The Daily Audio Bible

5 Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon, for he had heard that they had anointed him king in the place of his father, and Hiram had always loved David. ² Solomon sent to Hiram, saying, ³ “You know that David my father could not build a house for the name of Yahweh his God because of the wars which were around him on every side, until Yahweh put his enemies under the soles of his feet. ⁴ But now Yahweh my God has given me rest on every side. There is no enemy and no evil occurrence. ⁵ Behold, I intend to build a house for the name of Yahweh my God, as Yahweh spoke to David my father, saying, ‘Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place shall build the house for my name.’ ⁶ Now therefore command that cedar trees be cut for me out of Lebanon. My servants will be with your servants; and I will give you wages for your servants according to all that you say. For you know that there is nobody among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians.”

⁷ When Hiram heard the words of Solomon, he rejoiced greatly, and said, “Blessed is Yahweh today, who has given to David a wise son to rule over this great people.” ⁸ Hiram sent to Solomon, saying, “I have heard the message which you have sent to me. I will do all your desire concerning timber of cedar, and concerning cypress timber. ⁹ My servants will bring them down from Lebanon to the sea. I will make them into rafts to go by sea to the place that you specify to me, and will cause them to be broken up there, and you will receive them. You will accomplish my desire, in giving food for my household.”

¹⁰ So Hiram gave Solomon cedar timber and cypress timber according to all his desire. ¹¹ Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand cors^[a] of wheat for food to his household, and twenty cors^[b] of pure oil. Solomon gave this to Hiram year by year. ¹² Yahweh gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him. There was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty together.

¹³ King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men. ¹⁴ He sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses: for a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home; and Adoniram was over the men subject to forced labor. ¹⁵ Solomon had seventy thousand who bore burdens, and eighty thousand who were stone cutters in the mountains, ¹⁶ besides Solomon’s chief officers who were over the work: three thousand three hundred who ruled over the people who labored in the work. ¹⁷ The king commanded, and they cut out large stones, costly stones, to lay the foundation of the house with worked stone. ¹⁸ Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the Gebalites cut them, and prepared the timber and the stones to build the house.

6 In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build Yahweh’s house. ² The house which King Solomon built for Yahweh had a length of sixty cubits,^[c] and its width twenty, and its height thirty cubits. ³ The porch in front of the temple of the house had a length of twenty cubits, which was along the width of the house. Ten cubits was its width in front of the house. ⁴ He made windows of fixed lattice work for the house. ⁵ Against the wall of the house, he built floors all around, against the walls of the house all around, both of the temple and of the inner sanctuary; and he made side rooms all around. ⁶ The lowest floor was five cubits wide, and the middle was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide; for on the outside he made offsets in the wall of the house all around, that the beams should not be inserted into the walls of the house. ⁷ The house, when it was under construction, was built of stone prepared at the quarry; and no hammer or ax or any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was under construction. ⁸ The door for the middle side rooms was in the right side of the house. They went up by winding stairs into the middle floor, and out of the middle into the third. ⁹ So he built the house and finished it; and he covered the house with beams and planks of cedar. ¹⁰ He built the floors all along the house, each five cubits high; and they rested on the house with timbers of cedar.

¹¹ Yahweh’s word came to Solomon, saying, ¹² “Concerning this house which you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, and execute my ordinances, and keep all my commandments to walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father. ¹³ I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.”

¹⁴ So Solomon built the house and finished it. ¹⁵ He built the walls of the house within with boards of cedar; from the floor of the house to the walls of the ceiling, he covered them on the inside with wood. He covered the floor of the house with cypress boards. ¹⁶ He built twenty cubits of the back part of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the ceiling. He built this within, for an inner sanctuary, even for the most holy place. ¹⁷ In front of the temple sanctuary was forty cubits long. ¹⁸ There was cedar on the house within, carved with buds and open flowers. All was cedar. No stone was visible. ¹⁹ He prepared an inner sanctuary in the middle of the house within, to set the ark of Yahweh’s covenant there. ²⁰ Within the inner sanctuary was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in width, and twenty cubits in its height. He overlaid it with pure gold. He covered the altar with cedar. ²¹ So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold. He drew chains of gold across before the inner sanctuary, and he overlaid it with gold. ²² He overlaid the whole house with gold, until all the house was finished. He also overlaid the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary with gold.

²³ In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim^[d] of olive wood, each ten cubits high. ²⁴ Five cubits was the length of one wing of the cherub, and five cubits was the length of the other wing of the cherub. From the tip of one wing to the tip of the other was ten cubits. ²⁵ The other cherub was ten cubits. Both the cherubim were of one measure and one form. ²⁶ One cherub was ten cubits high, and so was the other cherub. ²⁷ He set the cherubim within the inner house. The wings of the cherubim were stretched out, so that the wing of the one touched the one wall and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall; and their wings touched one another in the middle of the house. ²⁸ He overlaid the cherubim with gold.

²⁹ He carved all the walls of the house around with carved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, inside and outside. ³⁰ He overlaid the floor of the house with gold, inside and outside. ³¹ For the entrance of the inner sanctuary, he made doors of olive wood. The lintel and door posts were a fifth part of the wall. ³² So he made two doors of olive wood; and he carved on them carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold. He spread the gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees. ³³ He also made the entrance of the temple door posts of olive wood, out of a fourth part of the wall, ³⁴ and two doors of cypress wood. The two leaves of the one door were folding, and the two leaves of the other door were folding. ³⁵ He carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers; and he overlaid them with gold fitted on the engraved work. ³⁶ He built the inner court with three courses of cut stone and a course of cedar beams.

³⁷ The foundation of Yahweh’s house was laid in the fourth year, in the month Ziv. ³⁸ In the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished throughout all its parts and according to all its specifications. So he spent seven years building it.

7 The high priest said, “Are these things so?”

² He said, “Brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, ³ and said to him, ‘Get out of your land and away from your relatives, and come into a land which I will show you.’^{(A) 4} Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans and lived in Haran. From there, when his father was dead, God moved him into this land where you are now living. ⁵ He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. He promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his offspring after him, when he still had no child. ⁶ God spoke in this way: that his offspring would live as aliens in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years. ⁷ ‘I will judge the nation to which they will be in bondage,’ said God, ‘and after that they will come out and serve me in this place.’^{(B) 8} He gave him the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

⁹ “The patriarchs, moved with jealousy against Joseph, sold him into Egypt. God was with him ¹⁰ and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He made him governor over Egypt and all his house. ¹¹ Now a famine came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction. Our fathers found no food. ¹² But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers the first time. ¹³ On the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family was revealed to Pharaoh. ¹⁴ Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his relatives, seventy-five souls. ¹⁵ Jacob went down into Egypt and he died, himself and our fathers; ¹⁶ and they were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in silver from the children of Hamor of Shechem.

¹⁷ “But as the time of the promise came close which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, ¹⁸ until there arose a different king who didn’t know Joseph. ¹⁹ The same took advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers, and forced them to abandon their babies, so that they wouldn’t stay alive. ²⁰ At that time Moses was born, and was exceedingly handsome to God. He was nourished three months in his father’s house. ²¹ When he was abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up and reared him as her own son. ²² Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was mighty in his words and works. ²³ But when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers,^[a] the children of Israel. ²⁴ Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him and avenged him who was oppressed, striking the Egyptian. ²⁵ He supposed that his brothers understood that God, by his hand, was giving them deliverance; but they didn’t understand.

²⁶ “The day following, he appeared to them as they fought, and urged them to be at peace again, saying, ‘Sirs, you are brothers. Why do you wrong one another?’ ²⁷ But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? ²⁸ Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’^{(C) 29} Moses fled at this saying, and became a stranger in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

A Song of Ascents. By Solomon.