1. K. 9 :** 1 AND it came to pass, when Solomon had finished the building of the house of the LORD, and the king’s house, and all Solomon’s desire which he was pleased to do (that the LORD [or, for the LORD had] appeared to Solomon the second time, as he

2. Chron. 7 :** 11 Thus Solomon finished the house of the LORD, and the king’s house: and all that came into Solomon’s heart to make in the house of the LORD, and in his own house, he prosperously effected. (And the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and

3 had appeared unto him at Gibeon. And the LORD said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there forever; and mine eyes and mine heart 4 shall be there perpetually. And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my 5 statutes and my judgments; then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom over Israel forever; according as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a 6 man upon the throne of Israel. But if ye shall turn away from following me, ye or your children, and not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but shall go and serve other gods, 7 and worship them: then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among 8 all peoples: and though this house be so high, yet shall every one that passeth by it be astonished, and shall hiss; and they shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this 9 land, and to this house? And they shall answer, Because they forsook the LORD their God, which brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath the LORD brought all this evil upon them).

said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house 13 of sacrifice. If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence 14 among my people; if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and 15 will heal their land. Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent, unto the 16 prayer that is made in this place. For now have I chosen and hallowed this house, that my name may be there forever: and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there per- 17 petually. And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments; 18 then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I covenanted with David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee 19 a man to be ruler in Israel. But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship 20 them: then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword 21 among all peoples. And this house, which is so high, every one that passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and to this 22 house? And they shall answer, Because they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them.)

NOTE.—The chronological order of events and the orderly sequence of topics in this and the five succeeding sections have been carefully studied and considered. The only real difficulty, however, occurs precisely at this point, and is found in the apparently specific statement (1 K. 9 : 1), that the answer of Jehovah to the prayer of Solomon was given after the building of Solomon’s palace, which was not until thirteen years had elapsed from the dedication of the Temple and the utterance of the prayer. Such long delay seems to be, on every account, incredible. For the solution of the difficulty, therefore, we must look to the structure of the narrative itself. The following statements (by Keil and Edersheim) present a sufficient explanation of the peculiar form in which the text is couched, and furnish adequate relief, if not complete solution, of the difficulty. The point of these statements lies in their judgment that the passage included in 1 K. 9 : 2-9, and 2 Chron. 7 : 12-22 (that is, Jehovah’s answer to Solomon’s prayer) should be regarded as an historical reference to a past occurrence, interposed at this point as now suggested to the narrator’s thought. The passage should, therefore, be considered as a parenthesis in the narrative. B.

The second appearance which was made to Solomon, seems, according to verse 1, to have taken place at least thirteen years after the dedication of the temple. But this is inconceivable, as this manifestation contains the special answer to the prayer uttered by Solomon at the dedication. Verse 1 forms the transition from the prayer of Solomon to the answer of God, for which reason it is, in 2 Chron. 7 : 11, the closing formula to the section on the dedication of the temple; but in Kings this transition sentence is made at the same time the superscription of the following section, in which he records Solomon’s gift of cities to Hiram and his completion of all his buildings. This superscription, however, is couched in such a manner, that it forms at the same time the introduction to the Divine appearance, and is, therefore, after this has been communicated, partly repeated in 1 K. 9 : 10 as introductory to that which took place after the twenty years, in which Solomon had executed the building of the temple and his palace. The error that the Divine answer to the prayer of Solomon followed thirteen years after, arose merely from misunderstanding this general determination of the first verse. The time of the Divine appearance, accordingly, is not definitely stated in our narrative, but it may be determined with tolerable certainty from the words: “The second time, as he had appeared unto him at Gibeon” (1 K. 9 : 2). As God appeared to Solomon at Gibeon in the night following his sacrifice, so also here probably in the night (2 Chron. 7 : 12), after the prayer of dedication and the sacrifice. The Divine promise to hear his prayer adheres closely in its terms to the prayer of Solomon; the narrative in Kings gives only a summary, while it is more fully stated (2 Chron. 7 : 12-16). Keil.

The sacred text (1 K. 7 : 1-12) records the building of Solomon’s palace immediately after that of the Temple, and, indeed, almost intermingles the two accounts. This may partly have been due to a very natural desire on the part of the writer not to break the continuity of the account of Solomon’s great buildings, the more so as they were all completed by the aid of Tyrian workmen, and under the supervision of Hiram. But another and more important consideration may also have influenced the arrangement of the narrative. For, as has been suggested, these two great undertakings of Solomon bore a close relation to each other. It was not an ordinary Sanctuary, nor was it an ordinary royal residence which Solomon reared. The building of the Temple marked that the preparatory period of Israel’s unsettledness had passed, when God had walked with them “in tent and tabernacle”—or, in other words, that the Theocracy had attained not only fixedness, but its highest point, when God would set “His Name forever” in its chosen centre. But this new stage of the Theocracy was connected with the establishment of a firm and settled kingdom in Israel, when He would “establish the throne of that kingdom forever” (compare 2 S. 7 : 5-16). Thus the dwelling of God in His Temple and that of Solomon in his house were events between which there was deep internal connection, even as between the final establishment of the Theocracy and that of David’s royal line in Israel. And this might well be marked, even by the conjunction of these two buildings in the Scripture narrative. A. E.

The dream of Gibeon repeated: the Lord appearing to Solomon the second time. Both our histories narrate this second appearance, the author of Chronicles most fully, but only the author of Kings compares it specially with the dream at Gibeon. It followed the dedication of the temple, and was manifestly designed to deepen moral impressions, and perhaps to warn specially against spiritual dangers already foreshadowed. In substance the Lord said—I have heard thy prayer in the dedication of this temple, and have accepted it. If now thou wilt walk before me with perfect heart as thy father David did, the throne of thy kingdom over Israel shall be established forever: but if thou turn aside after other gods, then will I cut off Israel from this glorious land of promise, and this consecrated temple shall be no protection against retributive judgments, for its ruin shall be as signal as its magnificence is now glorious. Oh, had these words of warning been duly remembered and diligently regarded! H. C.

We have here both the absolute and the conditional in the promises of God for Israel—the one in the terms of the Abrahamic, the other in the terms of the Sinaitic covenant. God has put his name, and that forever, on Jerusalem, and his eyes and his heart shall be there perpetually—a promise which neither the law nor the actual disobedience of the Israelites to the law can possibly disannul. Had they proved faithful to God there would have been no casting off—no expulsion of them from the inheritance which they had gotten—no desolation of their land, or destruction of their magnificent temple. But all these inflictions have come upon them because they have sinned; and for many centuries have the Jews been a hissing and a byword to all people. But the time of their repentance and restoration is coming, when they shall prove what God said to Abram —They should be a blessing to all the families of the earth. T. C.

1. K. 9 : 2. The Lord had appeared. This appearance was, like the former one at Gibeon, most probably made in a supernatural vision, and on the night immediately following the dedication of the temple (2 Chron. 7 : 12). The strain of it corresponds to this view, for it consists of direct answers to his solemn inau- gural prayer (verse 3 is in answer to ch. 8 : 29 ; verses 4, 5 are in answer to ch. 8 : 25, 26 ; verses 6-9 to ch. 8 : 33-46). Jamieson.

3. I have heard thy prayer. This could not have been the form of God’s message, if thirteen years had passed away since the dedication. God’s way is rather that spoken of by Is. 65 : 24, “While they are yet speaking I will hear.” The LXX. adds after the first clause of this verse, “I have done for thee ac- cording to all thy prayer.”

Mine eyes and mine heart shall be there. As in the former vision at Gibeon, God had given more than Solomon asked, so it is here. The prayer was that God’s eyes might be open toward the house; the promise is that His heart shall be there perpetually. This verse is largely expanded in 2 Chron. 7. Lamby.

I have hallowed this house. God assures Solomon of his special presence in the temple he had built, in answer to the prayer he had made. Solomon had dedicated it, but it was God’s prerogative to hallow it, to sanctify or consecrate it; men cannot make a place holy, yet what we, in sincerity, devote to God, we may hope he will graciously accept of, as his; and his eyes and his heart shall be upon it. Apply it to persons—the living temples; those whom God hallows or sanctifies, whom he sets apart for himself, have his eye, his heart, his love and care, and this perpetually. H.

3-5. God’s faithfulness is seen (1) in the an- swering of the prayer—“I have heard thy pray- er.” The vision was itself an instant and very gracious Divine response. All true prayer is heard. No pure breath of supplication, the in- tense of the heart, ever ascends to Heaven in vain. God does not disappoint the hopes and longings He has Himself awakened. Every cry of filial faith that goes up to the great Father of all comes back in due time in some form of heavenly benediction. And more, the answer is often far larger and richer than our expecta- tions. He “doeth exceeding abundantly.” (2) In the repetition of the promise, “If thou wilt walk before me,” etc. (verses 4, 5). The prom- ise is reiterated as a sacred and inviolable engagement which God on His part will never break. “The sure mercies of David.” All Divine promises are sure. We have but to place ourselves in the line of their fulfilment and all is well with us. They are steadfast as the or- dinances of heaven and earth. Waite.

2. Chron. 7 : 12-20. He promised to own this house for a house of sacrifice to Israel, and a house of prayer for all people (Is. 56 : 7 ; verses 12, 16). My name shall be there forever—that is, “There will I make myself known, and there will I be called upon.” He promised to answer the pray- ers of his people, that should at any time be made in that place (verses 13-15). National judgments are here supposed (verse 13) ; famine and pestilence. By the locusts devouring the land may be meant enemies as greedy as locusts, and laying all waste. National repentance, prayer, and reformation, are required (verse 14). God expects that his people, who are called by his name, if they have dishonored his name by their iniquity, should honor it by accepting the punishment of their iniquity. They must hum- ble themselves under his hand, must pray for the removal of the judgment, must seek the face and favor of God; and yet all this will not do, unless they turn from their wicked ways, and return to the God from whom they have revolt- ed. National mercy is then promised; that God will forgive their sin, which brought the judgment upon them, and then heal their land, redress all their grievances. Pardoning mercy makes way for healing mercy. He promised to perpetuate Solomon’s kingdom, upon condition that he persevered in his duty (verses 17, 18). If he hoped for the benefit of God’s covenant with David, he must imitate the example of David. But he sets before him death as well as life, the curse as well as the blessing. He sup- poses it possible that though they had this tem- ple built to the honor of God, yet they might be drawn aside to worship other gods (verse 19). He knew their proneness to backslide into that sin. He threatens it as certain, that if they did so, it would certainly be the ruin of both Church and State. It would be the ruin of their State (verse 20). “Though they have taken deep root, and taken root long, in this good land, yet I will pluck them up by the roots, extirpate the whole nation, pluck them up as men pluck up weeds out of their garden, which are thrown to the dunghill.” It would be the ruin of their church. This sanctuary would be no sanctuary to them, to protect them from the judgments of God, as they imagined, saying, The temple of the Lord are we (Jer. 7 : 4). “This house which is high, not only for the magnificence of its structure, but for the designed ends and uses of it, shall be an astonishment; it shall come down wonderfully (Lam. 1 : 9), to the amazement of all the neighbors.” H.

Here is a solemn note of warning, the presage of that guilty apostasy by which the Jewish people became in after years the most signal example to men and nations of the waywardness of human nature and the retributive justice of God. We are reminded that the faithfulness of God has a dark as well as a bright side to it. As the cloud that guided the march of the Israelites out of Egypt was light to them, but a source of blinding confusion and miserable discomfiture to their adversaries, so this and every other attribute of God bears a different aspect toward us according to the relation in which we stand to it, the side on which we place ourselves. Be true to Him, and every perfection of His being is a joy to you, a guide, a glory, a defence; forsake Him, and they become at once ministers of vengeance. Even His love, in its infinite rectitude and purity, dooms you to the penalty from which there can be no escape. Whether in the physical or the spiritual realms, one feature of the very beneficence of God’s laws is that they must avenge themselves. Learn here (1) that all human loss and misery spring from forsaking God. “If ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children,” then shall all these woes come upon you. All sin is a departure from the living God. Every sinful life is a more or less intentional and deliberate renunciation of God, and its natural results are shame, and degradation, and death. (2) That according to the height of privilege so is the depth of the condemnation when that privilege is abused. The very height of the “hallowed house” shall make the ruin the more conspicuous and the more terrible. There is no heavier judgment that God pronounces upon men than when He says, “I will curse thy blessings.” The best things are capable of the worst abuse. And when the highest sanctities of life are violated they become the worst grounds of reproach and sources of bitterness. The greater the elevation, the deeper and more dreadful the fall. Waite.

19-22. How literally have these words been fulfilled! What an evidence of the truth of God the history of Israel supplies! “A proverb and a byword”—eighteen centuries at least testify to the truth of these words. “Cast out of my sight;” let the horrors of the siege of Jerusalem explain to us these words. And there is not a country of Europe, there is hardly a city, in which the history of the Jew is not traced in blood, written within and without in “mourning and lamentation and woe.” Claudius expelled them from Rome (Acts 18 : 2); our Edward I. drove them out of Guienne and England. What a commentary, too, is the Jews’ “place of wailing” on this Scripture! The “holy and beautiful house” a desolation, the temple precincts trodden under foot of the Gentiles! Conqueror after conqueror, pilgrim after pilgrim, has asked the question, “Wherefore hath the Lord done thus?” etc., while the “ever-extending miles of gravestones and the ever-lengthening pavement of tombs and sepulchres’ answer, “Because they have forsaken the Lord their God.” Hammond.

Quite apart from its religious significance, there is no other historical phenomenon that is to be compared for a moment in interest with this ever-growing wonder of the Jewish race. The light falls clearly and steadily on its history from first to last. To understand how strange a phenomenon is the indomitable vitality of this race, a race now without a home or a country, compare their history with that of the numberless tribes of other races who have been either migratory or settled. Excepting the Arabs, also Abraham’s descendants, all the other settled contemporary races around Palestine have either died out completely, as the ancient people of Tyre, Edom, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt; or, if migratory, they have been lost and absorbed after a few centuries. The bond that has held the Jews apart from other nations, and yet together, has been their common religion, their common historical glory. When all Eastern Asia held evil to be incurable and eternal, the race of Abraham held that evil was “but for a moment,” and that God’s goodness and justice alone were eternal; and it is they who have taught this lesson to the nations of the modern world. But the honor of being the intellectual and spiritual leaders of the world for four thousand years, has been paid for by four thousand years of national martyrdom and humiliation. The terrific penalties announced at the beginning for failure in their national vocation amid the great nations of the ancient world, have been exacted to the letter. E. White.

BUILDING OF SOLOMON’S PALACE. VARIOUS STRUCTURES INCLUDED IN IT. SOLOMON’S REGARD TO THE ORDINANCES OF WORSHIP.

1. K. 9 : 26 And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon.

2. Chron. 9 : 10 And the servants also of Huram, and the servants of Solomon, which brought gold from Ophir, brought algum trees and precious stones. And the king made of the algum trees terraces for the house of the LORD, and for the king’s house, and harps and psalteries for the singers : and there were none such seen before in the land of Judah.

13. Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and threescore and six talents of gold ; beside that which the chapmen and merchants brought : and all the kings of Arabia and the governors of the country brought gold and silver to Solomon. And king Solomon made two hundred targets of beaten gold : six hundred shekels of beaten gold went to one target. And he made three hundred shields of beaten gold ; three hundred shekels of gold went to one shield : and the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.

17,18. Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with pure gold. And there were six steps to the throne, with a footstool of gold, which were fastened to the throne, and stays on either side by the place of the seat, and two lions standing beside the stays. And twelve lions stood there on the one side and on the other upon the six steps : there was not the like made in any kingdom. And all king Solomon’s drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold : silver was nothing ac-

21 counted of in the days of Solomon. For the king had ships that went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram : once every three years came the ships of Tarshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks. So king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom. And all the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear

24 his wisdom, which God had put in his heart. And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and raiment, armor, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year. And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycamore trees that are in the lowland, for abundance.

1. K. 9 : 26. Ezion-geber. This place is mentioned first in the narrative of the journey of the Israelites from Egypt. It was the last halting-place before they entered the wilderness of Zin. It lay at the top of the gulf of Akabah. Here was also Eloth (or Elath) of which we read (2 K. 14 : 22) that, though it is here said to be in the land of Edom, it was conquered for Judah at a later time, and still later (2 K. 16 : 6) came into the possession of Rezin king of Syria. In reference to this navy, we are told (2 Chron. 8 : 18) that Hiram sent Solomon the ships. Putting that passage side by side with this, it can only mean that the wood for ship-building was brought from Tyre along the coast as far as was necessary, and then at the neatest point carried over land to the Gulf of Akabah, where the ships were built. Lumby.

27. It was probably from the exhaustion of the ample means left by his father, and the inadequacy of the ordinary sources of revenue, for his vast expenses in sacred and regal building, as well as to sustain the great expense of his magnificent court and vast household, that Solomon was led to turn his attention to commerce. His intimate connection with the Phœnicians could not but indicate to his sagacious mind that commerce was the sole foundation of the extraordinary prosperity which that small nation had attained, and the great wealth which it possessed. He saw not why similar advantages might not accrue to himself from the like sources. But his people had no knowledge of the sea, or of ship-building; therefore he still proposed to act with the co-operation of Hiram. This co-operation was readily entered upon, and presently the port of Ezion-geber resounded with the strokes and cries of the multitude of wrights, busy in building such ships as those with which they navigated the length of the Mediterranean to Tarshish. The interest which Solomon felt in the enterprise may be judged of from the fact that he went in person to Ezion-geber to hasten the preparations, and to witness the departure of the fleet—a sight at all times beautiful, and altogether new to the eyes of a Hebrew king. Kil.

The chief foundation of riches to the Jews was the trade which they carried on by the Red Sea, to the coasts of Africa on the west, and also to those of Arabia, Persia, and India, on the east. King David was the first who began it; for, having conquered the kingdom of Edom, and reduced it to be a province of the empire (2 Sam. 8 : 14), he thereby became master of these seaports, Eloth and Ezion-geber, and seeing the advantage which might be made of these two places, he wisely took advantage of it, and there began the traffic. Solomon, not being perplexed with wars as his father David was, had greater leisure for commercial pursuits, and he much improved this trade, as well by his greater application to it as by his superior wisdom. For the better settling of it, he went to Eloth and Ezion-geber in person, and planted in these towns such inhabitants as might best be able to further his designs, bringing many from the sea-coasts of Palestine, and being furnished with Tyrians by Hiram, his friend and ally. Under the wise management of Solomon, this trade grew to such a pitch, that he drew to these ports, and thence to Jerusalem, all the trade of Africa, Arabia, Persia, and India, which was the chief source of the immense wealth he acquired, and in which he surpassed all the kings of his time, as much as he did by his wisdom; so that he made silver to be at Jerusalem as the stones of the street, by reason of its great abundance there during his reign. Prideaux.

2. Chron. 9 : 11. Terraces for the house of the Lord.** The noun signifies “a prop,” and it may be that some ornamental work like that indicated in the margin of the Revised Version “a railing” is intended. It was some later addition, not any part of the fabric, which was already completed. If we combine the two narratives it may be that what is intended is a staircase with handrail and balustrade. The former word would suit in Chronicles, where the Authorized Version has “stairs” on the margin, and the latter here. Lumby.—The text of the common English version has in the one place “pillars,” and in the other “terraces.” Perhaps the most probable signification is that given in the margin of the two passages—namely, here “rails” or balusters, and in Chronicles, “stairs.” Harps and psalterics. Stringed instruments, whose precise form cannot be accurately defined. They are spoken of together with, or without, additional instruments in Ps. 32 : 2 ; 71 : 22 ; Is. 5 : 12. W. H. G.

Ophir and Tarshish.