1. Celebrated early in the king's reign (1 Kings 3:1), and doubtless with becoming splendour. It is not good for princes any more than for peasants to be alone, and "he that findeth a wife" (provided she be a woman that feareth the Lord) "findeth a good thing" (Proverbs 18:22).
2. Politically advantageous for the state, though this is questionable. Israel required no buttress, either from Egypt or Assyria, so long as she remained true to Jehovah (Isaiah 30:3; Jeremiah 2:18; Jeremiah 42:19). In any case, neither political expedience nor social convenience is a proper motive for contracting marriage, which should always be inspired by love between the parties (Ephesians 5:25-28).
3. Possibly against the Law of God. On the one hand, it is argued (Keil, Bahr)
On the other hand, it is contended (Adam Clarke)
The affirmative, however, of this last assertion is supposed to be justified by the following considerations:
But none of these is convincing.
4. Extremely unadvised on Solomon's part, It led to his decline into idolatry, if not directly yet indirectly, by leading him to add more wives and concubines to his harem.
IV. THE QUEEN'S RESIDENCE,
1. In a separate house in the city of David. On her wedding, Solomon did not bring her into his father's palace where himself resided—though some hold he did (Bertheau)—but lodged her in a temporary dwelling (Keil, Bahr), assigning as a reason that the rooms of the royal palace had been consecrated and rendered holy by the presence of the ark of Jehovah, and meaning thereby that to have introduced into them an Egyptian queen, even though a proselyte, with probably an establishment of heathen maids, would have been, to say the least, an impropriety. The fact that Solomon could not lodge his wife in his father's house should have made him hesitate as to his marriage. That matrimonial alliance must be doubtful the contemplation of which leads one to apprehend the Divine displeasure, or which one sees to be incongruous with right religious feeling.
2. In a house contiguous to Solomon's palace. This house, specially prepared for her, not for a harem (Thenius), formed part of Solomon's own dwelling (1 Kings 7:8), being situated either behind (Winer) or above (Keil), or perhaps at the side of it.
LESSONS.
1. Marriage is honourable in all (Hebrews 13:4).
2. The duty of wedding only in the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:39).
3. The sin of polygamy.
4. The obligation of husbands to maintain their wives.—W.
2 Chronicles 8:12-16
The house of the Lord perfected.
I. THE SACRIFICES ARRANGED. (2 Chronicles 8:12, 2 Chronicles 8:13.)
1. The place on which these should henceforth be offered. "The altar of Jehovah before the porch." Hitherto Solomon and others,had presented burnt offerings before the tabernacle at Gibeon (2 Chronicles 1:3) and elsewhere (2 Samuel 6:13). Henceforth these should be laid upon the brazen altar in the temple court. Solomon's doing so at the close of the dedication service was a formal inauguration of the practice meant to be followed.
2. The times when these should be offered.
3. The measure according to which these should be offered. According to the daily rate prescribed by Moses (Exodus 23:14; Le 23:37; Deuteronomy 16:16, Deuteronomy 16:17). Though Solomon had been honoured to erect a temple, he did not feel himself at liberty to propound a new ritual, and far less to institute a new religion. For him, as for all before and after, until the fulness of the times, Moses was the sole authority in doctrine and in worship. Since the fulness of the times, Christ, the greater than Moses, is; and will-worship (Colossians 2:23) is as little permissible under the new dispensation as it was under the old.
II. THE PRIESTLY COURSES APPOINTED. (2 Chronicles 8:14.)
1. The pattern followed. The order of David (1 Chronicles 24:1-31.). Whether, in thus arranging the priesthood, David acted under Divine direction or not, is not material. This detail could safely be left to sanctified prudence; and David, in effecting it, only showed his sagacity in knowing how to get a difficult work performed with ease and efficiency, as well as his regard for order and decorum in all things pertaining to the sanctuary. Solomon, in following David's example instead of resorting to new experiments, approved himself wise.
2. The number of the courses. Twenty-four (1 Chronicles 24:1-19). When these were arranged by David, twenty-four chief men were found who claimed descent from the house of Aaron. Of these, sixteen belonged to the sons of Eleazar, and eight to the sons of Ithamar. Consequently, these were selected as the heads of the several courses, their order of succession being determined by lot—to avoid all ground of complaint on the score of favouritism, and to lend the sanction of Divine authority to the order so established (Proverbs 16:33). As this arrangement was made in David's old age, and not after the Exile by another than David (De Wette, Herzfeld), it is probable that few important alterations required to be made.
3. The nature of their services. To conduct the sacrificial worship of the nation. The Christian Church has only one Priest, who, having once for all offered himself a Sacrifice for sin, and having passed within the veil with his own blood, there to appear in the presence of God for us, has been consecrated for evermore (Hebrews 7:28; Hebrews 9:11, Hebrews 9:12; Hebrews 10:10).
III. THE LEVITES INSTRUCTED. (2 Chronicles 8:14.)
1. Their courses. Three—the Gershonites, the Kohathites, the Merarites, according to the three great families of the sons of Levi; the first two consisting of nine, and the third of six, the three of twenty-four fathers' houses. Hence their courses were probably, like those of the priests', twenty-four in number (Josephus, 'Ant.,' 7.14. 7).
2. Their charges. To praise and minister before the priests, as the duty of every day required. They were no longer needed to carry the tabernacle or any of its vessels for the service thereof, seeing that Jehovah had given rest unto his people, that they might dwell in Jerusalem for ever (1 Chronicles 23:24-32; 1 Chronicles 25:1-6).
IV. THE PORTERS STATIONED. (2 Chronicles 8:14.)
1. Their courses. Twenty-four. At least twenty-four men are mentioned as keeping daily guard at the temple gates (1 Chronicles 26:13-19); and these, it is conjectured, were the heads of twenty-four divisions.
2. Their stations. "At every gate." Every day were planted at the east gate six men; at the north, four; at the south, four; at the storehouses in the vicinity of the south gate, two and two, i.e. four; at Parbar towards the west, six; in all, twenty-four at the different gates (1 Chronicles 26:17, 1 Chronicles 26:18).
3. Their work. To keep the gates—esteemed an honourable service, and called ministering in the house of the Lord (1 Chronicles 26:12; cf. Psalms 84:10).
LESSONS.
1. The necessity and beauty of order in Divine worship.
2. The diversity of offices and gifts in the Church of God.
3. The dignity of even the humblest service in connection with religion.—W.
2 Chronicles 8:17, 2 Chronicles 8:18
The first merchant-ships.
I. To WHOM THEY BELONGED.
1. Solomon—who constructed a navy of ships (1 Kings 9:26). The first mention of ship-building by the Israelites. An advance in civilization, it is doubtful whether this was in harmony with the calling of the Israelites as a theocratic people, whose business it was to keep themselves distinct from other nations.
2. Hiram—who sent the Israelitish monarch ships by the hands of his servants. Either Hiram sent to Eloth ship-carpenters, who built ships for Solomon (Bahr), or he built ships at Tyre, and sent them by the hands of sailors to join in Solomon's expedition (Bertheau). If the latter, they must either have rounded the continent of Africa (Bertheau), or been carried by land transport across the Isthmus of Suez (Keil). The former would not have been impossible had the circumnavigation of Africa been at that time known. This, however, is doubtful, as Herodotus (4:42) mentions Pharaoh Necho of the twenty-sixth dynasty as the first to prove that Africa was entirely surrounded by water, with the exception of the small isthmus connecting it with Asia. This he did by sending Phoenician seamen in ships from the Arabian Gulf to seek their way to Egypt through the Pillars of Hercules and the Mediterranean Sea. Hence the latter method was more probably adopted for conveying Hiram's ships to the Gulf of Arabia—a method of transporting vessels known to the ancients. Herodotus (vii. 24) states that, while Xerxes cut a passage through the Isthmus of Mount Athos, he need not have done so, since without difficulty he might have carried his ships across the land. Thucydides (2 Chronicles 4:8) mentions that in this way the Peloponnesians conveyed eighty ships across the Leucadia-isthmus. (For additional examples, see Exposition.)
II. THE PORT WHENCE THEY SAILED.
1. Ezion-geber, a camping-station on the desert march of Israel (Numbers 33:35; Deuteronomy 2:8); afterwards the place where Jehoshaphat's ships were wrecked (1 Kings 22:48). When the town was built is unknown. Its name imports "the backbone of a man" (Gesenius); the Greeks called it Berenice (Josephus, 'Ant.,' 8.6. 4).
2. Near Eloth, the Ailane of Josephus, the Ailath of the Greeks, and the Elana of the Romans, the modern Akaba, on the eastern bay of the Gulf of Akabah. Whether Ezion-geber was also on the east side of the gulf or on the west is uncertain, as no trace of it now exists.
3. On the shore of the Red Sea. The Yam Suf was the eastern arm of the Arabian Gulf, or the Gulf of Akabah. At the present day navigation is perilous in the vicinity of Elath in consequence of the sharp and rocky coast and the easily excited storms.
4. In the land of Edom. Mount Seir, Edom, Idumaea, the Mount of Esau (Deuteronomy 2:5; Joel 3:19; Isaiah 24:5; Obadiah 1:21); in the Assyrian inscriptions, Udumu or Udumi; a desolate region extending from the head of the Elanitic Gulf to the foot of the Dead Sea, described by Robinson as "a rolling desert, the surface [of which] was in general loose gravel and stones, everywhere furrowed and torn with the beds of torrents … now and then a lone shrub of the ghudah [being] almost the only trace of vegetation".
III. THE SAILORS BY WHOM THEY WERE MANNED. Servants of Hiram, who had knowledge of the sea. The Phoenicians the earliest navigators of the ocean. An inscription of Queen Hatasu, of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, queen regnant first with Thothmes II. and afterwards with Thothmes III; has preserved a record of the construction by that royal lady of a navy on the Red Sea, and of a voyage of discovery to the land of Arabia in vessels manned by Phoenician seamen (Brugsch, 'Egypt,' 1:351, etc.; 'Records of the Past,' Romans 10:11, etc.).
IV. THE COUNTRY TO WHICH THEY STEERED. Ophir. By eminent authorities (Lassen, Ritter, Bertheau) located in India, this gold-producing region was probably in Arabia (Knobel, Keil, Ewald, Bahr)—the land of Pun, to which the ships of Hatasu sailed for costly treasures.
V. THE CARGO WITH WHICH THEY RETURNED.
1. Gold. Whether the four hundred and fifty talents were the cargo of one voyage or of all the voyages cannot be determined. Reckoning a talent at £5475 sterling, the amount would be £2,463,750, or nearly two and a half millions. This precious metal was amongst the treasures fetched from the land of Pun by Hatasu's fleet.
2. Precious stones. Learnt from a later statement (2 Chronicles 9:10). These also were obtainable in the land of Pun.
3. Algum trees. (2 Chronicles 9:10). What these were is unknown; probably they corresponded with the balsam-wood or "incense trees" brought from Pun by Hatasu's ships. It was manifestly rare and costly, as Solomon made of it "terraces to the house of the Lord and the king's palace, as well as harps and psalteries for singers;" "and there were none such seen before in the land of Judah." So said Hatasu's scribes of her cargo. "Never has such a convoy [been made] like this one by any king since the creation of the world."
Learn:
1. Man's dominion over nature—he can affront the perils of the sea.
2. The advantages (from a secular point of view) of navigation—in increasing the world's wealth and comfort, in extending man's knowledge and power, and in binding the nations into a mutually dependent and helpful brotherhood.
3. The dangers (from a spiritual point of view) of foreign exploration, in fostering the lust of conquest and possession, and in bringing God's people into contact with heathen nations.—W.
2 Chronicles
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