1 Kings 5:1

1 Kings GREAT PREPARATIONS FOR A GREAT WORK1 Kings 5:1 - 1 Kings 5:12 . The building of the Temple was begun in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign { 1 Kings 6:1 }. The preparations for so great a work must have taken much time, so that the arrangement with Hiram recorded in this passage was probably made very early in the reign. That probability is strengthened if we suppose, as we must do, that the embassy from Hiram mentioned in 1 Kings 5:1 was sent to congratulate Solomon on his accession. If so, the latter’s proposal to get timber and stones from the Lebanon would be made at the very commencement of the reign. Three years would not be more than enough to get the material ready and transported. Great designs need long preparation. Raw haste wastes time; deliberation is as needful before beginning as rapid action is when we have begun. I. 1 Kings 5:3 - 1 Kings 5:5 set forth very forcibly the motives which impelled the young king to the work, and may suggest to us the motives which should urge us to diligence in building a better temple than he reared. He begins by reference to his father’s foiled wish, and to the reason why David could not build the house. Not only was it inappropriate that a warlike king should build it, but it was impossible that, whilst his thoughts were occupied and his resources taxed by war, he should devote himself to such a work.

In Assyria and Egypt the great warrior kings are the great temple-builders, but a divine decorum forbade it to be so in Israel. Solomon next thankfully describes his own happier circumstances. Observe his designation of Jehovah in1 Kings 5:4 as ‘my God,’ and compare with 1 Kings 5:3 , where He is called David’s God. The son had inherited the divine protection and the father’s sense of personal relation to Jehovah. That is a better legacy than a throne. Well had it been for Solomon if he had held by the faith of his first days of royalty! Such a sense of a personal bond of love protecting on the one hand, and love trusting and obeying on the other, is the spring of all true service of God, whether it is busied in temple-building or in anything else. We note also the grateful recognition of benefits received, and the tracing of peace and outward prosperity to God’s care. There was not a cloud in the sky. The horizon was clear all round, and it was ‘the Lord my God,’ who had made this ease for Solomon. We are often more ready to recognise God’s hand in sorrows than in joys. When He smites, we try to say ‘It is the Lord!’ Do we try to say it when all things are smooth and bright? The effect of blessings should be thankfulness, and the proof of thankfulness is service. So Solomon did not take prosperity as an inducement to selfish luxurious repose, but heard in it God’s call to a great task.

1 Kings 5:1 . Hiram sent his servants unto Solomon — Namely, as soon as he heard of his succession in the throne, as the following words show, he sent to congratulate him, as the manner of princes is. For Hiram was ever a lover of David — And therefore was desirous to continue in friendship with his son. This Hiram was probably the son of him who sent David timber and artificers to build his palace. Josephus assures us, that in his time, the letters which passed between him and Solomon were preserved in the archives of Tyre.

(1) Hiram is first mentioned in 2Samuel 5:11 (and the parallel, 1Chronicles 14:1 ) as having sent workmen and materials to David for the building of his house. He is described as a “lover of David.” Ancient tradition makes him a tributary or dependent monarch; and his attitude, as described in Scripture, towards both David and Solomon agrees with this. Josephus ( 100 Apion, i. 17, § 18) cites from Dios, a Phœnician historian, and Menander of Ephesus, a description of Hiram’s parentage, of his prosperous reign and skill in building; and quotes, as from the Tyrian archives ( Ant. viii. 11, §§ 6, 7), letters passing between him and Solomon. The embassy here noticed from Hiram is clearly one of congratulation, perhaps of renewal of fealty. (In 2Chronicles 2:14-15 occur the phrases, “my lord, my lord David thy father.”)

Ch. 1 Kings 5:1-12 . Preparations of timber and stone for Solomon’s temple. League between Solomon and Hiram king of Tyre ( 2 Chronicles 2:3-16 ) 1 . Hiram king of Tyre ] The name of this king is spelt Hirom below in 1 Kings 5:10 ; 1 Kings 5:18 , and in 2 Chronicles 2:3 Huram . From the words of the latter narrative we should conclude that it was the same king who had ruled in Tyre in the days of David, to whom he is said to have sent timber for the building of his own house. Cp. 2 Samuel 5:11 . But the events alluded to in Samuel were as it seems in the early part of David’s reign in Jerusalem, that is, between 30 and 40 years before the preparations spoken of in the present verse. It may therefore be that two kings in succession bore the same name, and this view is confirmed by 2 Chronicles 2:13 . sent his servants unto Solomon ] Seemingly with a message of congratulation on his accession. Josephus ( Ant. viii. 2, 6) says so. ‘He saluted and congratulated him on his present prosperity.’ The Syriac has a clause to the same effect. The LXX. very strangely says ‘he sent his servants to anoint ( χρῖσαι ) Solomon in the room of David.’ Hiram was no doubt the greatest independent prince near the land of Israel, but there is no trace of any authority of the Tyrian kings over Israel.