Lev. xxiii. 36). The correctness of this view is placed beyond all doubt by the context in the Chronicles, which states more clearly that." Solomon kept the feast seven days, and all Israel with him... and they kept rnjjj (the closing feast) on the eighth day; for they kept the dedication of the altar seven days and the feast seven days; and on the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people away." The feast of tabernacles lasted seven days, from the 15th to the 21st, with a closing festival on the eighth day, i.e. the 2 2d of the month (Lev. xxiii. 33-39). This festival was preceded by the dedication of the temple from the 8th to the 14th of the month. The statement in ver. 66, " on the eighth day he sent the people away," if we take the words in their strict sense, is at variance with the statement in the Chronicles, "on the 23d day," since the eighth day of the feast of tabernacles was the 2 2d day of the month; but it may easily be accounted for from want of precision in a well-known matter. Solomon sent the people away on the eighth day, i.e. on the afternoon or evening of the atzereth of the feast of tabernacles, so that on the morning of the next day, i.e. on the 23d of the month, the people took their journey home, "joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the Lord had shown to His servant David and to the people." David is mentioned, because the completion of the building of the temple was the fulfilment of the divine promise given to him. " Tents," for houses, as in 2 Sam. xx. 1, Judg. vii 8, and other passages.
CHAP. IX. THE ANSWER TO SOLOMON'S PRAYER. THE MEANS EMPLOYED FOR THE ERECTION OF HIS BUILDINGS.
Vers. 1-9. The Answer of the Lord to Solomon's Dedicatory Prayer (cf. 2 Chron. vii. 11-22). — Vers. 1, 2. When Solomon had finished the building of the temple, and of his palace, and of all that he had a desire to build, the Lord appeared to him the second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon, i.e. by night in a dream (see ch. iii. 5), to promise him that his prayer should be answered. For the point of time, see at ch. viii. 1. p'C,r\"?3> all Solomon's desire or pleasure, is paraphrased thus in the Chronicles: i? by KB"?"??, " all that came into his mind," and, in accordance with the context, is very properly restricted to these two principal buildings by the clause, " in the house of Jehovah and in his own house." — Vers. 3 sqq. The divine promise to Solomon, that his prayer should be answered, is closely connected with the substance of the prayer; but in our account we have only a brief summary, whereas in the Chronicles it is given more elaborately (yid. 2 Chron. vii. 12-16). * I have sanctified this house which thou hast built, to put my name there." For the expression, see Deut. xii. 11. The sanctifying consisted in the fact, that Jehovah put His name in the temple; i.e. that by filling the temple with the cloud which visibly displayed His presence, He consecrated it as the scene of the manifestation of His grace. To Solomon's prayer, " May Thine eyes stand open over this house" (ch. viii. 29), the Lord replies, giving always more than we ask, " My eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually." — Vers. 4 and 5 contain the special answer to ch. viii. 25 and 26. — Vers. 6-9 refer to the prayer for the turning away of the curse, to which the Lord replies: If ye and your children turn away from me, and do not keep my commandments, but worship other gods, this house will not protect you from the curses threatened in the law, but they will be fulfilled in all their terrible force upon you and upon this temple. This threat follows the Pentateuch exactly in the words in which it is expressed; ver. 7 being founded upon Deut. xxviii. 37, 45, and 63, and the curse pronounced upon Israel in Deut. xxix. 23-26 being transferred to the temple in vers. 8 and 9. — '3B byo rw, to dismiss, i.e. to reject from before my face. " This house will be P y?," i.e. will stand high, or through its rejection will be a lofty example for all that pass by. The temple stood upon a high mountain, so that its ruins could not fail to attract the attention of all who went past. The expression flyJJ is selected with an implied allusion to Deut. xxvi. 19 and xxviii. 1. God there promises to make Israel P^y, high, exalted above all nations. This blessing will be turned into a curse. The temple, which wTas high and widely renowned, shall continue to be high, but in the opposite sense, as an example of the rejection of Israel from the presence of God.1
Vers. 10-28. The Means by which the Buildings webe erected. — In order that all which still remained to be said concerning Solomon's buildings might be grouped together, different notices are introduced here, namely, as to his relation to Hiram, the erection of several fortresses, and the tributary labour, and also as to his maritime expeditions; and these heterogeneous materials are so arranged as to indicate the resources which enabled Solomon to erect so many and such magnificent buildings. These resources were: (1) his connection with king Hiram, who furnished him with building materials (vers. 10-14); (2) the tributary labour which he raised in his kingdom (vers. 15-25); (3) the maritime expedition to Ophir, which brought him great wealth (vers. 26-28). But these notices are very condensed, and, as a comparison with the parallel account in 2 Chron. viii. shows, are simply incomplete extracts from a more elaborate history. In the account of the tributary labour, the enumeration of the cities finished and fortified (vers. 15-19) is interpolated; and the information concerning the support which was rendered to Solomon in the erection of his buildings by Hiram (vers. 11—14), is merely supplementary to the account already given in ch. v. Vers. 24 and 25 point still more clearly to an earlier account, since they would be otherwise unintelligible. — In 2 Chron. viii. the arrangement is a simpler one: the buildings are first of all enumerated in vers. 1—6, and the account of the tributary labour follows in vers. 7-11.
Vers. 10—14. The notices concerning Solomons connection with Hiram are very imperfect; for ver. 14 does not furnish a conclusion either in form or substance. The notice in 2 Chron. viii. 1, 2 is still shorter, but it supplies an important addition to the account before us. — Vers. 10 and 11 form one and has all the ancient versions against it; for they all contain the Masoretic text, either in a verbal translation (LXX.), or in a paraphrase, as for example the Chaldee, u the house that was high shall be destroyed;'1 the Syriac and Arabic, " this house will be destroyed;" and the Vulgate, domus ~hxc erit in ercmplum. — In 2 Chron. vii. 21 the thought is somewhat varied by the alteration of n\T into HTI "".EJtf. For it would never enter the mind of any sober critic to attribute this variation to a misinterpretation of our text. Still less can it be an unsuccessful attempt to explain or rectify our text, as Bbttcher imagines, since the assertion of this critic, that ji^y is only used to signify an exalted position, and never the exaltation of dignity or worth, is proved to be erroneous by Deut. xxvi. 19 and xxviii. 1.
period.!*)* ts (then he gave) in ver. 1 1 introduces the apodosis to 'po WJ (and it came to pass, etc.) in ver. 10; and ver. 11 contains a circumstantial clause inserted as a parenthesis. Hiram had supported Solomon according to his desire with cedar wood and cypress wood, and with gold; and Solomon gave him in return, after his buildings were completed, twenty cities in the land of Galil. But these cities did not please Hiram. When he went out to see them, he said, " What kind of cities are these (no in a contemptuous sense) which thou hast given me, my brother?" '•nK as in ch. xx. 32, 1 Mace. x. 18, xi. 30, 2 Mace. xi. 22, as a conventional expression used by princes in their intercourse with one another. "And he called the land Cabul unto this day;" i.e. it retained this name even to later times. The land of Galil is a part of the country which was afterwards known as Galilcca, namely, the northern portion of it, as is evident from the fact that in Josh, xx. 7, xxi. 32, Kales in the mountains of Naphtali, to the northwest of Lake Hulch, is distinguished from the Kadesh in southern Palestine by the epithet?vj3. It is still more evident from 2 Kings xv. 29 and Isa. viii. 23 that Galil embraced the northern part of the tribe of Naphtali; whilst the expression used by Isaiah, &Sl*\ ->v3, also shows that this district was for the most part inhabited by heathen (i.e. non-Israelites). The twenty cities in Galil, which Solomon gave to Hiram, certainly belonged therefore to the cities of the Canaanites mentioned in 2 Sam. xxiv. 7; that is to say, they were cities occupied chiefly by a heathen population, and in all probability they were in a very bad condition. Consequently they did not please Hiram, and he gave to the district the contemptuous name of the land of Cabul. Of the various interpretations given to the word Cahil (see Ges. Thes. p. 656), the one proposed by Hiller (Onomast. p. 435), and adopted by Reland, Ges., Maurer, and others, viz. that it is a contraction of bteHS, sicut id quod evanuit tanquam nihil, has the most to support it, since this is the meaning required by the context. At the same time it is possible, and even probable, that it had originally a different signification, and is derived from ^?3 —?2n in the sense of to pawn, as Gesenius and Dietrich suppose. This is favoured by the occurrence of the name Cabul in Josh. xix. 2 7, where it is probably derivable from?33, to fetter, and signifies literally a fortress or castle; but in this instance it has no connection with the land of Cabul, since it is still preserved in the village of Cabul to the south-east of Acre (see the Comm. on Josh. I.e.). The " land of Cabul " would therefore mean the pawned land; and in the mouths of the people this would be twisted into v* good for nothing." In this case N"}p?l would have to be taken impersonally: " they called;" and the notice respecting this name would be simply an explanation of the way in which the people interpreted it. Hiram, however, did not retain this district, but gave it back to Solomon, who then completed the cities (2 Chron. viii. 2.).1 The only way in which we can give to ver. 14 a meaning in harmony with the context, is by taking it as a supplementary explanation of ^nni... Nfeu... D^n in ver. 11, and so rendering n?B»1 as a pluperfect, as in ch. vii. 13:" Hiram had sent the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold." If we reckon the value of gold as being ten times the worth of silver, a hundred and twenty talents of gold would be 3,141,600 thalers (about £471,240: Tr.). This is no doubt to be regarded as a loan, which Solomon obtained from Hiram to enable him to complete his buildings. Although David may have collected together the requisite amount of precious metals for the building of the temple, and Solomon had also very considerable yearly revenues, derived partly from tribute paid by subjugated nations and partly from trade, his buildings were so extensive, inasmuch as he erected a large number of cities beside the temple and his splendid palace (vers. 15—19), that Iris revenues might not suffice for the completion of these costly works; and therefore, since he would not apply the consecrated treasures of the temple to the erection of cities and palaces, he might find himself compelled to procure a loan from the wealthy king Hiram, which he probably intended to cover by ceding to him twenty cities on the border of the Phoenician territory. But as these cities did not please the king of Tyre and he gave them back to Solomon, the latter will no doubt have repaid the amount borrowed during the last twenty years of his reign.
1 This simple method of reconciling the account before us with the apparently discrepant notice in the Chronicles, concerning which even Movers (die biblische Chronik, p. 159) observes, that the chronicler interpolated it from a second (?) source, is so natural, that it is difficult to conceive how Bertheau can object to it; since he admits that the accounts in the books of Kings and Chronicles are incomplete extracts from common and more elaborate sources.
Vers. 15—23. Solomons tribute service, and the building of the cities. (Cf. 2 ChroD. viii. 3-10.) The other means by which Solomon made it possible to erect so many buildings, was by compelling the remnants of the Canaanitish population that were still in the land to perform tributary labour. Dftn ~i:n n£ " this is the case with regard to the tribute." For do rpyn compare ch. v. 27. To the announcement of the object which Solomon had in view in raising tributary labourers, namely, to build, etc., there is immediately appended a list of all the buildings completed by him (vers. 15—19); and it is not till ver. 20 that we have more precise details concerning the tribute itself. Millo, the wall of Jerusalem, and the cities enumerated, are for the most part not new buildings, but simply fortifications, or the completion of buildings already in existence. David had already built the castle of Millo and the wall of Jerusalem (2 Sam. v. 9); so that Solomon's building was in both cases merely fortifying more strongly. On Millo see the fuller remarks at 2 Sam. v. 9; and on the building of the wall, those at ch. iii. 1 and xi. 27. As Solomon thereby closed the breach of the city of David according to ch. xi. 27, he probably extended the city wall so as to enclose the temple mountain; and he may possibly have also surrounded the lower city with a wall, since David had only built a fortification round about the upper city upon Zion (see at 2 Sam. v. 9). — Hazor: an old royal city of the Canaanites above Lake Hideh, which has not yet been discovered (see at Josh. xi. 1). Megiddo; i.e. Lcjun (see at ch. iv. 12). Gezer: also an old Canaanitish royal city, which stood close to the Philistian frontier, probably on the site of the present village of el Kuoab (see at Josh. x. 33). — Ver. 16. This city had been taken and burned down by the king of Egypt; its Canaanitish inhabitants had been put to death; and the city itself had been given as a marriage portion to his daughter who was married to Solomon. Nothing is known concerning the occasion and object of Pharaoh's warlike expedition against this city. The conjecture of Thenius, that the Canaanitish inhabitants of Gezer had drawn upon themselves the vengeance of Pharaoh, mentioned here, through a piratical raid upon the Egyptian coast, is open to this objection, that according to all accounts concerning its situation, Gezer was not situated near the sea-coast, but very far inland. — Ver. 1 7. This city Solomon built: i.e. he not only rebuilt it, but also fortified it. He did the same also to Lower
Bcthhoron, i.e. Bcit-Ur Tachta, on the western slope of the mountains, four hours' journey from Gibeon. According to 2 Chron. viii. 5, Solomon also fortified Upper Bethhoron, which was separated by a deep wady from Lower Bethhoron, that lay to the west (see Comm. on Josh. x. 10 and xvi. 3). The two Bethhorons and Gezer were very important places for the protection of the mountainous country of Benjamin, Ephraim, and Judah against hostile invasions from the Philistian plain. The situation of Megiddo on the southern edge of the plain of Jezreel, through which the high road from the western coast to the Jordan ran, was equally important; and so also was Hazor as a border fortress against Syria in the northern part of the land. — Ver. 18. Solomon also built, i.e. fortified, Baalath and Tadmor in the desert. According to Josh. xix. 44, Baalath was a city of Dan, and therefore, as Josephus {Ant. viii. 6, 1) justly observes, was not far from Gezer; and consequently is not to be identified with either Baalgad or Baalbek in Coelesyria (Iken, Mich. Rosenm.; cf. Robinson, Bibl. Res. p. 519). "ion (Chctliib) is either to be read "JDJJ, or according to Ewald (Gesch. in. p. 344) "ten, palm, a palm-city. The Keri requires "ibin (Tadmor, after 2 Chron. viii. 4), a pronunciation which may possibly have simply arisen from Aramaean expansion, but which is still the name for the city current among the Arabs
Greeks and Romans called it Palmyra. It was situated in what is certainly now a very desolate oasis of the Syrian desert, on the caravan road between Damascus and the Euphrates, — according to modern accounts, not more than seventeen hours' journey from that river; and there are still magnificent ruins which attest the former glory of this wealthy and, under queen Zenobia, very powerful city (cf. Ritter, Erdk. xvii. 2, p. 148G sqq., and E. Osiander in Herzog's Cycl.). The correctness of this explanation of the name is placed beyond all doubt by the words " in the wilderness; " and consequently even Movers has given up his former opinion, viz. that it was the city of Thamar in southern Judah (Ezek. xlvii. 19, xlviii. 28), which Thenius has since adopted, and has decided in favour of Palmyra, without being led astray by the attempt of Hitzig to explain the name from the Sanscrit (vid. Deutsche morgld. Ztschr. viii. p. 2 2 2 sqq.). The expression p.?? appears superfluous, as all the cities named before were situated in the land or kingdom of Solomon, and Tadmor is sufficiently defined by ISHB? (in the desert). The text is evidently faulty, and either the name of the land, namely llamath (according to 2 Chron. viii. 4), has dropped out, or H.K3 is to be taken in connection with what follows (according to the Cod. Al. of the LXX.), and the cop. 1 before ny-^3 n« must be erased and inserted before psa (" and in the land of all the magazine-cities"). — Ver. 19. The "magazinecities " (niJSDSn *")JJ) were fortified cities, in which the produce of the land was collected, partly for provisioning the army, and partly for the support of the rural population in times of distress (2 Chron. xvii. 12, xxxii. 28), similar to those which Pharaoh had built in the land of Goshen (Ex. i. 11). If they were situated on the great commercial roads, they may also have served for storing provisions for the necessities of travellers and their beasts of burden. The cities for the war-chariots p?"l?) and cavalry (D^Knan) were probably in part identical with the magazine-cities, and situated in different parts of the kingdom. There were no doubt some of these upon Lebanon, as we may on the one hand infer from the general importance of the northern frontier to the security of the whole kingdom, and still more from the fact that Solomon had an opponent at Damascus in the person of Eezin (ch. xi. 24), who could easily stir up rebellion in the northern provinces, which had only just been incorporated by David into the kingdom; and as we may on the other hand clearly gather from 2 Chron. xvi. 4, according to which there were magazine-cities in the land of Naphtali. Finally, the words " and what Solomon had a desire to build " embrace all the rest of his buildings, which it would have occupied too much space to enumerate singly. That the words p£>n nx are not to be so pressed as to be made to denote simply " the buildings undertaken for pure pleasure," like the works mentioned in Eccles. ii. 4 sqq., as Thenius and Bertheau suppose, is evident from a comparison of ver. 1, where all Solomon's buildings except the temple and palace, and therefore the fortifications as well as others, are included in the expression " all his desire." — Fuller particulars concerning the tributary workmen are given in ver. 20 sqq. The Canaanitish population that was left in the land were made use of for this purpose, — namely, the descendants of the Canaanites who had not been entirely exterminated by the Israelites. " Their children,"
etc., supplies a more precise definition of the expression " all the people," etc., in ver. 20. (For the fact itself, see the commentary on ch. v. 27, 28.) — Ver. 22. Solomon did not make Israelites into tributary slaves; but they were warriors, ministers, and civil and military officers. B*"!?2 are the king's servants; E^, the heads of the military and civil service; &&?&, royal adjutants (see at 2 Sam. xxiii. 8); TCns* S2Ti n£ captains over the royal war-chariots and cavalry. — For ver. 23 compare ch. v. 30.
Vers. 24 and 25 contain two notices, with which the account of Solomon's buildings is brought to a close. Both verses point back to ch. iii. 1-4 (viz. ver. 24 to ch. iii. 1, and ver. 25 to ch. iii. 2-4), and show how the incongruities which existed at the commencement of Solomon's reign were removed by his buildings. "When Solomon married Pharaoh's daughter, he brought her into the city of David (ch. iii. 1), until he should have finished his palace and built her a house of her own within it. After this building was completed, he had her brought up from the city of David into it, ™W, came up, inasmuch as the palace stood upon the loftier summit of Zion. ^ is to be connected with Ttf which follows, in the sense of only or just as: as soon as Pharaoh's daughter had gone up into the house built for her, Solomon built Millo.1 — Ver. 25. After the building of the temple, the practice of sacrificing upon the altars of the high places could be brought to an end (ch. iii. 2). Solomon now offered burnt-offerings and thank-offerings three times a year upon the altar which he had built to the Lord, i.e. upon the altar of burnt-offering in the temple, or as 2 Chron. viii. 1 2 adds by way of explanation, " before the porch." " Three times in the year:" i.e. at the three great yearly feasts — passover, the feast of weeks, and the feast of tabernacles
1 Nothing certain can be gathered from this notice as to the situation of this castle. The remark made by Thenius, to the effect that it must have joined that portion of the palace in which the harem was, rests upon the assumption that Millo was evidently intended to shelter the harem, — an assumption which cannot be raised into a probability, to say nothing of a certainty. The building of Millo immediately after the entrance of Pharaoh's daughter into the house erected for her, may have arisen from the fact that David (? Solomon — Tr.) could not undertake the fortification of Jerusalem by means of this castle till after his own palace was finished, because he had not the requisite labour at command for carrying on all these buildings at the same time.
indeed burning (the sacrifice) at the (altar) which was before Jehovah," cannot be taken as parallel to the preceding clause, and understood as referring to the incense, which was offered along with the bleeding sacrifices, because ""^iPC1 is not a preterite, but an inf. absol., which shows that this clause merely serves as an explanation of the preceding one, in the sense of, " namely, burning the sacrifices at the altar which was before Jehovah." "^pri is the technical expression here for the burning of the portions of the sacrificial flesh upon the altar, as in Ex. xxix. 18, Lev. i. 9, etc. On the use of "»^K after in**, which Thenius and Bottcher could not understand, and on which they built up all kinds of conjectures, see Ewald, § 333, a, note. — JVarrnK twi, " and made the house complete," i.e. he put the temple into a state of completion, by offering the yearly sacrifices there from that time forward, or, as Bottcher explains it, gave it thereby its full worth as a house of God and place of worship. n?w\ is to be taken grammatically as a continuation of the inf. abs.'^pn.
Vers. 26-28. He sends ships to Ophir. — Solomon built a fleet (^N is collective, ships or fleet; the nom. unitatis is hjjk) a.t Eziongeber, near Eloth, on the coast of the Eed Sea (fpiD'D^; see at Ex. x. 19), in the land of Eclom; and Hiram sent in the fleet " shipmen that had knowledge of the sea " along with Solomon's servants to Ophir, whence they brought to king Solomon 420 talents of gold. Eziongeber, a harbour at the northeastern end of the Elanitic Gulf, was probably the " large and beautiful town of Asziun" mentioned by Makrizi (see at Num. xxxiii. 35), and situated on the great bay of Wady Emrag (see Biippell, Bcisen in Nubien, pp. 252—3). Eloth (lit. trees, a grove, probably so named from the large palm-grove in the neighbourhood), or Elath (Deut. ii. 8; 2 Kings xiv. 22: see at Gen. xiv. 6), the Ailci and JElana of the Greeks and Eomans, Arab. Aileh, was situated at the northern point of the (Elanitic) gulf, which took its name from the town; and in the time of the Fathers it was an important commercial town. It was not far from the small modern fortress of AJeaba, where heaps of rubbish still show the spot on which it formerly stood (compare Buppell, Nub. p. 248, with plates 6 and 7, and Bobinson, Pal. i. p. 251 sqq.). — The corresponding text, 2 Chron. viii. 17, 18, differs in many respects from the account before us. The statement in the Chronicles, that Solomon went to Eziongeber and Elath, is but a very unimportant deviation; for the building of the fleet makes it a very probable thing in itself that Solomon should have visited on that account the two towns on the Elanitic Gulf, which were very near to one another, to make the requisite arrangements upon the spot for this important undertaking. There is apparently a far greater deviation in ver. 27, where, in the place of the statement that Hiram sent *?£3, in the (or a) fleet, his servants as sailors who had knowledge of the sea, the chronicler affirms that Hiram sent by his servants ships and men who had knowledge of the sea. For the only way in which Hiram could send ships to Eziongeber was either by land or (as Ritter, Erdk. xiv. p. 365, supposes) out of the Persian Gulf, supposing that the Tyrians had a fleet upon that sea at so early a date as this. The statement in the Chronicles receives an apparent confirmation from 1 Kings x. 22, " The king had a Tarshish fleet upon the sea with the fleet of Hiram," if indeed this passage also refers to the trade with Ophir, as is generally supposed; for then these words affirm that Hiram sent ships of his own to Ophir along with those of Solomon. We do not think it probable, however, that the words " Hiram sent ships by his own men" are to be so pressed as to be taken to mean that he had whole ships, or ships taken to pieces, conveyed to Eziongeber either from Tyre or out of the Mediterranean Sea, although many cases might be cited from antiquity in support of this view.1 In all probability the words affirm nothing more than that Hiram supplied the ships for this voyage, that is to say, that he had them built at Eziongeber by his own men, and the requisite materials conveyed thither, so
1 Thus, for example, according to Arriani ezped. Alex. 1. v. p. 329, and vii. p. 485 (ed. Blanc), Alexander the Great had ships transported from Phoenicia to the Euphrates, and out of the Indus into the Hydaspes, the ships being taken to pieces for the land transport (sTprJwxit), and the pieces {rpr^a.-zoC) afterwards joined together again. Plutarch relates (vita Anton, p. 948, ed. Frkf. 1620) that Cleopatra would have had her whole fleet carried across the isthmus which separates Egypt from the Red Sea, and have escaped by that means, had not the Arabs prevented the execution of her plan by burning the first ships that were drawn up on the land. According to Thucydides, bell. Pelop. iv. 8, the Peloponnesians conveyed sixty ships which lay at Corcyra across the Leucadian isthmus. Compare also Polyreni strateg. v. 2, 6, and Ammian. Marcell. xxiv. 7, and from the middle ages the account of Makrizi in Burckhardt's Reisen in Syrien, p. 331.
far as they were not to be obtained upon the spot. At any rate, Solomon was obliged to call the Tyrians to his help for the building of the ships, since the Israelites, who had hitherto carried on no maritime trade at all, were altogether inexperienced in shipbuilding. Moreover, the country round Eziongeber would hardly furnish wood adapted for the purpose, as there are only palms to be found there, whose spongy wood, however useful it may be for the inside of houses, cannot be applied to the building of ships. But if Hiram had ships built for Solomon by his own men and sent him sailors who were accustomed to the sea, he would certainly have some of his own ships engaged in this maritime trade; and this explains the statement in ch. x. 22.
The destination of the fleet was Ophir, whence the ships brought 420 or (according to the Chronicles) 450 talents of gold. The difference between 420 and 450 may be accounted for from the substitution of the numeral letter 3 (50) for 2 (20). The sum mentioned amounted to eleven or twelve million dollars (from £1,600,000 to £1,800,000— Tr), and the question arises, whether this is to be taken as the result of one voyage, or as the entire profits resulting from the expeditions to Ophir. The words admit of either interpretation, although they are more favourable to the latter than to the former, inasmuch as there is no allusion whatever to the fact that they brought this amount all at once or on every voyage. (See also at ch. x. 14 and 22.) The question as to the situation of Ophir has given rise to great dispute, and hitherto no certain conclusion has been arrived at; in fact, it is possible that there are no longer any means of deciding it. Some have endeavoured to prove that it was in southern Arabia, others that it was on the eastern coast of Africa, and others again that it was in Hither India.1 The decision is dependent upon a
1 Compare the thorough examination of the different views concerning Ophir in C. Ritter's Erdk. xiv. pp. 348-431, with the briefer collection made by Gesenius in his Thes. p. 141 sq. and in the Allgem. Encyclop. der Wissenschaft u. Kiinsle, 3 Sect. Bd. 4, p. 201 sqq., and by Pressel, art. " Ophir," in Herzog's Cyclopaedia. — We need not dwell upon the different opinions held by the earlier writers. But among modern authors, Niebuhr, Gesenius, Rosenmuller, and Seetzen decide in favour of Arabia; Quatremere (Memoire sur le pays a" Ophir in Mem. de VInstit. roy. 1845, t. xv. P. ii. p. 350 sqq.) and Movers, who takes Ophir to be the name of an emporium on the eastern coast of Africa, in favour of Sofala; while Chr. Lassen (Indische Alterthumskunde, previous question, whether ch. x. 22, " The king had a Tarshish fleet upon the sea with the fleet of Hiram; once in three years came the Tarshish fleet, bringing gold, silver," etc., also applies to the voyage to Ophir. The expression " Tarshish fleet;" the word EJ? (" on the sea "), which naturally suggests that sea to which the Israelites applied the special epithet 2*n, namely the Mediterranean; and lastly, the difference in the cargoes, — the ships from Ophir bringing gold and algicmmim wood (ver. 28 and ch. x. 11), and the Tarshish fleet bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks (ch. x. 22), — appear to favour the conclusion that the Tarshish fleet did not sail to Ophir, but upon the Mediterranean Sea to Tarshish, i.e. Tartessus in Spain; to which we may add the fact that B*Bhn »3K is reproduced in 2 Chron. ix. 21 by B^ehn nn^l ntotf, " ships going to Tarshish." Nevertheless, however plausible these arguments may appear, after a renewed investigation of the subject I cannot regard them as having decisive weight: for (1) the expression " Tarshish fleet" is used in ch. xxii. 40 in connection with ships that were intended to go to Ophir; (2) BT5? (upon the sea) might receive its more precise definition from what precedes; and (3) the difference in the cargoes reduces itself to this, that in addition to the gold, which was the chief production of Ophir, there are a few other articles of trade mentioned, so that the account in ch. x. 22 is more complete than that in ch. ix. 28 and x. 11. The statement concerning the Tarshish fleet in ch. x. 22 contains a passing remark, like that in ch. x. 11, from which we must infer that both passages treat in the same manner simply of the voyage to Ophir, and therefore that the term " Tarshish ships," like our Indiamen (Indicnfalirer), was applied to ships intended for long voyages. If, in addition to the ships sailing to Ophir, Solomon had also had a fleet upon the Mediterranean Sea which sailed with the Phoenicians to Tartessus, this would certainly have been mentioned here (ch. ix. 27, 28) at the same time as the Ophir voyage. On all i. p. 537 sqq., ii. p. 552 sqq.) and C. Ritter are the principal supporters of India. On the other hand, Albr. Roscher (Ptvlemaus und die Handelsstrassen in Central-Africa, Gotha 1857, p. 57 sqq.) has attempted to connect together all these views by assuming that the seamen of Hiram and Solomon fetched the gold of Western Africa from the island of Dahlak in the Red Sea, and having taken it to India to exchange, returned at the end of a three years' voyage viiTiched with gold and the productions of India.
these grounds we can come to no other conclusion than that the expression in 2 Chron. ix. 21, " ships going to Tarshish," is simply a mistaken exposition of the term " Tarshish fleet," — a mistake which may easily be explained from the fact, that at the time when the Chronicles were written, the voyages not only of the Israelites but also of the Tyrians both to Ophir and Tarshish had long since ceased, and even the geographical situation of these places was then unknown to the Jews (see my Introduction to the Old Test. p. 442, ed. 2).
The name Ophir occurs first of all in Gen. x. 29 among the tribes of Southern Arabia, that were descended from Joktan, between Seba and Havilah, i.e. the Sabaeans and Chaulotaeans. Hence it appears most natural to look for the gold-land of Ophir in Southern Arabia. But as there is still a possibility that the Joktanide tribe of Ophir, or one branch of it, may subsequently have emigrated either to the eastern coast of Africa or even to Hither India, and therefore that the Solomonian Ophir may have been an Arabian colony outside Arabia, the situation of this gold country cannot be determined without further evidence from Gen. x. 2 9 alone; but before arriving at an actual decision, we must first of all examine the arguments that may be adduced in support of each of the three countries named. Sofala in Eastern Africa, in the Mozambique Channel, has nothing in common with the name Ophir, but is the Arabic &\j^ (Heb.
rfecJ), i.e. lowland or sea-coast; and the old Portuguese accounts of the gold mines in the district of Fura there, as well as the pretended walls of the queen of Saba, have far too little evidence to support them, to have any bearing upon the question before us. The supposed connection between the name Ophir and the city of Sovwdpa mentioned by Ptolemseus, or Ovinrapa by Periplus {Geogr. min. i. p. 30), in the neighbourhood of Goa, or the shepherd tribe of Abhira, cannot be sustained. Xovirdpa or Sufdra (Edrisi) answers to the Sanscrit Supdra, i.e. beautiful coast (c£ Lassen, Ind. Alterthk. i. p. 107); and Ovinrapa in Periplus is no doubt simply a false reading for Xovirapa, which has nothing in common with "VSitf. And the shepherd tribe of Abhira can hardly come into consideration, because the country which they inhabited, to the south-east of the mouths of the Indus, has no gold. — Again, the hypothesis that India is intended derives just as little support from the circumstance that, with the exception of Gen. x. 29, the LXX. have always rendered TBiK either Scocfripd or 2ov(f>Lp, which is, according to the Coptic lexicographers, the name used by the Copts for India, and that Josephus (Ant. viii. 6, 4), who used the Old Test, in the Alexandrian version, has given India as the explanation of Ophir, as it does from this supposed resemblance in the names. For, according to the geographical ideas of the Alexandrians and later Greeks, India reached to Ethiopia, and Ethiopia to India, as Letronne has conclusively proved (see his Memoire sur une mission aricnne, etc., in Mem. dc V Inst it. Acad, dcs Inscript ct Bell. Lettres, t. x. p. 220 sqq.).
Greater stress has been laid upon the duration of the voyages to Ophir, — namely, that the Tarshish fleet came once in three years, according to ch. x. 22, and brought gold, etc. But even Lassen, who follows Heeren, observes quite truly, that " this expression need not be understood as signifying that three whole years intervened between the departure and return, but simply that the fleet returned once in the course of three years." Moreover, the stay in Ophir is to be reckoned in as part of the time occupied in the voyage; and that this is not to be estimated as a short one, is evident from the fact that, according to Homer, Odyss. xv. 454 sqq., a Phoenician merchantman lay for a whole year at one of the Cyclades before he had disposed of his wares of every description, in return for other articles of commerce, and filled his roomy vessel. If we add to this the slowness of the voyage, — considering that just as at the present day the Arabian coasters go but very slowly from port to port, so the combined fleet of Hiram and Solomon would not be able to proceed with any greater rapidity, inasmuch as the Tyrians were not better acquainted with the dangerous Arabian Sea than the modern Arabians are, and that the necessary provisions for a long voyage, especially the water for drinking, could not be taken on board all at once, but would have to be taken in at the different landing-places, and that on these occasions some trade would be done, — we can easily understand how a voyage from Eziongeber to the strait of Bab el Mandeb and the return mi^ht occupy more than a year,1 so that the time occupied in
1 It is no proof to the contrary, that, according to the testimony of ancient writers, as collected by Movers (Phoniz. ii. 3, p. 190 sqq.), the Phoenicians sailed almost as rapidly as the modern merchant ships; for this evidence simply applies to the voyages on the Mediterranean Sea with which they were the voyage as given here cannot furnish any decisive proof that the fleet sailed beyond Southern Arabia to the East Indies. And lastly, the same remarks apply to the goods brought from Ophir, which many regard as decisive evidence in favour of India. The principal article for which Ophir became so celebrated, viz. the gold, is not found either in Sufdra near Goa, or in the land of Abhira. Even if India be much richer in gold than was formerly supposed (cf. Lassen, ii. p. 592), the rich gold country lies to the north of Cashmir (see Lassen, ii. pp. 603-4). Moreover, not only is it impossible to conceive what goods the Phoenicians can have offered to the Indian merchants for their gold and the other articles named, since large sums of gold were sent to India every year in the Eoman times to pay for the costly wares that were imported thence (see Eoscher, pp. 53, 54); but it is still less possible to comprehend how the shepherd tribe of Abhira could have come into possession of so much gold as the Ophir fleet brought home. The conjecture of Eitter (Erdk. xiv. p. 399) and Lassen (ii. p. 592), that this tribe had come to the coast not very long before from some country of their own where gold abounded, and that as an uncultivated shepherd tribe they attached but very little value to the gold, so that they parted with it to the Phoenicians for their purple cloths, their works in brass and glass, and for other things, has far too little probability to appear at all admissible. If the Abhira did not know the value of the gold, they would not have brought it in such quantities out of their original home into these new settlements. We shoidd therefore be obliged to assume that they were a trading people, and this would be at variance with all the known accounts concerning this tribe. — As a rule, the gold treasures of Hither Asia were principally obtained from Arabia in the most ancient times. If we leave Havilah (Gen. ii. 11) out of the account, because its position cannot be determined familiar, and to the period when the Phoenician navigation had reached its fullest development, so that it has no bearing upon the time of Solomon and a voyage upon the Arabian Sea, with which the Phoenicians were hitherto quite unacquainted. — Again, the calculation made by Lassen (ii. pp. 590-1), according to which a voyage from Eziongeber to the mouth of the Indus could have been accomplished in a hundred days, is founded upon the assumption that the Phoenicians were already acquainted with the monsoon and knew what was the best time for the navigation of the Red Sea, — an assumption which can neither be proved nor shown to be probable.
with certainty, the only other place specially referred to in the Old Testament "besides Ophir as being celebrated as a gold country is Saba, in the south-western portion of Yemen. The Sabseans bring gold, precious stones, and incense (Isa. lx. 6; Ezek. xxvii. 22); and the queen of Saba presented Solomon with 120 talents of gold, with perfumes and with precious stones (1 Kings x. 1 0). This agrees with the accounts of the classical writers, who describe Arabia as very rich in gold (cf. Strabo, xvi. 777 sq. and 784; Diod. Sic. ii. 50, iii. 44; also Bochart, Phaleg, 1. ii. c. 27). These testimonies, which we have already given in part at Ex. xxxviii. 31, are far too distinct to be set aside by the remark that there is no gold to be found in Arabia at the present time. For whilst, on the one hand, the wealth of Arabia in gold may be exhausted, just as Spain no longer yields any silver, on the other hand we know far too little of the interior of Southern Arabia to be able distinctly to maintain that there is no gold in existence there. — Silver, the other metal brought from Ophir, was also found in the land of the Nabatseans, according to Strabo, xvi. p. 784, although the wealth of the ancient world in silver was chiefly derived from Tarshish or Tartessus in Spain (cf. Movers, Phoniz. ii. 3, p. 3 6 sqq., where the different places are enumerated in which silver was found). — That precious stones were to be found in Arabia is evident from the passages cited above concerning the Sabaeans. — On the other hand, however, it has been supposed that the remaining articles of Ophir could only have been brought from the East Indies.
brasilica. This tree, according to Abulfadl (Celsius, Hierob. i. p. 176), is a native of India and Ethiopia; and it is still a question in dispute, whether we are to understand by this the Pterocarpus Santal., from which the true sandal-wood comes, and which is said to grow only in the East Indies on Malabar and Java, or the Cassalpinia Sappan L., a tree which grows in the East Indies, more especially in Ceylon, and also in different parts of Africa, the red wood of which is used in Europe chiefly for dyeing. Moreover the true explanation of the Hebrew name is still undiscovered. The derivation of it from the Sanscrit Valgu, i.e. pidcher (Lassen and Bitter), has been set aside by Gesenius as inappropriate, and mocha, mochdta, which is said to signify sandal-wood in Sanscrit, has been suggested instead. But no evidence has been adduced in its favour, nor is the word to be found in Wilson's Sanscrit Lexicon. If, however, this derivation were correct,?N would be the Arabic article, and the introduction of this article in connection with the word mocha would be a proof that the sandal-wood, together with its name, came to the Hebrews through merchants who spoke Arabic. — The other articles from Ophir mentioned in ch. x. 22 are MfUB^ o&We? iXecfxxvnvot (LXX.), denies elephantorum or ebur (Vulg.),?W 1^, elephants' teeth (Targ.). But however certain the meaning of the word may thus appear, the justification of this meaning is quite as uncertain. In other cases ivory is designated by the simple term |K> (ch. x. 18, xxii. 39; Ps. xlv. 9; Amos iii. 15, etc.), whereas Ezekiel (xxvii. 15) calls the whole tusk TV ™:~)i?, horns of the tooth. Mn is said to signify elephants here; and according to Benary it is contracted from B^Nff, the Sanscrit word ibha, elephant; according to Ewald, from B*?yP, from the Sanscrit Kalabha; and according to Hitzig, from D*iro = D*ar|7, Libyi; or else M???£ is a false reading for D*33ni W, ivory and ebony, according to Ezek. xxvii. 15 (see Ges. Thes. p. 1453). Of these four derivations the first two are decidedly wrong: the first, because ibha as a name for the elephant only occurs, according to Weber, in the later Indian writings, and is never used in the earlier writings in this sense (yid. Eoediger, Addenda ad Ges. thes. p. 115); the second, because Kalabha does not signify the elephant, but catulum elephanti, before it possesses any teeth available for ivory. The third is a fancy which its originator himself has since given up; and the fourth a conjecture, which is not raised to a probability even by the attempt of Bottcher to show that D*an is a case of backward assimilation from D*?2tf?, because the asyndeton D^an \w between two couples connected by 1 is without any analogy, and the passages adduced by Bottcher, viz. Deut. xxix. 22, Josh. xv. 54 sqq., and even Ezek. xxvii. 33, are to be taken in quite a different way. — The rendering of t^Bp by apes, and the connection of the name not only with the Sanscrit and Malabar kapi, but also with the Greek KYjiro^ and /crjfios, also /cet/3o?, are much surer; but, on the other hand, the assumption that the Greeks, like the Semitic nations, received the word from the Indians along with the animals, is very improbable: for ktjttos in Greek does not denote the ape (irtOrjtcos;) generally, but simply a species of long-tailed apes, the native land of which, according to the testimony of ancient writers, was Ethiopia,1 and the Ethiopian apes are hardly likely to have sprung from India. — And lastly, even in the case of EP'Sfl, according to the ancient versions peacocJts, the derivation from the Malabaric or Tamul togai or tughai (cf. Eoediger in Ges. Thes. p. 1502) is not placed beyond the reach of doubt.
If, in conclusion, we look through all the articles of commerce that were brought to Jerusalem from the Ophir voyages, apart from the gold and silver, which were not to be found in the land of Abhira, the ivory and ebony (supposing that we ought to read ]& D^nni for MfW) furnish no evidence in support of India, inasmuch as both of them could have been brought from Ethiopia, as even Lassen admits (ii. p. 554). And even if the words Almuggim, Kophim, and Tucchijim really came from India along with the objects to which they belonged, it would by no means follow with certainty from this alone that Ophir was situated in India. — For since, for example, there are indisputable traces of very early commercial intercourse between India and Hither Asia and Africa, especially Southern Arabia and Ethiopia, reaching far beyond the time of Solomon, the seamen of Hiram and Solomon may have obtained these articles either in Arabia or on the Ethiopian coast. For even if the statements of Herodotus and Strabo, to the effect that the Phoenicians emigrated from the islands of the Erythraean Sea, Tylos (or Tyros?) and Arados, to the Phoenician coast, do not prove that the Phoenicians had already extended their commercial enterprise as far as India even before the twelfth century, as Lassen (ii. 597 and 584-5) supposes; if the Tyrians and Aradians, who were related to them by tribe, still continued to dwell upon the islands of the Persian Gulf, from which they could much more easily find the way to
India by sea, — since the historical character of these statements lias been disputed by Movers (Phdnizicr, ii. 1, p. 38 sqq.) on very weighty grounds; yet it is evident that there was a very early intercourse between East India and Africa, reaching far beyond all historical testimony, from the following well-established facts: that the Egyptians made use of indigo in the dyeing of their stuffs, and this could only have been brought to them from India; that muslins, which were likewise of Indian origin, are found among the materials in which the mummies are enveloped; and that in the graves of the kings of the eighteenth dynasty, who ceased to reign in the year 1476 B.C., there have been discovered vases of Chinese porcelain (cf. Lassen, ii. p. 596). And the intercourse between the southern coast of Arabia and Hither India may have been quite as old, if not older; so that Indian productions may have been brought to Hither Asia by the Sabreans long before the time of Solomon (vid. Lassen, ii. pp. 593-4, and Movers, Phoniz. ii. 3, pp. 247, 256). But the commercial intercourse between Arabia and the opposite coast of Ethiopia, by which African productions reached the trading inhabitants of Arabia, was unquestionably still older than the trade with India. If we weigh well all these points, there is no valid ground for looking outside Arabia for the situation of the Solomonian Ophir. But we shall no doubt be obliged to give up the hope of determining with any greater precision that particular part of the coast of Arabia in which Ophir was situated, inasmuch as hitherto neither the name Ophir nor the existence of gold-fields in Arabia has been established by modern accounts, and moreover the interior of the great Arabian peninsula is still for the most part a terra incognita}
1 If the notice of Eupolemus contained in a fragment in Eusebius (prsepar. ev. ix. 30), to the effect that David (a mistake for Solomon) sent miners to the island of Ovptpri (for which Gesenius conjectures that we should read Ovtppy} or Ov(pyjp) in the Red Sea, which was rich in gold mines, and that they brought gold thence to Judaea, could be proved to be historical through any earlier testimony, Ophir would have been an island of the Erythraean Sea, either Dahlak inside Bab el Mandeb, or Diu Zokatara (the Sanscrit Dwipa Sukhatara, i.e. the happy island) by the present Cape Guardafui. But this notice is evidently simply a conjecture founded upon the Old Testament, having no historical value.
Vers. 1-13. Visit of the Queen of Saba (cf. 2 Chron. ix. 1-12). — When the fame of Solomon's great wisdom came to the ears of the queen of Saba, probably through the Ophir voyages, she undertook a journey to Jerusalem, to convince herself of the truth of the report which had reached her, by putting it to the test by means of enigmas. K3tf, Safid, is not Ethiopia or Meroe, as Josephus (Ant. viii. 6, 5), who confounds N^ W1^h N}D> and the Abyssinian Christians suppose (vid. Ludolfi hist. JEth. ii. 3), but the kingdom of the Sabccans, who were celebrated for their trade in incense, gold, and precious stones, and who dwelt in Arabia Felix, with the capital Saba, or the Mapidfta of the Greeks. This queen, who is called Balkis in the Arabian legend (cf. Koran, Sur. 27, and Pococke, Spccivi. hist. Arab. p. 60), heard the fame of Solomon njn; DKO; i.e. not " at the naming of the name of Jehovah " (Bottcher), nor " in respect of the glory of the Lord, with regard to that which Solomon had instituted for the glory of the Lord " (Thenius); nor even " serving to the glorification of God " (de Wette and Maurer); but literally, " belonging to the name of the Lord; " in other words, the fame which Solomon had acquired through the name of the Lord, or through the fact that the Lord had so glorified Himself in him (Ewald and Dietrich in Ges. Lex. s.v. f). " She came to try him with riddles," i.e. to put his wisdom to the test by carrying on a conversation with him in riddles. The love of the Arabs for riddles, and their superiority in this jeu d 'esprit, is sufficiently well known from the immense extent to which the Arabic literature abounds in Mashals. We have only to think of the large collections of proverbs made by Ali ben Abi Taleb and Meidani, or the Malcamcn of Hariri, which have been made accessible to all by F. Euckert's masterly translation into German, and which are distinguished by an amazing fulness of word-play and riddles. HTH, a riddle, is a pointed saying which merely hints at the deeper truth and leaves it to be guessed. — Vers. 2, 3. As the queen of a wealthy country, she came with a very large retinue. <n does not mean a military force or an armed escort (Thenius), but riches, property; namely, her numerous retinue of men (B*!-J5J, ver- 13), and camels laden with valuable treasures. The words rn|£... D7DJI are an explanatory circumstantial clause, both here and also in the Chronicles, where the cop. Vav stands before D^DJ (cf. Ewald, § 341, a, b). " And spake to Solomon all that she had upon her heart," i.e. in this connection, whatever riddles she had it in her mind to lay before him; " and Solomon told her all her sayings," i.e. was able to solve all her riddles. There is no ground for thinking of sayings of a religious nature, as the earlier commentators supposed, but simply of sayings the meaning of which was concealed, and the understanding of which indicated very deep wisdom. — Vers. 4, 5. She saw IVan, i.e. Solomon's palace, not the temple, and " the food of his table," i.e. both the great variety of food that was placed upon the king's table (ch. v. 2, 3), and also the costly furniture of the table (ver. 21), and " the seat of his retainers and the standing of his servants," i.e. the places in the palace assigned to the ministers and servants of the king, which were contrived with wisdom and arranged in a splendid manner. D**13JJ are the chief officers of the king, viz. ministers, counsellors, and aides de camp; DTn^p, the court servants; 2W)n} the rooms of the courtiers in attendance; ncyp, the standing-place, i.e. the rooms of the inferior servants, " and their clothing," which they received from the king; and Vjjtf?, not his cup-bearers (LXX., Vulg.), but as in Gen. xl. 21, the drink, i.e. probably the whole of the drinking arrangements; Slwj, and his ascent, by which he was accustomed to go into the house of Jehovah. n?y does not mean burnt-offering here, as the older translators have rendered it, but ascent, as in Ezek. xl. 26, and as the Chronicles have correctly explained it by in5^y. For burnt-offering is not to be thought of in this connection, because the queen had nothing to see or to be astonished at in the presentation of such an offering. ir6*y is most likely " the king's outer entrance " into the temple, mentioned in 2 Kings xvi. 1 8; and the passage before us would lead us to suppose that this was a work of art, or an artistic arrangement. '\y\ rrn xb\ " and there was no more spirit in her:" she was beside herself with amazement, as in Josh. v. 1, ii. 11. — Vers. 6-9. She then said with astonishment to Solomon, that of what her eyes now saw she had not heard the half, through the report which had reached her of his affairs and of his wisdom, and which had hitherto appeared incredible to her; and not only congratulated his servants, who stood continually near him and could hear his wisdom, but also praised Jehovah his God, that out of His eternal love to His people Israel He had given them a king to do justice and righteousness. The earlier theologians inferred from this praising of Jehovah, which involved faith in the true God, when taken in connection with Matt. xii. 42, that this queen had been converted to the true God, and conversed with Solomon on religious matters. But, as we have already observed at ch. v. 21, an acknowledgment of Jehovah as the God of Israel was reconcilable with polytheism. And the fact that nothing is said about her offering sacrifice in the temple, shows that the conversion of the queen is not to be thought of here. — Ver. 10. She thereupon presented to Solomon a hundred and twenty talents of gold (more than three million thalers [nearly half a million sterling — Tr.]), and a very large quantity of spices and precious stones. The D*ob>3 probably included the genuine balsam of Arabia, even if Dtp was not the specific name of the genuine balsam. " There never more came so much of such spices to Jerusalem." Instead of 3y *ti$... N3 *? we find in the Chronicles, ver. 9, simply n;n n?, « there was nothing like this balsam," which conveys the same meaning though expressed more indefinitely, since mn? Dtfap points back to the preceding words, " balsam (spices) in great quantity." ' — Vers. 11, 12. The allusion to these costly presents leads the historian to introduce the remark here, that the Ophir fleet also brought, in addition to gold, a large quantity of Algummim wood (see at ch. ix. 28) and precious stones. Of this wood Solomon had ^vpp or TODD made for the temple and palace. "WPP, from ^Vp} signifies a support, and n?DO may be a later form for D?p, a flight of steps or a staircase, so that we should have to think of steps with bannisters. This explanation is at any rate a safer one than that of " divans " (Thenius), which would have been quite out of place in the temple, or " narrow pannelled stripes on the floor " (Bertheau), which cannot in the smallest degree be deduced from "WPP, or " support = moveables, viz. tables, benches, footstools, boxes, and drawers " (Bottcher), which neither harmonizes with the temple, where there was no such furniture, nor with the rri^DD of the Chronicles. " And guitars and harps for the singers," probably for the temple singers. "»i33 and ^33 are string instruments; the former resembling our guitar