16. for ever] Compare xxx. 8.
²¹And 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 house?
21. which is so high] The Hebrew must be rendered by a past tense, which was high—as though the speaker spoke from a later standpoint than the age of Solomon. That interpretation, however, is clumsy; and in all probability the reading in Chronicles is simply an attempt to improve an erroneous text in Kings. There the original reading probably was “and this house shall become ruins; every one who passes by,” etc.
²²And 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.
22. they shall answer] Render, men shall say.
Chapter VIII.
1–6 (compare 1 Kings ix. 10, 11, 17–19).
Solomon’s Cities.
¹And it came to pass at the end of twenty years, wherein Solomon had built the house of the Lord, and his own house,
1. twenty years] Compare 1 Kings vi. 38, vii. 1.