Page:The Books of Chronicles (1916).djvu/242

178 he cieled with fir tree, which he overlaid with fine gold, and wrought thereon palm trees and chains. And he garnished the house with precious stones for beauty: and the gold was gold of Parvaim. He overlaid also the house, the beams, the thresholds, and the walls thereof, and the doors thereof, with gold; and graved cherubim on the walls. And he made the most holy house; the length thereof, according to the breadth of the house, was twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits: and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents.

he cieled] i.e. lined or boarded. The same Hebrew word is translated overlaid in this same verse.

wrought thereon] perhaps in the form of reliefs.

palm trees and chains] The "chains" perhaps connected one palm tree with another. In 1 Kin. vi. 29, "cherubim and palm trees and open flowers."

6. precious stones] Not mentioned in the parallel account, but according to 1 Kin. v. 17 costly stones (the same expression in Hebrew) were used for the foundations of the house, their costliness being due presumably to their immense size. Here, however, the phrase "for beauty" suggests that the Chronicler is thinking of rare and precious stones to be set in the walls—an exaggeration not out of keeping with the references to "pure gold" in vv. 4, 7, etc.

Parvaim] Apparently the name of a place, but nothing certain is known about it.

7. cherubim] The cherubim (plural of cherub) were the Hebrew adaptation of the winged bulls which are so striking a figure in Babylonian and Assyrian art. Nothing, however, can be ascertained as to the exact form in which they were depicted in the Temple. In the O.T. they appear as guardians of sacred things (Gen. iii. 24; Ezek. xxviii.) and as sustainers of the Deity (e.g. Ps. lxxx. 1 "Thou that sittest upon the cherubim"; cp. Ps. xviii. 10). The figures were therefore emblematic of the presence of Jehovah.

The graving of the cherubim was not felt to be a breach of the Second Commandment, for they were not put up to "bow down to" or to "serve."

8, 9 (cp. 1 Kin. vi. 16—20).&emsp;

8. the most holy house] Called the oracle in 1 Kin. vi. 16, 19, etc., Hebrew dĕbīr, which means rather the hinder part. The Lord "dwells" in the inmost recess of the house.

amounting to six hundred talents] This detail is not found elsewhere. The weight of gold would be over 64,000 lbs., or, on a less probable reckoning, 27,000 lbs.; incredible quantities in either case, but in keeping with the vast amounts stated in 1 Chr. xxix. 4.