a parallel passage to this in 2 Chron 2, which agrees with the account before us in all the leading points, but differs in many of the details, omitting several things which were not essential to the main fact, and communicating others which are passed over in our account, e.g., Solomon's request that a Tyrian workman might be sent. This shows that the two accounts are extracts from a common and more elaborate source, the historical materials being worked up in a free and independent manner according to the particular plan adopted by each of the two authors. (For further remarks on the mutual relation of the two narratives, see my apologetischer Versuch über die Bücher der Chronik, pp. 216ff.)
Chap. 5
Verse 1
1Ki 5:1Solomon's negotiations with Hiram of Tyre. - 1Ki 5:1. When king Hiram of Tyre heard that Solomon had been anointed king in the place of David, he sent his servants, i.e., an embassage, to Solomon, to congratulate him (as the Syriac correctly explains) on his ascent of the throne, because he had been a friend of David the whole time (כּל־הימים, i.e., as long as both of them David and Hiram were kings). On Hiram and the length of his reign, see the remarks on 2Sa 5:11. This is passed over in the Chronicles as having no essential bearing upon the building of the temple.
Verses 2-3
Solomon thereupon communicated to Hiram, by means of an embassy, his intention to carry out the building of the temple which his father projected, and asked him for building wood from Lebanon for the purpose. From the words, “Thou knowest that my father David could not build,” etc., it is evident that David had not only been busily occupied for a long time with the plan for building a temple, but that he had already commenced negotiations with Hiram on the matter; and with this 1Ch 22:4 agrees. “To the name of Jehovah:” this expression is based upon Deu 12:5 and Deu 12:11 : “the place which the Lord shall choose to put His name there, or that His name may dwell there.” The name of Jehovah is the manifestation of the divine nature in a visible sign as a real pledge of His presence (see at 1Ki 12:5), and not merely numen Jovae quatenus ab hominibus cognoscitur, colitur, celebratur (Winer, Thenius). Hence in 2 Sam 7, to which Solomon refers, בּית לי בּנה (1Ki 5:5, 1Ki 5:7) alternates with לשׁמי בּית בּנה (1Ki 5:13). On the obstacle which prevented it, “because of the war, with which they (the enemies) had surrounded me,” see at 2Sa 7:9. On the construction, סבב
