--- title: "Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah" author: "Adam Clarke" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 420 of 914 url: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/420/ cite: "Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah, section 420. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/420/" --- # Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah *Adam Clarke* Clarke's learned notes on the Hebrew and Greek, verse by verse, from Genesis to Revelation: volume 1 of 2. ## 420. 2 Chronicles · 2 of 24 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/420/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/420/#p-N ### Verse 9 [¶1] Let thy promise - דברך debarcha, thy word; פתגמך pithgamach, Targum. It is very remarkable that when either God or man is represented as having spoken a word then the noun פתגם pithgam is used by the Targumist; but when word is used personally, then he employs the noun מימרא meymera, which appears to answer to the Λογος of St. John, [Joh 1:1], etc. ### Verse 14 [¶3] He had a thousand and four hundred chariots - For these numbers, see the notes on [1Kgs 4:26]. ### Verse 15 [¶5] Made silver and gold - See on [1Kgs 10:27] (note), [1Kgs 10:28] (note). ### Verse 16 [¶7] Linen yarn - See the note on [1Kgs 10:28], where this subject is particularly examined. ### Verse 17 [¶9] A horse for a hundred and fifty - Suppose we take the shekel at the utmost value at which it has been rated, three shillings; then the price of a horse was about twenty-two pounds ten shillings. [¶10] On Solomon's multiplying horses, Bishop Warburton has made some judicious remarks: - "Moses had expressly prohibited the multiplying of horses, [Deu 17:16], by which the future king was forbidden to establish a body of cavalry, because this could not be effected without sending into Egypt, with which people God had forbidden any communication, as this would be dangerous to religion. When Solomon had violated this law, and multiplied horses to excess, [1Kgs 4:26], it was soon attended with those fatal consequences that the law foretold: for this wisest of kings having likewise, in violation of another law, married Pharaoh's daughter, (the early fruits of this commerce), and then, by a repetition of the same crime, but a transgression of another law, having espoused more strange women, [1Kgs 11:1]; they first, in defiance of a fourth law, persuaded him to build them idol temples for their use, and afterwards, against a fifth law, brought him to erect other temples for his own. Now the original of all this mischief was the forbidden traffic with Egypt for horses; for thither were the agents of Solomon sent to mount his cavalry. Nay, this great king even turned factor for the neighboring monarchs, [2Chr 1:17], and this opprobrious commerce was kept up by his successors and attended with the same pernicious consequences. Isaiah denounces the mischiefs of this traffic; and foretells that one of the good effects of leaving it would be the forsaking of their idolatries, [Isa 31:1], [Isa 31:4], [Isa 31:6], [Isa 31:7]." - See Divine Legation, vol. iii., p. 289 and Dr. Dodd's Notes. ### Introduction [¶12] Solomon determines to build a temple, [2Chr 2:1]. The number of his workmen, [2Chr 2:2]. Sends to Huram for artificers and materials, [2Chr 2:3-10]. Huram sends him a favorable answer, and makes an agreement with him concerning the labor to be done, and the wages to be paid to his men, [2Chr 2:11-16]. The number of strangers in the land, and how employed, [2Chr 2:17], [2Chr 2:18]. ### Verse 1 [¶14] A house for the name of the Lord - A temple for the worship of Jehovah. [¶15] A house for his kingdom - A royal palace for his own use as king of Israel. ### Verse 3 [¶17] Solomon sent to Huram - This man's name is written חירם Chiram in Kings; and in Chronicles, חורם Churam: there is properly no difference, only a י yod and a ו vau interchanged. See on [1Kgs 5:2] (note). ### Verse 6 [¶19] Seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens - "For the lower heavens, the middle heavens, and the upper heavens cannot contain him, seeing he sustains all things by the arm of his power. Heaven is the throne of his glory, the earth his footstool; the deep, and the whole world, are sustained by the spirit of his Word, [ברוח מימריה beruach meqmereih]. Who am I, then, that I should build him a house?" - Targum. [¶20] Save only to burn sacrifice - It is not under the hope that the house shall be able to contain him, but merely for the purpose of burning incense to him, and offering him sacrifice, that I have erected it. ### Verse 7 [¶22] Send me - a man cunning to work - A person of great ingenuity, who is capable of planning and directing, and who may be over the other artists. ### Verse 11 [¶24] Answered in writing - Though correspondence among persons of distinction was, in these early times, carried on by confidential messengers, yet we find that epistolary correspondence did exist, and that kings could write and read in what were called by the proud and insolent Greeks and Romans barbarous nations. Nearly two thousand years after this we find a king on the British throne who could not sign his own name. About the year of our Lord 700, Withred, king of Kent, thus concludes a charter to secure the liberties of the Church: Ego Wythredus rex Cantiae haec omnia suprascripta et confirmavi, atque, a me dictata propria manu signum sanctae crucis pro ignorantia literarum espressi; "All the above dictated by myself, I have confirmed; and because I cannot write, I have with my own hand expressed this by putting the sign of the holy cross +." - See Wilkins' Concilta. ### Verse 13 [¶26] I have sent a cunning man - His name appears to have been Hiram, or Hiram Abi: see the notes on [1Kgs 7:13], [1Kgs 7:14]. ### Verse 16 [¶28] In floats by sea to Joppa - See the note on [1Kgs 5:9], and on the parallel places, for other matters contained in this chapter. ### Introduction [¶30] Solomon begins to build the temple in the fourth year of his reign on Mount Moriah, [2Chr 3:1], [2Chr 3:2]. Its dimensions, ornaments, and pillars, [2Chr 3:3-17]. ### Verse 1 [¶32] In Mount Moriah - Supposed to be the same place where Abraham was about to offer his son Isaac; so the Targum: "Solomon began to build the house of the sanctuary of the Lord at Jerusalem, in the place where Abraham had prayed and worshipped in the name of the Lord. This is the place of the earth where all generations shall worship the Lord. Here Abraham was about to offer his son Isaac for a burnt-offering; but he was snatched away by the Word of the Lord, and a ram placed in his stead. Here Jacob prayed when he fled from the face of Esau his brother; and here the angel of the Lord appeared to David, at which time David built an altar unto the Lord in the threshing-floor which he bought from Araunah the Jebusite." ### Verse 3 [¶34] The length - after the first measure was threescore cubits - It is supposed that the first measure means the cubit used in the time of Moses, contradistinguished from that used in Babylon, and which the Israelites used after their return from captivity; and, as the books of Chronicles were written after the captivity, it was necessary for the writer to make this remark, lest it should be thought that the measurement was by the Babylonish cubit, which was a palm or one-sixth shorter than the cubit of Moses. See the same distinction observed by Ezekiel, [Eze 40:5] (note); [Eze 43:13] (note). ### Verse 4 [¶36] The height was a hundred and twenty - Some think this should be twenty only; but if the same building is spoken of as in [1Kgs 6:2], the height was only thirty cubits. Twenty is the reading of the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Septuagint in the Codex Alexandrinus. The MSS. give us no help. There is probably a mistake here, which, from the similarity of the letters, might easily occur. The words, as they now stand in the Hebrew text, are מאה ואשרים meah veesrim, one hundred and twenty. But probably the letters in מאה meah, a hundred, are transposed for אמה ammah, a cubit, if, therefore, the א aleph be placed after the מ mem, then the word will be מאה meah one hundred; if before it the word will be אמה ammah, a cubit; therefore אמה עשרים ammah esrim will be twenty cubits; and thus the Syriac, Arabic, and Septuagint appear to have read. This will bring it within the proportion of the other measures, but a hundred and twenty seems too great a height. ### Verse 6 [¶38] Gold of Parvaim - We know not what this place was; some think it is the same as Sepharvaim, a place in Armenia or Media, conquered by the king of Assyria, [2Kgs 17:24], etc. Others, that it is Taprobane, now the island of Ceylon, which Bochart derives from taph, signifying the border, and Parvan, i.e., the coast of Parvan. The rabbins say that it was gold of a blood-red color, and had its name from פרים parim, heifers, being like to bullocks' blood. [¶39] The Vulgate translates the passage thus: Stravit quoque pavimentum templi pretiosissimo marmore, decore multo; porro aurum erat probatissimum; "And he made the pavement of the temple of the most precious marble; and moreover the gold was of the best quality," etc. ### Verse 9 [¶41] The weight of the nails was fifty shekels - Bolts must be here intended, as it should be preposterous to suppose nails of nearly two pounds' weight. [¶42] The supper chambers - Probably the ceiling is meant. ### Verse 17 [¶44] He reared up the pillars - "The name of that on the right hand was Jachin, because the kingdom of the house of David was established; and the name of the left was Boaz, from the name of Boaz the patriarch of the family of Judah, from whom all the kings of the house of Judah have descended." - Targum. See on [1Kgs 7:21] (note); and see the parallel places for other matters contained in this chapter.