Showing posts with label stonecutters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stonecutters. Show all posts

Monday, August 8, 2011

Solomon's Builders and Craftsmen for the Temple



In this chapter Solomon, enlists the help of Hiram, King of Tyre, who was very helpful to David. In his request, Solomon mentioned that although he was building a temple for the LORD, nothing can really contain the LORD. Solomon acknowledges that the Temple was merely a place where they can burn sacrifices for Him. Having all the raw materials for the Temple accumulated by David, Solomon's request to Tyre was for skillful builders.

The King of Tyre, agreed to the request and send Solomon a multitude of skilled craftsmen to work alongside the Israelites. In addition, Solomon also used the 153,600 foreigners living in Israel to build the temple. The majority of this were "bearers of burden" (possibly labourers), stonecutters and 3600 of them were made the overseers.



2 Chronicles 2

Solomon Prepares to Build the Temple

 1 Then Solomon determined to build a temple for the name of the LORD, and a royal house for himself. 2 Solomon selected seventy thousand men to bear burdens, eighty thousand to quarry stone in the mountains, and three thousand six hundred to oversee them.
3 Then Solomon sent to Hiram[a] king of Tyre, saying:
   As you have dealt with David my father, and sent him cedars to build himself a house to dwell in, so deal with me. 4 Behold, I am building a temple for the name of the LORD my God, to dedicate it to Him, to burn before Him sweet incense, for the continual showbread, for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the Sabbaths, on the New Moons, and on the set feasts of the LORD our God. This is an ordinance forever to Israel.

 5 And the temple which I build will be great, for our God is greater than all gods. 6 But who is able to build Him a temple, since heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him? Who am I then, that I should build Him a temple, except to burn sacrifice before Him?

 7 Therefore send me at once a man skillful to work in gold and silver, in bronze and iron, in purple and crimson and blue, who has skill to engrave with the skillful men who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom David my father provided. 8 Also send me cedar and cypress and algum logs from Lebanon, for I know that your servants have skill to cut timber in Lebanon; and indeed my servants will be with your servants, 9 to prepare timber for me in abundance, for the temple which I am about to build shall be great and wonderful.

 10 And indeed I will give to your servants, the woodsmen who cut timber, twenty thousand kors of ground wheat, twenty thousand kors of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.
11 Then Hiram king of Tyre answered in writing, which he sent to Solomon:

   Because the LORD loves His people, He has made you king over them.
12 Hiram[b] also said:

   Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, for He has given King David a wise son, endowed with prudence and understanding, who will build a temple for the LORD and a royal house for himself!

 13 And now I have sent a skillful man, endowed with understanding, Huram[c] my master[d]craftsman 14 (the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre), skilled to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, purple and blue, fine linen and crimson, and to make any engraving and to accomplish any plan which may be given to him, with your skillful men and with the skillful men of my lord David your father.

 15 Now therefore, the wheat, the barley, the oil, and the wine which my lord has spoken of, let him send to his servants. 16 And we will cut wood from Lebanon, as much as you need; we will bring it to you in rafts by sea to Joppa, and you will carry it up to Jerusalem.
17 Then Solomon numbered all the aliens who were in the land of Israel, after the census in which David his father had numbered them; and there were found to be one hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred. 18 And he made seventy thousand of them bearers of burdens, eighty thousand stonecutters in the mountain, and three thousand six hundred overseers to make the people work.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Jehoash Repairs the Temple of the LORD

Jehoash seemed to walk in the ways of the LORD but yet he did not remove all the other idol worshipping places so others were still worshipping there. Jehoash instructed the priests to use the money they collected to rebuild God's temple. However up until the middle of his reign, the temple was not repaired yet so he instructed the priests to stop taking the money and build with what they have. So the remaining money was paid to the workmen as they worked on the temple.

Hazael, king of Syria, threatened Judah and prepared to conquer Jerusalem. Jehoash tried to bribe Hazael by giving all the gold articles from the temple to Hazael. Then Jehoash fled Jerusalem. Some servants of Jehoash conspired and murdered Jehoash. Perhaps this may be related to the fact that Jehoash sold out to Hazael and fled Jerusalem.


2 Kings 12

Jehoash Repairs the Temple

 1 In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash[a] became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba. 2 Jehoash did what was right in the sight of the LORD all the days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him. 3 But the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
4 And Jehoash said to the priests, “All the money of the dedicated gifts that are brought into the house of the LORD—each man’s census money, each man’s assessment money[b]—and all the money that a man purposes in his heart to bring into the house of the LORD, 5 let the priests take it themselves, each from his constituency; and let them repair the damages of the temple, wherever any dilapidation is found.”
6 Now it was so, by the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, that the priests had not repaired the damages of the temple. 7 So King Jehoash called Jehoiada the priest and the other priests, and said to them, “Why have you not repaired the damages of the temple? Now therefore, do not take more money from your constituency, but deliver it for repairing the damages of the temple.” 8 And the priests agreed that they would neither receive more money from the people, nor repair the damages of the temple.
9 Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one comes into the house of the LORD; and the priests who kept the door put there all the money brought into the house of the LORD. 10 So it was, whenever they saw that there was much money in the chest, that the king’s scribe and the high priest came up and put it in bags, and counted the money that was found in the house of the LORD. 11 Then they gave the money, which had been apportioned, into the hands of those who did the work, who had the oversight of the house of the LORD; and they paid it out to the carpenters and builders who worked on the house of the LORD, 12 and to masons and stonecutters, and for buying timber and hewn stone, to repair the damage of the house of the LORD, and for all that was paid out to repair the temple. 13 However there were not made for the house of the LORD basins of silver, trimmers, sprinkling-bowls, trumpets, any articles of gold or articles of silver, from the money brought into the house of the LORD. 14 But they gave that to the workmen, and they repaired the house of the LORD with it. 15 Moreover they did not require an account from the men into whose hand they delivered the money to be paid to workmen, for they dealt faithfully. 16 The money from the trespass offerings and the money from the sin offerings was not brought into the house of the LORD. It belonged to the priests.

Hazael Threatens Jerusalem
 
17 Hazael king of Syria went up and fought against Gath, and took it; then Hazael set his face to go up to Jerusalem. 18 And Jehoash king of Judah took all the sacred things that his fathers, Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own sacred things, and all the gold found in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and in the king’s house, and sent them to Hazael king of Syria. Then he went away from Jerusalem.

Death of Joash
 
19 Now the rest of the acts of Joash,[c] and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
20 And his servants arose and formed a conspiracy, and killed Joash in the house of the Millo,[d] which goes down to Silla. 21 For Jozachar[e] the son of Shimeath and Jehozabad the son of Shomer,[f] his servants, struck him. So he died, and they buried him with his fathers in the City of David. Then Amaziah his son reigned in his place.

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