UNROLL
Dawn at Tadmor in the wilderness: a green oasis of date palms around a spring pool in a flat, pale desert, the new plain stone walls and gateway of a small town beside it with rough pole scaffolds still against one wall, and laden donkeys arriving along a track.

The Book of

2 Chronicles 8

Twenty years of building are done. Now Chronicles shows what it was all for: a house where God was worshiped in order, every day.

18 verses≈ 4 min2 peopleBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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In this chapter

Where we are

  1. 1SolomonWisdom asked at Gibeon
  2. 2–5The templeBuilt on Mount Moriah
  3. 6–7DedicationIf My people humble themselves
  4. 8–9Solomon's gloryThe queen of ShebaChapter 8
  5. 10–16DivisionRehoboam to Asa
  6. 17–20JehoshaphatThe battle is God's
  7. 21–24Dark yearsJehoram to Joash
  8. 25–28Proud kingsAmaziah to Ahaz
  9. 29–32HezekiahDoors opened, Passover kept
  10. 33–35Manasseh to JosiahMercy and the Book found
  11. 36Exile and returnMay he go up

Solomon’s Additional Achievements

Now at the end of the twenty years during which Solomon had built the house of the LORD and his own palace, Solomon rebuilt the cities Hiram had given him and settled Israelites there.

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To OphirJerusalemTyreHamathTadmorEzion-geber

Stylised map · locations approximate

On the map

Solomon’s cities and his fleet

Solomon took Hamath-zobah in the far north and built Tadmor, an oasis in the Syrian desert on the road to the Euphrates (later called Palmyra), with store cities in the land of Hamath. Nearer home he fortified Upper and Lower Beth-horon on the road up from the coast to Jerusalem, and Baalath. In the south, at Ezion-geber on the Red Sea, the sailors of Hiram king of Tyre joined his men for the voyage to Ophir, whose site is unknown.

Then Solomon went to Hamath-zobah and captured it. He built Tadmor in the wilderness, in addition to all the store cities that he had built in Hamath.

Late afternoon at the gate of Upper Beth-horon on its ridge: workmen swing a tall double door of thick wooden planks bound with bronze onto its pivots while two others carry a long, heavy wooden bar toward the stone sockets, the road falling away west toward the coastal plain.

He rebuilt Upper and Lower Beth-horon as fortified cities with walls, gates, and bars, as well as Baalath, all the store cities that belonged to Solomon, and all the cities for his chariots and horses—whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, and throughout the land of his dominion.

Reflect

What are you building?

Twenty years of building lay behind Solomon, and still he built “whatever he desired to build.” What are you building with your years? Write down one thing you are working on, and ask whether it serves God’s purposes or only your own.

A hot morning at a hillside quarry of pale limestone: crews of laborers in short rough tunics cut blocks with chisels and wooden wedges and lever them onto wooden sledges, while an Israelite officer with a staff and two others with tally sticks direct the work.

Solomon’s labor

Who did the work

  1. Forced laborers

    The peoples left in the land

    As for all the people who remained of the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites (these people were not Israelites)— their descendants who remained in the land, those whom the Israelites had not destroyed—Solomon conscripted these people to be forced laborers, as they are to this day.

  2. Soldiers, officers

    No Israelite made a slave

    But Solomon did not consign any of the Israelites to slave labor, because they were his men of war, the leaders of his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and cavalry.

  3. Supervisors

    250 chief officers

    They were also the chief officers for King Solomon: 250 supervisors.

Morning on a broad stone stairway climbing from the old houses of the City of David to a fine new house of dressed limestone and cedar: an Egyptian princess in white pleated linen climbs with two waiting women while servants carry carved chests and baskets ahead.

Solomon brought the daughter of Pharaoh up from the City of David to the palace he had built for her.

For he said, “My wife must not live in the house of David king of Israel, because the places the ark of the LORD has entered are holy.”

Question

Quick question

Solomon moved his Egyptian wife into a palace of her own.

Why did Solomon move Pharaoh’s daughter out of the house of David?

First light in the temple court: on the great square bronze altar the morning burnt offering burns with a clean, steady flame and a column of pale smoke, priests in white linen tending it and Solomon standing a little apart with his hands lifted, the long, plain stone house with its two bronze pillars behind.

At that time Solomon offered burnt offerings to the LORD on the altar of the LORD he had built in front of the portico. He observed the daily requirement for offerings according to the commandment of Moses for Sabbaths, New Moons, and the three annual appointed feasts—the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles.

0:18

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

Thus all the work of Solomon was carried out, from the day the foundation was laid for the house of the LORD until it was finished. So the house of the LORD was completed.

2 Chronicles 8:16

Pray

Finished well

“So the house of the LORD was completed.” Thank God for His house and for worship kept in order. Pray for those who serve week by week: the singers, the gatekeepers, the ones who keep the accounts. Lord, what You have begun in me, finish it, and let my work too be done well, for Your Name. Amen.

On the deck of a Phoenician ship at the shore, an older Tyrian sailor in a rounded felt cap shows young Israelite men how to handle a long oar and haul the square sail’s rope, the gulf and the mountains behind.

Then Solomon went to Ezion-geber and to Eloth on the coast of Edom. So Hiram sent him ships captained by his servants, along with crews of experienced sailors. They went with Solomon’s servants to Ophir and acquired from there 450 talents of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.

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2 Chronicles 8

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A verse to carry with you

Thus all the work of Solomon was carried out, from the day the foundation was laid for the house of the LORD until it was finished. So the house of the LORD was completed.

2 Chronicles 8:16

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