it is expressly stated that the 3600 were taken from the גּרים, i.e., the Canaanites who were left in the land of Israel. And it is equally certain that the number given in 1Ki 9:23 and 2Ch 8:10 (550 and 250) simply comprises the superintendents over the whole body of builders, notwithstanding the fact that in both passages (1Ki 5:16 and 1Ki 9:23) the same epithet הנּצּבים שׂרי is used. If, then, the number of overseers is given in 1Ki 9:23 and 550, i.e., 300 more than in the parallel passage of the Chronicles, there can hardly be any doubt that the number 550 includes the 300, in which the number given in our chapter falls short of that in the Chronicles, and that in the 3300 of our chapter the superintendents of Canaanitish descent are not included.[1]
Verse 17
And the king had large, costly stones broken, “to lay the foundation of the house with hewn stones.” יקרות does not mean heavy (Thenius), for this would be a perfectly superfluous remark, inasmuch as large stones are always heavy, but costly, valuable stones, qui multa pecunia constabant (Cler.); compare 1Ki 10:2, where the word stands for precious stones. ליסּד, i.e., to lay the foundation for the temple, by which we are to understand not merely the foundation for the temple-house, but the magnificent substructions for the whole of the temple area, even though the strong walls which surrounded the temple mountain, and which Josephus describes in his Antiquities, viii. 3, 9, and xv. 11, 3, and in his de Bell. Jud. v. 5, 1, may not have been all completed by Solomon, but may have been a work of centuries. For further remarks on this subject, see at 1Ki 6:38. גזית אבני are squared stones, according to 1Ki 7:10, of ten and eight cubits.
Verse 18
With 1Ki 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
- ↑ Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 292) assumes that “by the 550 (1Ki 9:23) we are to understand the actual superintendents, whereas the 3300 (1Ki 5:13) include inferior inspectors as well; and of the 550 superintendents, 300 were taken from the Canaanaeans, so that only 250 (2Ch 8:10) were native Hebrews;” though he pronounces the number 3600 (2Ch 2:17) erroneous. Bertheau, on the other hand, in his notes in 2Ch 8:10, has rather complicated than elucidated the relation in which the two accounts stand to one another.
