2 Chronicles 1-5

New International Version - UK

Solomon asks for wisdom

1 Solomon son of David established himself firmly over his kingdom, for the Lord his God was with him and made him exceedingly great.

² Then Solomon spoke to all Israel – to the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, to the judges and to all the leaders in Israel, the heads of families – ³ and Solomon and the whole assembly went to the high place at Gibeon, for God’s tent of meeting was there, which Moses the Lord’s servant had made in the wilderness. ⁴ Now David had brought up the ark of God from Kiriath Jearim to the place he had prepared for it, because he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem. ⁵ But the bronze altar that Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made was in Gibeon in front of the tabernacle of the Lord; so Solomon and the assembly enquired of him there. ⁶ Solomon went up to the bronze altar before the Lord in the tent of meeting and offered a thousand burnt offerings on it.

⁷ That night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, ‘Ask for whatever you want me to give you.’

⁸ Solomon answered God, ‘You have shown great kindness to David my father and have made me king in his place. ⁹ Now, Lord God, let your promise to my father David be confirmed, for you have made me king over a people who are as numerous as the dust of the earth. ¹⁰ Give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may lead this people, for who is able to govern this great people of yours?’

¹¹ God said to Solomon, ‘Since this is your heart’s desire and you have not asked for wealth, possessions or honour, nor for the death of your enemies, and since you have not asked for a long life but for wisdom and knowledge to govern my people over whom I have made you king, ¹² therefore wisdom and knowledge will be given you. And I will also give you wealth, possessions and honour, such as no king who was before you ever had and none after you will have.’

¹³ Then Solomon went to Jerusalem from the high place at Gibeon, from before the tent of meeting. And he reigned over Israel.

¹⁴ Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses,^[a] which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. ¹⁵ The king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills. ¹⁶ Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue^[b] – the royal merchants purchased them from Kue at the current price. ¹⁷ They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels^[c] of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty.^[d] They also exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the Arameans.

Preparations for building the temple

2 ^[e]Solomon gave orders to build a temple for the Name of the Lord and a royal palace for himself. ² He conscripted 70,000 men as carriers and 80,000 as stonecutters in the hills and 3,600 as foremen over them.

³ Solomon sent this message to Hiram^[f] king of Tyre:

‘Send me cedar logs as you did for my father David when you sent him cedar to build a palace to live in. ⁴ Now I am about to build a temple for the Name of the Lord my God and to dedicate it to him for burning fragrant incense before him, for setting out the consecrated bread regularly, and for making burnt offerings every morning and evening and on the Sabbaths, at the New Moons and at the appointed festivals of the Lord our God. This is a lasting ordinance for Israel.

⁵ ‘The temple I am going to build will be great, because our God is greater than all other gods. ⁶ But who is able to build a temple for him, since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him? Who then am I to build a temple for him, except as a place to burn sacrifices before him?

⁷ ‘Send me, therefore, a man skilled to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, and in purple, crimson and blue yarn, and experienced in the art of engraving, to work in Judah and Jerusalem with my skilled workers, whom my father David provided.

⁸ ‘Send me also cedar, juniper and algum^[g] logs from Lebanon, for I know that your servants are skilled in cutting timber there. My servants shall work with yours ⁹ to provide me with plenty of timber, because the temple I build must be large and magnificent. ¹⁰ I will give your servants, the woodsmen who cut the timber, twenty thousand cors^[h] of ground wheat, twenty thousand cors^[i] of barley, twenty thousand baths^[j] of wine and twenty thousand baths of olive oil.’

¹¹ Hiram king of Tyre replied by letter to Solomon:

‘Because the Lord loves his people, he has made you their king.’

¹² And Hiram added:

‘Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth! He has given King David a wise son, endowed with intelligence and discernment, who will build a temple for the Lord and a palace for himself.

¹³ ‘I am sending you Huram-Abi, a man of great skill, ¹⁴ whose mother was from Dan and whose father was from Tyre. He is trained to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, and with purple and blue and crimson yarn and fine linen. He is experienced in all kinds of engraving and can execute any design given to him. He will work with your skilled workers and with those of my lord, David your father.

¹⁵ ‘Now let my lord send his servants the wheat and barley and the olive oil and wine he promised, ¹⁶ and we will cut all the logs from Lebanon that you need and will float them as rafts by sea down to Joppa. You can then take them up to Jerusalem.’

¹⁷ Solomon took a census of all the foreigners residing in Israel, after the census his father David had taken; and they were found to be 153,600. ¹⁸ He assigned 70,000 of them to be carriers and 80,000 to be stonecutters in the hills, with 3,600 foremen over them to keep the people working.

Solomon builds the temple

3 Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing-floor of Araunah^[k] the Jebusite, the place provided by David. ² He began building on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.

³ The foundation Solomon laid for building the temple of God was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide^[l] (using the cubit of the old standard). ⁴ The portico at the front of the temple was twenty cubits^[m] long across the width of the building and twenty^[n] cubits high.

He overlaid the inside with pure gold. ⁵ He panelled the main hall with juniper and covered it with fine gold and decorated it with palm tree and chain designs. ⁶ He adorned the temple with precious stones. And the gold he used was gold of Parvaim. ⁷ He overlaid the ceiling beams, door-frames, walls and doors of the temple with gold, and he carved cherubim on the walls.

⁸ He built the Most Holy Place, its length corresponding to the width of the temple – twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide. He overlaid the inside with six hundred talents^[o] of fine gold. ⁹ The gold nails weighed fifty shekels.^[p] He also overlaid the upper parts with gold.

¹⁰ For the Most Holy Place he made a pair of sculptured cherubim and overlaid them with gold. ¹¹ The total wing-span of the cherubim was twenty cubits. One wing of the first cherub was five cubits^[q] long and touched the temple wall, while its other wing, also five cubits long, touched the wing of the other cherub. ¹² Similarly one wing of the second cherub was five cubits long and touched the other temple wall, and its other wing, also five cubits long, touched the wing of the first cherub. ¹³ The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits. They stood on their feet, facing the main hall.^[r]

¹⁴ He made the curtain of blue, purple and crimson yarn and fine linen, with cherubim worked into it.

¹⁵ For the front of the temple he made two pillars, which together were thirty-five cubits^[s] long, each with a capital five cubits high. ¹⁶ He made interwoven chains^[t] and put them on top of the pillars. He also made a hundred pomegranates and attached them to the chains. ¹⁷ He erected the pillars in the front of the temple, one to the south and one to the north. The one to the south he named Jakin^[u] and the one to the north Boaz.^[v]

The temple’s furnishings

4 He made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and ten cubits high.^{[w] 2} He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits^[x] high. It took a line of thirty cubits^[y] to measure round it. ³ Below the rim, figures of bulls encircled it – ten to a cubit.^[z] The bulls were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea.

⁴ The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were towards the centre. ⁵ It was a handbreadth^[aa] in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held three thousand baths.^[ab]

⁶ He then made ten basins for washing and placed five on the south side and five on the north. In them the things to be used for the burnt offerings were rinsed, but the Sea was to be used by the priests for washing.

⁷ He made ten gold lampstands according to the specifications for them and placed them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north.

⁸ He made ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north. He also made a hundred gold sprinkling bowls.

⁹ He made the courtyard of the priests, and the large court and the doors for the court, and overlaid the doors with bronze. ¹⁰ He placed the Sea on the south side, at the south-east corner.

¹¹ And Huram also made the pots and shovels and sprinkling bowls.

So Huram finished the work he had undertaken for King Solomon in the temple of God:

All the objects that Huram-Abi made for King Solomon for the temple of the Lord were of polished bronze. ¹⁷ The king had them cast in clay moulds in the plain of the Jordan between Sukkoth and Zarethan.^{[ac] 18} All these things that Solomon made amounted to so much that the weight of the bronze could not be calculated.

¹⁹ Solomon also made all the furnishings that were in God’s temple:

5 When all the work Solomon had done for the temple of the Lord was finished, he brought in the things his father David had dedicated – the silver and gold and all the furnishings – and he placed them in the treasuries of God’s temple.

The ark brought to the temple

² Then Solomon summoned to Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Zion, the City of David. ³ And all the Israelites came together to the king at the time of the festival in the seventh month.

⁴ When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites took up the ark, ⁵ and they brought up the ark and the tent of meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The Levitical priests carried them up; ⁶ and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted.

⁷ The priests then brought the ark of the Lord’s covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim. ⁸ The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and covered the ark and its carrying poles. ⁹ These poles were so long that their ends, extending from the ark, could be seen from in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are still there today. ¹⁰ There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt.

¹¹ The priests then withdrew from the Holy Place. All the priests who were there had consecrated themselves, regardless of their divisions. ¹² All the Levites who were musicians – Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun and their sons and relatives – stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. ¹³ The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang:

Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud, ¹⁴ and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.