GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
1 CHRONICLES 22:2-5
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2 David gave orders to gather the resident aliens together who were in the land of Israel. He appointed stonecutters to prepare dressed stones to build the house of God. 3 David provided great quantities of iron to forge nails for the doors of the gates and for couplings, and also more bronze than could be weighed. 4 He also provided cedar timbers beyond number, for the Sidonians and Tyrians brought great quantities of cedar timber to David. 5 David said, “My son Solomon is young and inexperienced, and the house that is to be built for the LORD is to be of great magnificence, renown, and glory in the eyes of all lands. Therefore I will make preparations for it now.” So David provided abundant materials before his death.
David understood just how massive an undertaking this would be. When he was Solomon’s age, he was a young soldier, perhaps a captain but still a musician as well. He did not have the experience necessary to command a project like this one. He simply did what he could so that Solomon would not be forced to end the project, giving up because of insurmountable troubles. David understood the vast amounts of materials that would be needed, some raw (timber, stone) and some manufactured. As one commentator put it, “One can almost say that the temple was prefabricated by David.”
The resident aliens were an important part of Israel’s community. They were the descendants of the Canaanites who had been defeated when Israel occupied the land, from the time of Joshua until David (about four hundred years). Some of these were the Jebusites, who had only just been defeated in the present generation. It isn’t quite clear from this verse, but the stonecutters were taken from these resident aliens. We will see in 2 Chronicles 2:18 that Solomon had a force of 80,000 stonecutters in the hills. These men were not masons, but forced laborers, with overseers over them. The “dressed stones” were not for the altar (where dressed stones were forbidden) but for the walls and other structural parts of the building itself. The “curtains” of the temple would not be fabric, but limestone.
Nails were produced in two stages. First, a smith worked an iron pin into a roughly conical shape at the forge. This pin was then inserted into a separate head, which would slide along the pin until the pin’s diameter stopped any further movement. The pin was snipped and re-heated, and a nail was the result. The mention here is one of the earliest literary references to nails. According to Wikipedia, seven tons of nails were discovered from the Roman fortress of Inchtuthil, Scotland (occupied by the Romans until about 50 years after the ascension of Jesus our Lord).
The word I have translated “couplings” is mechabroth, which is “joists” in 2 Chronicles 34:11 and the adjective “joined” in Exodus 28:27 and 39:20. It appears to be an ancient term for a way to fit metal together with a clasp, clamp, or by means of a crimp. According to the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (1980), the main idea is “to join or unite two things.” Often, the verb form refers to people joining with idols (“can a corrupt throne be ‘allied’ with you?” Psalm 94:20), but in simple carpentry, especially in this context, it is clearly an iron fitting of some kind meant to take the strain of beams butted together in some way.
For all who know about the temple’s construction, there is no surprise in learning about the lumber that would be sent down from Lebanon to Israel. Much of it was taken by sea in log-rafts similar to those used in the great logging days of the upper Midwest in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
David states his purpose and goal for all of this in verse 5 (this entire project falls under the doctrine of good works, as we shall see below). David knew that his son Solomon was young and inexperienced, and he did not know how much longer he himself would live. For these reasons, he wanted to do everything he could to make the project a success even though he had been told that he would not be the one to build it (1 Chronicles 17:4). The reason God did this is that he wanted to establish his kingdom by raising up one of David’s sons (1 Chronicles 17:11). This served as a prophecy of the Kingdom of Christ and even an illustration for anyone without a hard heart.
David wanted the temple to be a place of “great magnificence, renown, and glory” to everyone in the world, whoever saw it or even heard about it. When the Queen of Sheba came, her reaction stood for the reactions of all world leaders. “When she saw the house that he had built (she said to the king), ‘Blessed be the LORD your God who delighted in you to set you on the throne of Israel’” (1 Kings 10:4,9).
David had repented of his sin and thoroughly submitted himself to the will of God. He was a new creation, as Paul says (2 Corinthians 5:17). For “the reborn are led by the Spirit of God” (Romans 8:14) and David was led by the Spirit of God to provide the plan, manpower, and materials, so that Solomon could follow through and make the temple. And we can follow suit with David, imitating his good deed in whatever means is available to us. God’s people, Augustine said, “undestand that, if they are God’s children, the Spirit of God is leading them to do what they should do. And when they have done that, let them thank him who leads them, for they are led to act” (On Admonition and Grace, ch. 2). This cooperation of the reborn children of God is not the sole work of the individual– by no means! It requires the constant work of the Holy Spirit in us, so that we can be “abounding with doing good” (Acts 9:26). Cleansed by the Holy Spirit, we become “an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work” (2 Timothy 2:21). So give thanks to God for your forgiveness and for the opportunities he places in your path. And as you make your way through the delightful variety in the orchard of good deeds in which God places us, ask for his blessing on each and every joyful fruit you pick, and that you choose to do, with his help.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – 1 Chronicles 22:2-5 Workers and materials