2 Chronicles · chapter 2 of 36
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2 Chronicles 2 tells how Solomon decides to build a house for the name of the Lord and organizes tens of thousands of workers for the project. He writes to Hiram, king of Tyre, asking for cedar and a skilled craftsman, and Hiram replies by blessing the God of Israel and sending Huram-abi. The chapter ends with the census and the assignment of work among the foreigners living in Israel.
After God granted him wisdom in the previous chapter, Solomon moves from prayer to work. This chapter is the preparation for the temple, the great task David had longed for and God entrusted to his son. The chronicler is careful to show that the work is done with humility before a God whom no building can contain.
Solomon gives the order to build a house for the name of the Lord and also a royal palace. For the work he organizes seventy thousand men to carry loads, eighty thousand to cut stone in the hills and three thousand six hundred to oversee them.
He then sends word to Hiram, king of Tyre, who had helped his father David with cedar. Solomon explains that the house will be great because his God is greater than all gods, yet he admits that not even the heavens can contain God and that the temple is a place to burn incense and offer sacrifices before him. He asks for a man skilled in working gold, silver, bronze, iron, purple, crimson and blue, and in engraving. He also asks for cedar, cypress and algum from Lebanon, and offers wheat, barley, wine and oil for Hiram's servants in return.
Hiram answers in writing: blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth and gave David a wise son. He sends Huram-abi, the son of a woman of Dan and a father from Tyre, skilled in every kind of work, and promises to float the timber by sea to Joppa, from where Solomon can take it up to Jerusalem. Solomon then counts the foreigners living in Israel, who number one hundred fifty-three thousand six hundred, and assigns them to carrying, quarrying and overseeing.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Solomon determines to build a house for the name of the Lord and a royal house for himself. The temple is presented as a work for God's name, not for the king's prestige.
Solomon asks who can build God a house when even the highest heavens cannot contain him. He recognizes that the temple does not confine God: it is a place where the people draw near to him with sacrifice and worship.
Hiram blesses the Lord, the God of Israel and maker of heaven and earth, for giving David a wise son. A foreign king acknowledges God's work, and the chronicler shows that Israel's reputation does not rest on its power alone.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: A house for the name of the Lord. — 2 Chronicles 2:1
Answer: Seventy thousand to carry loads and eighty thousand to quarry stone in the hills. — 2 Chronicles 2:2
Answer: To Hiram, king of Tyre. — 2 Chronicles 2:3
Answer: Because the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him. — 2 Chronicles 2:6
Answer: He blessed the Lord, the God of Israel, and sent a skilled and discerning man, Huram-abi. — 2 Chronicles 2:12-13
Answer: Hiram's men would float it in rafts by sea to Joppa, and from there Solomon would take it up to Jerusalem. — 2 Chronicles 2:16
This chapter reminds us that serving God takes both prayer and organization. Solomon plans, assigns tasks and asks for help from someone with resources and skills he does not have. In a Sunday school class or small group, this invites us to value the people who sustain the work with practical labor: those who organize, build, cook or manage.
It also teaches humility. Solomon knows that no building can contain God. The projects of the church, however good, are means of worshiping him, not the goal. We can ask whether our plans put the name of the Lord at the center or mainly seek recognition for ourselves.
2 Chronicles 2 leaves everything ready to begin: organized workers, promised timber and a craftsman on the way. The next chapter, 2 Chronicles 3, describes where the temple was built and how it was structured, from Mount Moriah to the two pillars of the porch.
Tyre was a seafaring city with experience in trade and in working timber and metals, and Hiram had already been a friend of David. Solomon saw no problem in using the resources of other nations, as long as the work was done for the name of the Lord and within Israel's worship.
He was a craftsman sent by King Hiram of Tyre. The text says his mother was from the tribe of Dan and his father from Tyre, and that he knew how to work gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, wood, fabrics and engraving. His work appears again in 2 Chronicles 4.
That God is infinitely greater than any building. The temple would not be his limited dwelling but the place God chose to meet his people, a theme Solomon returns to in his prayer in chapter 6. Christians see in this a foretaste of Christ, in whom God dwells among his people.