1, 2 [i. 18, ii. 1, Hebrew] (= verses 17, 18 below; 1 Kings v. 15).
Bearers and Hewers.
¹Now Solomon purposed to build an house for the name of the Lord, and an house for his kingdom.
1. for the name] compare 1 Chronicles xxii. 7, 10, 19, xxviii. 3, xxix. 16.
an house for his kingdom] See 1 Kings vii. 1–8.
²And Solomon told out threescore and ten thousand men to bear burdens, and fourscore thousand men that were hewers in the mountains, and three thousand and six hundred to oversee them.
2. told out] i.e. counted. The 150,000 bearers and hewers mentioned here are said to have been aliens (verse 17). This agrees with 1 Kings v. 15, which distinguishes them from a levy of 30,000 hewers raised out of all Israel (1 Kings v. verse 13). The 30,000 Israelites were subject to a corvée of one month in every three, the 150,000 aliens were presumably supposed to have been continuously engaged on the work. The Chronicler makes no mention of the levy of 30,000 Israelites, recorded in Kings, for no doubt he thought it unfitting that compulsory labour should be laid on the Israelites themselves. On the other hand he holds that the 150,000 were all aliens (see verses 17, 18), whereas the writer in Kings, not having that scruple before his mind, does not make any such sweeping assertion (compare, however, 1 Kings ix. 20).
3–10 (compare 1 Kings v. 2–6).
Solomon’s Message to Huram.
This passage is much fuller in Chronicles than in 1 Kings, which offers no parallel to Solomon’s language with regard to the Temple; verses 4–6. Again, verse 7 (the request for a “cunning man”) has no nearer parallel than 1 Kings vii. 13. For verse 10 also there is no strict parallel in 1 Kings.
³And Solomon sent to Huram[¹] the king of Tyre, saying, As thou didst deal with David my father, and didst send him cedars to build him an house to dwell therein, even so deal with me.
[¹] In 1 Kings v. 1, Hiram.