Bible Study: 2 Chronicles 2:6-10

Solomon’s Temple Preparations and Hiram’s Reply

Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your kindness to us. Thank you for the opportunity to study 2 Chronicles and pray together. I pray that you would bless this evening in Jesus' name.

Amen. All right. All right. We're looking at 2 Chronicles 2, whole chapter. I'm going to start off, well, not the whole chapter, sorry, verses 6 through 10, but I'm going to start off by reading the whole chapter for us again.

Now Solomon purposed to build a temple for the name of the Lord, a royal palace for himself. And Solomon assigned 70 ,000 men to bear burdens, and 80 ,000 to quarry in the hill country, and 3 ,600 to oversee them.

And Solomon sent word to hear him, the king of Tyre. As you dealt with David, my father, and sent him cedar to build himself a house to dwell in, so deal with me. Behold, I'm about to build a house for the name of the Lord, my God, and dedicate it to him for the burning of incense of sweet spices before him.

For the regular arrangement of the showbread, and for burnt offerings morning and evening, on the Sabbath, and the new moons, and the appointed feast of the Lord our God, as ordained forever for Israel.

The house that I am to build will be great, for our God is greater than all gods. But who is able to build him a house, since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him? Who am I to build a house for him, except as a place to make offerings before him?

So now send me a man skilled to work in gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and in purple, crimson, and blue fabrics, trained also in engraving, to be with the skilled workers who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom David, my father, provided.

Send me also cedar, cypress, algum timber from Lebanon, for I know that your servants know how to cut timber in Lebanon. My servants will be with your servants to prepare timber for me in abundance. For the house I am to build will be great and wonderful.

I will give for your servants the woodsmen who cut timber, twenty thousand cores of crushed wheat, twenty thousand cores of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.". Then Hiram, the king of Tyre, answered in a letter that he sent to Solomon, "'Because the Lord loves His people, He has made you king over them.'.

Hiram also said, "'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who made heaven and earth and who has given King David a wise son, who has discretion and understanding, who will build a temple for the Lord and a royal palace for himself.'.

Now I have sent a skilled man who has understanding, Haramabi, the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre. He is trained to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, and in purple, blue, and crimson, fabrics, and fine linen, and to do all sorts of engraving and execute any design that may be assigned to him, with your craftsmen and the craftsmen of my Lord, David your father.

Now therefore, the wheat and barley, oil and wine of which my Lord has spoken, let him send to his servants, and we will cut whatever timber you need from Lebanon and bring it to you in rafts by sea to Joppa, so that you may take it up to Jerusalem.'.

Then Solomon counted all the resident aliens who were in the land of Israel after the census of them that David his father had taken, and there were found 153 ,600, 70 ,000 of them he assigned to bear burdens, 80 ,000 to quarry in the hill country, and 3 ,600 as overseers to make the people work.".

Economic Exchange Between Israel and Tyre

Amen. All right. Just a few notes on the text before we start. Actually, just one note on the text before we start. We have the mention of...actually, I'm kind of curious what it says in the ESV. I didn't really pay attention when I read it.

Oh, it says Algam, right? So, this is one of those times where...remember how last time I it calls them Hiram, even though 2 Chronicles by this time is spelling the name different, Hiram, but the ESV calls it Hiram so that it's consistent across the books.

Same is true with Algam by this point. Chronicles is calling whatever this tree is Almug. People aren't exactly certain what kind of tree it is, but Kings calls it Algam, which the ESV is trying to be consistent with here, but that's spelled Almug by the time you get to 2 Chronicles.

So, very, very similar thing where you can tell that these are being written at different times where spelling of certain things has changed and the pronunciation of things has changed a good bit. Let me just see here, 6, 15.

Well, that's not going to help me if I look it up here. Okay, never mind. All right, let's see. The materials. All right, I want to jump ahead to verse 10 here. He says that he gives to the servant of the woodcutters who cut timber 20 ,000 measures of beet and wheat and 20 ,000 measures of barley and 20 ,000 baths of wine and 20 ,000 baths of oil.

So, who wants to summarize the exchange that's happening here? What is being exchanged for what? Yes, James. Okay, so resources for laborers. Yeah, well, there are some resources that were mentioned also about the timber and everything too.

So, there are some materials being given this way, but there's one region that's rich in one kind of material, another region that's rich in another kind of material. Yeah, who wants to take a stab at summarizing that?

Yeah, right. So, foodstuffs coming from Stalman and then building stuffs coming from up north in Tyre. Yeah, so, Tyre has access to a forest. They've got a lot of building material and building skill, right, whereas, yeah, the promised land is very fertile and it has a lot of foodstuffs.

This is something that God talks about a lot when He's promising the land to them, that it is a fertile land. A couple of passages I wanted to read to you to point out that this is how the economy typically worked for Israel, that they were an exporter of foodstuffs, is Ezekiel 27, 17, says the following, "'Judah and the land of Israel traded with you.'".

This is speaking to Tyre. Okay, so this is a prophecy against Tyre. "'Judah and the land of Israel traded with you. They exchanged for your merchandise wheat, minneth, meal, honey, oil, and balm.'". Okay, so, and this is not just talking about this one incident.

This is talking about the general thing that Judah and the land of Israel would trade would be these foodstuffs, and it talks about the things that other people traded. You know, Damascus did business with you for wine, and then Dedan traded with you in saddlecloths for riding, etc.

It talks about what all the different nations traded with Tyre because Tyre was a center of trade. And so, in this prophecy it's talking about the things that the different lands were exporting. Okay, so the thing that Israel is exporting is primarily food.

And this is the case all the way into the New Testament. Acts chapter 12 verse 20 says the following, "'Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon,' once again Tyre, "'and they came to him with one accord, and having persuaded Blastus, the king's chamberlain, they asked for peace because their country depended on the king's country for food.'".

Right, Herod being responsible for the nation of Israel, right, being responsible for Judah, interacting with Tyre, Tyre depending on them for food, even all the way into the New Testament. Okay, so interesting feature of the economy that helps you even understand some of these prophecies that are given.

The Heaven of Heavens, Christ’s Humanity, and the Ubiquity of Christ

All right, now bouncing back all the way to the beginning, what is the heaven of heavens? Let's explain what that is. It's the heaven of heavens. Charles? Yeah, the third heaven Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians, right?

Yeah, so you've got the sky, right, and then the heavens where you see the stars, and the third heaven would be like where God Himself is dwelling, right? Is that a physical place? Braden's rethinking his answer here.

Is that a physical place? Why would you say it's not physical? Okay, sure, sure. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, where is…so Jesus, raised from the dead with a physical body, where is He now? Right, He's sitting at the right hand of the Father.

He's not here on earth. He's not in the second heaven. You know, He's not in outer space, right? He is with His Father, third heaven. It is a physical space. Now, I don't know what it's like. I can't describe all the properties to it, but it has physical space to contain Jesus' physical body, at least that much I know, right?

So, something to consider about that. Yes? If you've got a question, if it's a good question, go for it. Okay, so there's a distinction between Jesus' humanity and His deity, right? He is omnipresent in His deity.

He is not in His humanity. In His humanity, He is finite, okay? And Scripture will frequently…I mean, this is how it can say things like that Jesus didn't know the time or the hour that He would return, right, or that He grew in wisdom and stature, right?

How can the One in whom all the treasures of wisdom knowledge exist also grow in wisdom? The answer is He's human. He's truly human. He even has a human mind. It's not like, you know, an avatar where, you know, it's divine mind inside of a human body.

By avatar, I'm talking about like the Hindu religion, but you know why that movie is called Avatar, right? Because like Jake Sully's mind is in the body, right? So, it's not the absence of a human mind in a human body.

It's full, you know, He is fully…He has all of humanity, right? So, you do see in Scripture though that oftentimes properties of one nature is denominated by the other, right? So, in Acts 20, 28, it says that God shed His own blood, right?

So, God doesn't have blood, but it talks about Him shedding blood, right? In Hebrews 13, it says that Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever, or sorry, it says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Christ is the term of Him as a man being anointed, right? But being the same yesterday, today, and forever, being immutable, that is a property of God, right? So, a lot of times you'll see Scripture denominate one nature or speak of one nature denominated under the other because of the unity of the person, because He is one person.

Now, this is known pejoratively by Lutherans as the extra Calvinisticum, the idea being that Calvinists believe this wrongly, that they're adding this to Jesus, and they would blend the two. Well, they wouldn't say that they're blending the natures, but they would ascribe properties from the one to the other.

So, they would say that Jesus in His humanity is omnipresent. They call this the ubiquity of Christ, so that when they take the Lord's Supper, they believe that Jesus is present in a special way physically in the bread, and they are actually physically eating Him, right?

Not like Roman Catholics do where it ceases to be bread, but where in addition to the bread, Jesus' body and blood, right? Jesus' body and the bread and blood and wine is being added physically. So, that's, yeah.

Anyway, this is not what, yeah, every Christian believes because Lutherans believe something, yeah, different like that. But, yeah, the Reformed perspective, the Calvinist idea, and I think the majority of evangelicalism would generally say that, yeah, Jesus is, you have to distinguish between the natures of Christ.

That's also known as, another term for you, partitive exegesis, right? So, if you look at a passage, and you are, and it's talking about Jesus, and it is, and you're asking yourself, which nature is it talking about?

What you're doing is partitive exegesis. You're trying to figure out which nature, okay? So, like one time that that would be pretty critical and debated is in 1 Corinthians 11 where it talks about the, it talks about the Son and the Father.

So, I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of every wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God, right? So, there are a lot of people who take this as affirming some kind of authority of the Father over the Son in all eternity, but yeah, if the Son is truly God, then they don't have distinct wills that could exercise authority over the other.

This is talking about Him and His humanity. In His humanity, the Father has authority over the Son. Okay, yes, yes, yeah, right. So, the, excuse me, yeah, I believe the saints have gone there now, right?

This day will be with me in paradise, right? So, those who have died, right, are present with Jesus. Now, yeah, as far as the new heavens and the new earth, yeah, all creation that is marred by sin must be remade.

Whether or not that has any application to the third heaven, I would say not, but yeah, the rest of creation, you know, the heavens, outer space, whatever it would be, all that needs to be renewed, right?

So, not replaced with something entirely different, but just like our bodies will be made new and it'll be the same body but with different qualities, same thing for this earth, same earth but different qualities.

God’s Immensity and the Temple as a Place of Worship

All right. So, okay, so, it cannot contain God. The heaven of heavens cannot contain God. The term often used to describe this is one that was used a minute ago, it's just omnipresent. Okay, God is called omnipresent because He is everywhere.

There's a better technical term for this, which is immense. He is immense, meaning He is without measure, right? He cannot be, He is not subject to spatial dimensions. So, omnipresent, if you were thinking about it wrongly, you would think that God is in space everywhere, right?

But He is not in space everywhere, right? He just transcends space entirely. He is not measured by space. So, immense is the preferred technical term, just like you say that He is eternal, meaning He transcends time itself.

Now, there are some people who will call God omnitemporal, and anytime they call God omnitemporal, what they're trying to do is make God subject to time. But when people say omnipresent, they're usually not trying to do that.

So, it's interesting how the, how one language, how the language is like equally good from, or bad from an objective perspective, but omnipresent usually isn't used in a bad way, but omnitemporal often is.

Okay, yeah, so He is greater than all things. He can't be contained even by the highest heaven, which is interestingly, like I said, a physical space. All right, so He cannot build a house for the Lord.

This is not just a statement of humility. Like, it is a logical impossibility. It's not just He is incapable of it because He is not strong enough. Even if He had, might have got, like, God cannot, right, build a physical space that could contain Him.

Like, not even God could do that, right? It's like that question about, can God make a rock so big that He can't lift it? Right, so this is a statement of humility and logical impossibility. So, it is Him expressing that He is incredibly gracious of God to give them the permission to have anything like this.

Who wants to explain what He means when He says, excuse me, except only to burn incense before Him? What's the point of that statement? Yeah, so it's a place to house worship before Him, but not to actually house Him.

So, it is good for one thing, but not the thing that people would typically imagine a temple to do, which is to be a househouse for God, right, like containing. That's what a temple is, right, if you, you know, Hindu temples are called Hindu temples because they have little gods in them, right?

Same thing with, yeah, a lot of religions, but this Jewish temple is not really a temple in that sense. It is where, a place where God's presence especially dwells and they have, you know, it's for all the worship implements so they can worship before Him, but yeah, it does not contain Him in that way.

Yes, yeah, so this is often called the ethical presence of God. So, it is, so the idea is it's not like a physical presence, but it's an ethical presence where His favor especially rests. So, He has decided to bless that space, right, such that you can call Him there in a way that He's not elsewhere because those who pray toward that place, those who go to that place and worship Him, that worship is especially blessed.

So, just like, you know, if I communicate with you in your presence, that means something more than me from long ways away, you know, just yelling and hoping that you hear me, right? So, there is an analogy of presence, like physical presence, and so that analogy of physical presence is called ethical presence because it has to do with God's favor in His receiving communication from this particular place and receiving worship from this particular place.

So, yeah, this is by analogy. Almost all the, I mean, statements about God's actions are all anthropomorphic, right? They are because we have, because we only understand creation, right? He can only describe Himself as created things, right, or His actions as the actions of created things, but that doesn't mean that He actually acts as a created thing, right?

So, a good example, this is in 1 Samuel 15. During one part, you know, early on in the chapter, it says that He is grieved or He regrets that He has made Saul king, and later on He says, I'm not man that I should regret or change my mind, right?

So, like on one hand, He's saying, I've made a mistake, right? On the other hand, He's saying, I don't make mistakes, right? So, one is, well, He doesn't say I made a mistake, but you know what I mean, like regret.

It sounds like I wish I hadn't done that thing, but He is, yeah, He's expressing Himself anthropomorphically so that we can understand Him, but we must keep that in mind that these statements are anthropomorphic, so even the statement about presence is anthropomorphic, and that's what Solomon is doing here is he's stepping back and recognizing, you know, this notion of your presence is only anthropomorphic.

You really aren't contained by these things, right? Yeah, there are no other words to really use, you know, exactly, and so this is, I think it was Calvin who originally called this God lisping to us, you know, how like when you talk to a child, you say, oh, how was your day, you know, et cetera, right, and you speak in a funny voice, like this is God lisping to us, He's speaking in a funny voice, like this is not His, this is not the height of speech that He, yeah, yeah, condescension, right?

Whatever mode of communication Father, Son, and Spirit all enjoy together, like what they are doing when they speak to us is like you would speak to a small child. All right, who has, yes, go ahead, right, yeah, for their purposes God has, God will especially bless the worship there, and if they do not have a place where He's especially receiving worship, then they aren't able to give Him worship and receive from His hand, you know, the blessings of worship.

Solomon’s Fairness, Generosity, and the Chronicler’s Emphasis

All right, what differences did you all notice from here and 1 Kings? And you most of this passage, you know, the vast majority of this passage that we read was unique to the Chronicler. Any observations?

The language of the wages, right, yeah, so He had, how did they say it in 1 Kings? In 1 Kings it was, I'll pay you whatever you need, and then, yeah, here He, let's see, oh, yeah, He specifies the wages up front, right, so more, yeah, more Solomon initiating.

Remember how we observed that the Chronicler makes sure to highlight Solomon's initiation of these things, where 1 Kings doesn't necessarily specify Solomon's initiation of a lot of these communications.

Something also that might be a reason behind that particular one is that the, and we'll see this a number of times later, but part of what he gets, part of why something that you could hold against Solomon as you read 1 Kings is that he treated the workers too harshly, but if he is, and that's what leads to the division of Israel between the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom is harshness to the workers, but here in describing the, yeah, that he is treating the servants, he said, I will give to, let's see, where was that?

He describes his servants as being with Hiram's servants in such a way that it seems like they're all receiving the same, and, you know, it's fair wages, so, yeah, the Chronicler is highlighting Solomon's fairness in these matters.

Yeah, sorry, that was verse 8, and behold, my servants will be with your servants even to prepare, etc. All right, anything else that you observed about differences or why the Chronicler might want to include these things?

Yes. Okay, right, so it adds more foodstuffs. Yeah, it makes him, it highlights his generosity more. All right, so now how about this whole section in general? A lot of that was highlighted by the reading that I gave you in Exodus, so that was Exodus 35, 30 to 36 too, and I'll go ahead and read this for everyone here in case anyone didn't get to the reading.

Then Moses said to the people of Israel, see the Lord has called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, and cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood for work in every skilled craft.

And he has inspired him to teach both him and Aholiub, the son of Ahissamak, of the tribe of Dan. He has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver, by a designer, by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns, fine and twined linden, or by a weaver, by any sort of workman or skilled designer.

Bezalel and Aholiub and every craftsman in whom the Lord has put skill and intelligence to know how to do any work in the construction of the sanctuary shall work in accordance with all that the Lord has commanded.

So what similarities do you notice here in the passage that the Chronicler has made sure to include that wasn't in 1 Kings? By that I mean just in this passage here that we were looking at, right? So you've got this worker here who's skilled with blue and purple and scarlet yarns, right?

Haramah B. And where is Haramah B. from? What's his, sort of, sort of. What's his lineage? Right, yeah. His mother's a Danite. And what did we read about there? Yeah, Aholiub, the son of, yeah, Ahissamak of the tribe of Dan.

So here the Chronicler is giving you a lot of information about Haramah B. in a way that relates him or highlights similarities to Bezalel and Aholiub who are the skilled craftsmen who make the tabernacle.

Okay, so one thing the Chronicler is trying to do beyond what 1 Kings' purpose is when it's writing, right, is to highlight the similarities of Solomon to his father David, but then on top of that, especially in these early sections, to highlight the similarities between Solomon and Moses.

Okay, and if you remember in the very first chapter that we were looking in in 2 Chronicles, chapter 1 verse 3, the Chronicler had said this, and Solomon, with all the assembly with him, went to the high place that was Gibeon for the tent of meeting of God, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, had made in the wilderness, was there.

Right, so he's specifically calling out the detail about the Mosaic tabernacle that Solomon is worshiping at. This is not a detail that 1 Kings is putting in here, but he's saying, you know, he's worshiping at the place where Moses did, and now he's relating him to Moses, showing that, oh look, he even has a skilled craftsman just like Moses had two skilled craftsmen, one from Dan, right, and who's able to work in, you know, blue and purple and scarlet yarns and etc.

So he's, yeah, he is showing similarities between Solomon and Moses. Moses bringing the people into God's presence through the tabernacle, Solomon bringing people into the presence of God through the temple.

Yeah, and just a few other thoughts here. You know, this is, of course, especially relevant to the people the Chronicler is speaking to because they are people who are in the process of rebuilding the temple, so this kind of motivational, this stuff is motivational for them, but then also to us as people who are building, you know, this new temple as instruments of Jesus Christ, you know, as He is building His temple through us, it should be motivational to us as well.

Okay, yeah, not just motivational for the people of the Chronicler's time. I mean, keep in mind they are receiving assistance in a lot of ways from Persia, right, and so seeing, you know, this outside help might be encouraging to them, and yeah.

All right, any other thoughts on this passage? Any questions about it? Any thoughts about it, especially with the reflection questions of implications for worship? Yes. Well, what was the question? Oh, what does it omit?

Oh, yeah. I have written down Solomon's offer for Hurom to set the wages of his workers, right, so in 1 Kings he says, whatever you need I'll give it, right, and here he says, this is what I will give you.

I'll give you this much oil, this much wine, etc. Right, so he is, yeah, he's setting the prices. All right, let's go ahead and, you have a question? What's that? How they build a temple with a lot of resources, a lot of work, and God's blessing on the project.

That's ultimately the answer. It's God's blessing on the project through prayer, and that's what we're going to do today. We're going to pray so that God will help us with building a temple. Let's go ahead and say a quick prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this encouragement. We pray that it would be an encouragement to us that as we see these things the Chronicler is highlighting that we would also be seeing your work today.

These are not haphazard events of history, but your hand of providence was over the tabernacle, your hand of providence was over the temple, and now your hand of providence is over us, so we pray that you would assist us in all this work.

In Jesus' name, amen.