1 Kings 5:18 Komentář

The great work which Solomon was raised up to do was the building of the temple; his wealth and wisdom were given him to qualify him for that. In this, especially, he was to be a type of Christ, for "he shall build the temple of the Lord," Zac 6:12. In this chapter we have an account of the preparations he made for that and his other buildings. Gold and silver his good father had prepared in abundance, but timber and stones he must get ready; and about these we have him treating with Hiram king of Tyre. I. Hiram congratulated him on his accession to the throne (Kg1 5:1). II. Solomon signified to him his design to build the temple and desired him to furnish him with workmen (Kg1 5:2-6). III. Hiram agreed to do it (Kg1 5:7-9). IV. Solomon's work was accordingly well done and Hiram's workmen were well paid (Kg1 5:10-18).

INTRODUCTION TO 1 KINGS 5 This chapter relates Solomon's preparation for building the temple: on Hiram, king of Tyre, sending a congratulatory letter to him, he returned another to him, signifying his intention to build an house for God, and requesting him to supply him with timber, and men to work it, Kg1 5:1; to which Hiram readily agreed, and sent him cedar and fir, and Solomon in return sent him food for his household; and things went on very amicably between them, Kg1 5:7; the chapter concludes with an account of Solomon's workmen, where, how, and in what they were employed, Kg1 5:13.

And Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders did hew them,.... The stones; for it seems Solomon had not only hewers of wood, but of stone, from Hiram: and the stonesquarers; or rather the Giblites, the men of Gebal, which were under the jurisdiction of Tyre, and were skilful in this sort of work, as some of them were in others, see Eze 27:9; so they prepared timber and stones to build the house; both Solomon's and Hiram's builders, and the large number of workmen, both Israelites and strangers; which latter were an emblem of the Gentiles concerned in the building of the spiritual temple, the church of Christ, Zac 6:15; and whereas the number of strangers that wrought for the building was far greater than that of the Israelites, it may denote the greater number of Gentiles in the Gospel church state mentioned besides these: thus gave Solomon to Hiram year by year: so long as the building lasted, and the workmen were employed; but Abarbinel thinks that he gave it to him as long as he lived, out of his great munificence and liberality. Next: 1 Kings Chapter 6

“Furthermore the men of Biblos [i.e., the Giblites] prepared wood and stones to build the house.” Biblos is a city in Phoenicia that Ezekiel mentions: “Your skilled men, Tyre, were your pilots. The elders of Biblos and its skilled men,” for which [city] in Hebrew is written Gobel or Gebal, which means “defining” or “limiting.” This word is very appropriate to those who prepare people’s hearts for the spiritual edifice that is built of the virtues of the soul. For they are only equal to the task of teaching their hearers faith and the works of righteousness when they themselves have first been instructed by the sacred page and thoroughly learned from a clear definition of the truth what belief one must hold and on what path of virtue one must walk. For one who does not know what is definitely catholic faith is wasting his time assuming the office of teacher, and those who try to teach others the norm that they themselves have not learned do not build a sanctuary for the Lord but ruin for themselves.

Hiram, king of Tyre, sends to congratulate Solomon on his accession to the kingdom, Kg1 5:1. Solomon consults him on building a temple for the Lord, and requests his assistance, Kg1 5:2-6. Hiram is pleased and specifies the assistance which he will afford, Kg1 5:7-9. He sends cedars and fir trees, Kg1 5:10. The return made by Solomon, Kg1 5:11. They form a league, Kg1 5:12. Solomon makes a levy of men in Israel to prepare wood and stones, Kg1 5:13-18.

And the stone-squarers - Instead of stone-squarers the margin very properly reads Giblites, הגבלים haggiblim; and refers to Eze 27:9, where we find the inhabitants of Gebal celebrated for their knowledge in ship-building. Some suppose that these Giblites were the inhabitants of Biblos, at the foot of Mount Libanus, northward of Sidon, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea; famous for its wines; and now called Gaeta. Both Ptolemy and Stephanus Byzantinus speak of a town called Gebala, to the east of Tyre: but this was different from Gebal, or Biblos. It seems more natural to understand this of a people than of stone-squarers, though most of the versions have adopted this idea which we follow in the text.

HIRAM SENDS TO CONGRATULATE SOLOMON. (Kg1 5:1-6) Hiram . . . sent his servants unto Solomon--the grandson of David's contemporary [KITTO]; or the same Hiram [WINER and others]. The friendly relations which the king of Tyre had cultivated with David are here seen renewed with his son and successor, by a message of condolence as well as of congratulation on his accession to the throne of Israel. The alliance between the two nations had been mutually beneficial by the encouragement of useful traffic. Israel, being agricultural, furnished corn and oil, while the Tyrians, who were a commercial people, gave in exchange their Phœnician manufactures, as well as the produce of foreign lands. A special treaty was now entered into in furtherance of that undertaking which was the great work of Solomon's splendid and peaceful reign.

and the stone squarers--The Margin, which renders it "the Giblites" (Jos 13:5), has long been considered a preferable translation. This marginal translation also must yield to another which has lately been proposed, by a slight change in the Hebrew text, and which would be rendered thus: "Solomon's builders, and Hiram's builders, did hew them and bevel them" [THENIUS]. These great bevelled or grooved stones, measuring some twenty, others thirty feet in length, and from five to six feet in breadth, are still seen in the substructures about the ancient site of the temple; and, in the judgment of the most competent observers, were those originally employed "to lay the foundation of the house." Next: 1 Kings Chapter 6

Preparations for Building the Temple - 1 Kings 5 Immediately after the consolidation of his kingdom, Solomon commenced the preparations for the building of a temple, first of all by entering into negotiations with king Hiram of Tyre, to procure from him not only the building materials requisite, viz., cedars, cypresses, and hewn stones, but also a skilled workman for the artistic work of the temple (Kg1 5:1-12); and, secondly, by causing the number of workmen required for this great work to be raised out of his own kingdom, and sending them to Lebanon to prepare the materials for the building in connection with the Tyrian builders (Kg1 5:13-18). - We have a parallel passage to this in 2 Chron 2, which agrees with the account before us in all the leading points, but differs in many of the details, omitting several things which were not essential to the main fact, and communicating others which are passed over in our account, e.g., Solomon's request that a Tyrian workman might be sent. This shows that the two accounts are extracts from a common and more elaborate source, the historical materials being worked up in a free and independent manner according to the particular plan adopted by each of the two authors. (For further remarks on the mutual relation of the two narratives, see my apologetischer Versuch ber die Bcher der Chronik, pp. 216ff.)

With Kg1 5:18 the account of the preparations for the building of the temple, which were the object of Solomon's negotiations with Hiram, is brought to a close. "Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders, even the Giblites, hewed and prepared the wood and the stones for the building of the house." The object to יפסלוּ is not the square stones mentioned before, but the trees (beams) and stones mentioned after ויּכנוּ. והגּבלים is to be taken as explanatory, "even the Giblites," giving a more precise definition of "Hiram's builders." The Giblites are the inhabitants of the town of Gebal, called Byblos by the Greeks, to the north of Beirut (see at Jos 13:5), which was the nearest to the celebrated cedar forest of the larger Phoenician towns. According to Eze 27:9, the Giblites (Byblians) were experienced in the art of shipbuilding, and therefore were probably skilful builders generally, and as such the most suitable of Hiram's subjects to superintend the working of the wood and stone for Solomon's buildings. For it was in the very nature of the case that the number of the Phoenician builders was only a small one, and that they were merely the foremen; and this may also be inferred from the large number of his own subjects whom Solomon appointed to the work. (Note: Without any satisfactory ground Thenius has taken offence at the word והגּבלים, and on the strength of the critically unattested καὶ ἔβαλον αὐτούς of the lxx and the paraphrastic ἁρμόσαντας καὶ συνδήσαντας of Josephus, which is only introduced to fill in the picture, has altered it into ויּגבּילוּם, "they bordered them (the stones)." This he explains as relating to the "bevelling" of the stones, upon the erroneous assumption that the grooving of the stones in the old walls encircling the temple area, which Robinson (Pal. i. 423) was the first to notice and describe, "occurs nowhere else in precisely the same form;" whereas Robinson found them in the ancient remains of the foundations of walls in different places throughout the land, not only in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, viz., at Bethany, but also at Carmel on the mountains of Judah, at Hebron, Semua (Esthemoa), Beit Nusib (Nezib), on Tabor, and especially in the north, in the old remains of the walls of the fortification es Shukif, Hunn, Banias, Tyrus, Jebail (Byblus), Baalbek, on the island of Ruwad (the ancient Aradus), and in different temples on Lebanon (see Rob. Pal. ii. 101,198, 434,627; iii. 12,213, 214; and Bibl. Researches, p. 229). Bttcher (n. ex. Krit. Aehrenl. ii. p. 32) has therefore properly rejected this conjecture as "ill-founded," though only to put in its place another which is altogether unfounded, namely, that before והגּבלים the word הצּרים ("the Tyrians") has dropped out. For this has nothing further in its favour than the most improbable assumption, that king Hiram gathered together the subjects of his whole kingdom to take part in Solomon's buildings. - The addition of τρία ἔτη, which is added by the lxx at the end of the verse, does not warrant the assumption of Thenius and Bttcher, that שׁנים שׁלשׁ has dropped out of the text. For it is obvious that the lxx have merely made their addition e conjectura, and indeed have concluded that, as the foundation for the temple was laid in the fourth year of Solomon's reign, the preliminary work must have occupied the first three years of his reign.)