I. WHAT SOLOMON ACHIEVED BY BUILDING.

1. He increased the security of his dominions. Those "fenced cities, with walls, gates, and bars," must have added considerably to the defensive power of Israel.

2. He took effectual means for the enrichment of the country. The "store cities ' would do much to promote communication and trade with other states, would increase his imports and exports.

3. He immortalized himself. He caused his name to be associated with many places that for long centuries remembered him as their founder, and with one city (Tadmar) that will never be forgotten.

4. He made a deep mark on the future. Some of these cities have absolutely perished; the ruins of one of them still remain. It is impossible to say how much his enterprise had to do, but it certainly had much, with the brilliance, the power, and the political and moral influence of Palmyra. The effects of this building went far beyond the satisfaction of the desire of his heart (ver. 6); they reached to remote centuries, and told upon people that were afar off.

II. WHAT IS OPEN TO US TO ACCOMPLISH.

1. The structure it is possible we may raise. This may be a house in the sense of a family (see 2 Samuel 7:11); or it may be a house in the sense of a business establishment; or it may be a church, wherein God shall be worshipped and his Son exalted for many generations; or it may be a society which shall receive and sustain many hundreds of human hearts. One thing there is we may all he building, and are indeed all bound to build with utmost care - a human character; a character which shall be fair in its proportions, rich in its equipments, and strong in its defence against all assault.

2. The moral and spiritual materials with which, or of which, we should build. These are uprightness, truth, patience, courage, persistency.

3. The spirit in which we should work. This is the spirit of obedience, of resignation, of devotedness; so that we are not seeking our own personal aggrandizement, but the honour of our Divine Lord. - C.

I. PALACE-BUILDING. Like Seti I., Rameses II., and other Pharaohs (Brugsch, 'Egypt,' etc., 2:14), like Uruk, Kham-murabi, and other early Chaldean kings ('Records of the Past,' 1:8; 3:9), like ancient Oriental monarchs generally, Solomon was a great builder. The first twenty years of his reign were occupied in erecting "palaces," or royal residences.

1. A house for Jehovah, the King of kings, i.e. the temple on Moriah, which required seven years for erection (1 Kings 6:37, 88). In according precedence to the temple, Solomon acted both becomingly and rightly. In all undertakings, national, political, social, commercial, as well as individual and religious, not only should God's glory be the governing aim (1 Corinthians 10:31). but God's claims should receive the earliest recognition. God first and self second (not vice versa) is the true order, whatever the business in which man engages. "Honour the Lord with the firstfruits of thine increase" (Proverbs 3:9); "Seek first the kingdom of God and-his righteousness" (Matthew 6:33). A recently published memoir furnishes the following illustration: "'Before we began business.' writes a Christian merchant of his deceased partner, 'we had naturally to arrange articles of partnership. I remember with what earnestness he proposed that we should set aside a certain percentage of our profits for religious and benevolent purposes before any division was made among the partners. His wish was cordially assented to, but the generous purpose originated with him" ('Alexander Balfour: a Memoir,' by R. H. Lundie, M.A., pp. 37, 38).

2. A house for himself, Solomon, the King of Israel, the vicegerent and representative of Jehovah in the midst of the theocratic nation (1 Kings 7:1, 2). Though kings as well as other men may be sinfully prodigal in personal expenditure, in the mansions they dwell in, the luxury they revel in, and the pageantry they appear in, it is nevertheless not demanded by religion either that all should stand upon a level of equality in respect of" manner of life," or that any should practise asceticism. Each station in society has a corresponding "fitness of living," which Christianity allows, and prudence should attempt to discover and maintain. If beggars cannot live in palaces, kings are not expected to dwell in hovels.

3. A house for the daughter of Pharaoh, whom Solomon had espoused in the beginning of his reign (1 Kings 7:8), and had hitherto lodged in the city of David (1 Kings 3:1) until a permanent abode for her should be erected. This Pharaoh is supposed to have been Pashebensba II., the last of the Tanitic or twenty-first dynasty (Lenormant, Winer, Kleinert in Riehm's 'Handworterbuch'), though a claim has been advanced for an earlier potentate of that line, either Pashebensha I. or Pinetem II. (Rawlinson, 'Egypt and Babylon,' p. 331). That he should have given his daughter to Solomon is not surprising when the weakness of the Tanitic dynasty is remembered, and receives confirmation from the fact that an earlier Pharaoh married his daughter Bithia to an ordinary Israelite (1 Chronicles 4:18). As a dowry for his daughter, Gezer (Joshua 12:22), an old Canaanitish town whose king, Horam, was slain by Joshua (Joshua 10:33), without being itself destroyed, and whose inhabitants were not expelled, but only made tributary (Joshua 16:10), was conquered by the Egyptian monarch and presented to Solomon. Sargon (of Assyria) tells us in one of his inscriptions that, having conquered the country of Cilicia with some difficulty, on account of its great natural strength, he made it over to Ambris, King of Tubal, who had married one of his daughters, as the princess's dowry. (Rawlinson, ' Egypt and Babylon,' p. 331). On first marrying the princess, Solomon lodged her in a separate house in the city of David, until this residence was ready for her reception in connection with his own palace (see homily on ver. 11).

II. CITY-BUILDING. The subsequent years of Solomon's reign were so employed.

1. Old cities repaired. (Ver. 2.) In the north-west of Galilee, not far from Tyre. Either they were those Solomon offered to Hiram in payment for the building material, timber and gold, received from him (1 Kings 9:10-14), and Hiram declined to accept (Keil), as either an insufficient recompense, being in his estimation mean and contemptible, whence he called them Cabul (Josephus, 8:5. 3), or as being unsuitable to the commercial habits of his subjects (Jamieson); or they were towns Hiram gave to Solomon in exchange for those he had obtained from Solomon (Jewish interpreters). That the Chronicler has transformed the statement in Kings, because it seemed to him inconceivable that Solomon should have parted with twenty cities standing on Israelitish soil (Bertheau), while a possible hypothesis, is not demonstrable. These towns Solomon, having first wrested them from the Canaanites, repaired and peopled with the children of Israel, to whom, in virtue of God's promise, they really belonged.

2. New cities founded.

(1) Tadmor, or Tamar, "a palm tree" (1 Kings 9:18). in the wilderness, identified with the rich and flourishing city of Palmyra, "the city of palms," in the Syrian desert (Bertheau, Keil, Jamieson), distant "two days' journey from the Upper Syria, and one day's journey from Euphrates, and six long days' journey from Babylon" (Josephus 'Ant.' 8. 6. 1), and still called by the Damascenes Tadmor (Conder, 'Handbook to the Bible,' p, 281); though Tamar, mentioned in Ezekiel 47:19; Ezekiel 48:28) as forming part of the southern boundary of Palestine, has been claimed as the Tadmor here alluded to (Thenius, Bahr, Schrader), on the ground that in 1 Kings 9:17, 18 the building of Tamar is associated with the building of Gezer, Beth-heron, and Baalath, and that Tamar is stated to have been in the wilderness in the land. But the first of these arguments is not conclusive, while the second has force only if Palestine, and not Hamath, is the land meant. (For a description of Tadmor or Palmyra, see Biblical Cyclopsedias.)

3. Existing cities fortified.

(1) Beth-heron, or "the house of the narrow way," an old double town of Ephraim, said to have been built by Sheerah, a daughter or descendant of Ephraim (1 Chronicles 7:24); but as the two Beth-herons, the present Beit-ur-el-Foka and Taehta (Robinson), the upper and the lower, situated in the tribe of Ephraim on the borders of Benjamin, existed in the days of Joshua 9:28), it is probable that Sheerah was "an heiress who had received these places as her inheritance, and caused them to be enlarged by her family" (Keil). Solomon transformed them into garrison cities, with walls, gates, and bars.

(2) Baalah, a town in the tribe of Dan (Joshua 19:44), not far from Beth-heron and Gezer (Josephus), perhaps the modern village Bel'ain (Conder). Though mentioned along with Tadmor, there is no ground for identifying it with Baal-bec or Heliopolis (Ritter and others). This also the king fortified to protect his kingdom against the Philistines.

4. Store cities, etc., erected.

(1) In Hamath-zobah, which Solomon conquered (ver. 3). This territory comprised the well-known town Hamath on the Orontes, ruled over by Ton, and the adjoining state of Zobah, whose king, Hadar-ezer, David smote when he went to establish his dominion by the river Euphrates (1 Chronicles 18:3). Both kings appear to have been rendered tributary to the Israelitish throne as the result of that expedition, and their territories practically annexed to the Israel-itish dominions under the composite name employed by the Chronicler.

(2) In Palestine proper (ver. 6). These "store cities "were not so much deists of merchandise (Ewald, Jamieson) as magazines for victuals, laid up for the convenience of travellers and their beasts (Bertheau), perhaps also for materials of war to aid in the protection of the empire (Bahr). Along with these were chariot cities (cf. 2 Chronicles 1:14), and cities for the horsemen, probably not different from the former (see 2 Chronicles 9:25; 1 Kings 10:26). Learn:

1. Kings should be patterns to their subjects of religion and industry.

2. It is legitimate for princes to look well to the safety of their dominions.

3. The best defences for kingdoms are not muniments, but men. - W.

I. NON-ISRAELITES.

1. Their nationalities. Descendants of five of the seven nations in the promised laud anterior to the conquest, remnants of which were left instead of being utterly consumed as enjoined by Moses (Deuteronomy 7:1).

(1) The Hittites, sons or descendants of Herb, the second son of Canaan (Genesis 10:15), who in Abraham's time dwelt in and around Hebron (Genesis 26:34), in Moses', along with the Amorites and Jebusites, occupied the mountains of Judah and Ephraim (Numbers 13:29), and in Solomon's, resided north of Palestine (1 Kings 9:20; 1 Kings 10:29; 1 Kings 11:1; 2 Kings 7:6). Identified with the Cheta of the Egyptian monuments (Ebers, 'Egypt and the Books of Moses,' pp. 285, 286), and the Chatti of the cuneiform inscriptions (Sehrader, 'Die Keilinschriften,' p. 107, etc.), they have finally been discovered by Sayce ('Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments,' p. 5) and Brugsch ('Egypt,' etc., 1:338) to be a large and powerful nation "whose two chief seats were at Kadesh on the Orontes, and Carchemish on the Euphrates." Ebers and Schrader doubt whether the northern belonged to the same family as the southern Hittites; but evidence tends to the conclusion that they did. "That the Hittites formed part of the Hykses forces, and that some of them, instead of entering Egypt, remained behind in Southern Canaan," is confirmed by the statement of Manetho, that Jerusalem was founded by the Hyksos after their expulsion from Egypt, and by that of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 16:3) that Jerusalem had a Hittite mother (Sayce). Traces of their existence have been left in two places in Palestine - in Hattin, the old Caphar Hittai of the Talmud, above the Sea of Galilee; and in Kerr Hatta, north of Jerusalem (Conder, 'Handbook to the Bible,' p. 235).

(2) The Amorites. Mountaineers, as the name imports, found on both sides of the Jordan, from north to south of Palestine, though their principal habitat was the Judaean mountains (Genesis 14:13, 17, 24; Numbers 13:30; Joshua 10:5), they were among the most powerful of the ancient Canaanitish tribes. Mamre, an Amorite chieftain, with two brothers, was confederate with Abraham (Genesis 14:13).

(3) The Perizzites. Either highlanders or dwellers in the hills and woods of Palestine (Josephus), or rustics living in the open country and in villages, as opposed to the Canaanites, who occupied walled towns (Kalisch) - if they were not, rather, a tribe of wandering nomads whose origin is lost in obscurity (Keil) - they were found by Abraham in the centre of Palestine (Genesis 13:7), and by Joshua in Lower Galilee (Joshua 17:15). A trace of them has been found in the present village of Ferasin, north-west of Sbechem (Conder, 'Handbook to the Bible,' p. 235).

(4) The Hivites. Translated "villager" (Gesenius), or "midlander" (Ewald), the one of which renderings is as good as the other, since both are conjectural, the Hivite is first heard of in the time of Jacob as a settler near Shechem (Genesis 34:2), and afterwards in Joshua's day further south at Gibeon (Joshua 9:1, 7), though Hermon, in the land of Mizpeh (Joshua 11:3), and Mount Lebanon (Judges 3:3) were probably their principal abodes.

(5) Jebusites. A primitive branch of the Canaanites, who held the country round Jerusalem as far down as the time of David (2 Samuel 5:6, 7). At the period of the conquest their king was Adonibezek, or "Lord of righteousness" (Joshua 10:1).

2. Their condition. Practically bond-servants, paying tribute to Solomon, they had no part in the civil commonwealth or religious theocracy of Israel. They illustrate the relation in which the world's inhabitants stand to the Church. Those have no share in this; yet to this, against their will, they pay tribute and render important service - compelled, not by Christians, but by the King of Christians, who maketh all things on earth subserve the Church according to the counsel of his will (Ephesians 1:11, 22; Daniel 7:14).

3. Their occupation. The working-class population of those days, the artisans and labourers, Solomon employed them in the construction of his temple, palaces, and cities, just as the Pharaohs of former times had employed the progenitors of his people in making bricks and erecting store cities in the land of Ham (Exodus 1:11). It was the custom then and long after to subject prisoners of war and the populations of conquered territories to servile work. Thothmes III. of Egypt carried labourers captive to build the temple of his father Amon (Wilkinson, 'Ancient Egyptians,' 1:344: 1878). The employment of foreign captives in such tasks was an ancient practice in Egypt (Brugsch, 'Egypt,' etc., 1:417). An inscription of Esarhaddon states that the custom prevailed in Assyria, he himself saying of his captives from foreign lands, "I caused crowds of them to work in fetters in making brick" ('Records of the Past,' 3:120). Not even Solomon, and far less the Pharaohs of Egypt or the kings of Assyria, were acquainted with the golden rule.

II. ISRAELITES.

1. Their ancestry. Descendants of the twelve tribes, whose heads were the sons of Israel, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, their ancestry was honoured as well as ancient.

2. Their industry. The warriors of the kingdom, they did the fighting needful for the empire's protection and extension. Judged by the Christian standard, war is always an evil and often a sin; but in certain stages of civilization it appears to be inevitable, if neither necessary nor excusable.

3. Their dignity. From them were chosen the officers of the king's army, the captains of his chariots and of his horsemen, the chiefs of his officers, and the superintendents of his workmen (1 Kings 9:22).

LESSONS.

1. The sin of slavery.

2. The dignity of labour.

3. The nobility of free men. - W.

I. THAT APPARENT ADVANTAGES MAY EASILY BE OVERESTIMATED. To the one side or the other, to the husband or the wife, there may be the prospect of social standing, or of wealth, or of personal attraction; there may be the inducement of one or more of those favourable conditions which belong to the lower plane of life. But experience has proved again and again, in so many cases and with such startling and overwhelming power that all may see and know, that these worldly advantages are no security whatever against disappointment, against misery, against melancholy failure. Their worth and virtue only stretch a little way; they do not go to the heart of things; they only touch the outer fortifications, they cannot take the citadel.

II. THAT COMMON PRINCIPLES AND SPIRITUAL AFFINITIES are the true basis on which this alliance should be founded. It is a poor prospect indeed when the wife is felt to be morally unworthy to be mistress of the old home; when it has to be acknowledged that her principles and her practice will dishonour rather than adorn the rooms where the Bible has been accustomed to be read and the praises of Christ to be sung. Surely it is not from fellowship with her spirit and not from the influences which will flow from her life that a blessing will come to the heart and to the home. It is not the full hand but the pure soul that brings joy and gladness to the hearth. It is a common love for the common Lord, and the walking together along the same path of eternal life, - it is this which has the promise of the future. The splendid palace which Solomon built for Pharaoh's daughter may have been little more than a fine mausoleum for a hope that soon withered and died; the humblest roof that shelters two true, loving, holy hearts will be the home of a happiness which grows and deepens with passing years, with mutual service, and with united efforts to train and bless. - C.

I. THE QUEEN'S PERSON. The daughter of Pharaoh. As to which Pharaoh, see homily on vers. 1-6. If the Song of Solomon was an epithalamium in honour of his wedding with this lady, her personal attractions, after making allowances for the rhapsody peculiar to a lover and the luxuriance of fancy characteristic of an Oriental, must have been considerable (Song of Solomon 1:8, 10; Song of Solomon 4:1-7; Song of Solomon 7:1-9).

II. THE QUEEN'S CHARACTER. A heathen. However charming externally, there is no reason why her inward graces may not have been attractive. Like Egyptian ladies of rank, she would probably be skilled in needlework, perhaps also in using the spindle and in weaving. But still she was not acquainted with the true religion, being a worshipper of the god Ra, and the other divinities that claimed the homage of her countrymen, rather than of Jehovah living and true God. Physical loveliness may be a precious gift of Heaven, and moral sweetness desirable in one who is to be a wife; but nothing can compensate for the absence of religion. "Favour is deceitful," etc. (Proverbs 31:30).

III. THE QUEEN'S WEDDING.

1. Celebrated early in the king's reign (1 Kings 3:1), and doubtless with becoming splendour. It is not good for princes any more than for peasants to be alone, and "he that findeth a wife" (provided she be a woman that feareth the Lord) "findeth a good thing" (Proverbs 18:22).

2. Politically advantageous for the state, though this is questionable. Israel required no buttress, either from Egypt or Assyria, so long as she remained true to Jehovah (Isaiah 30:3; Jeremiah 2:18; Jeremiah 42:19). In any case, neither political expedience nor social convenience is a proper motive for contracting marriage, which should always be inspired by love between the parties (Ephesians 5:25-28).

3. Possibly against the Law of God. On the one hand, it is argued (Keil, Bahr)

(1) that the Mosaic statute (Exodus 34:16; Deuteronomy 7:3) prohibited only marriage with Canaanitish women;

(2) that not prohibiting, it may be understood to have allowed, alliance with Egyptian maidens;

(3) that such marriages were contemplated by Moses as possible (Deuteronomy 23:7, 8);

(4) that Pharaoh's daughter may have become a proselyte to the Jewish religion; and

(5) that the marriage is nowhere in Scripture explicitly condemned. On the other hand, it is contended (Adam Clarke)

(1) that the principle of the law which forbade marriage with a Canaanitish maiden applied equally to an Egyptian princess, inasmuch as both were foreign or outlandish women;

(2) that Pharaoh's daughter is classed with the outlandish women who caused Solomon to sin (1 Kings 11:1; Nehemiah 13:26); and

(3) that there is no proof that Pharaoh's daughter was a proselyte. The affirmative, however, of this last assertion is supposed to be justified by the following considerations:

(1) That Solomon, at the commencement of his reign, would hardly have married Pharaoh's daughter had she not been a proselyte, he being at the time a lover of Jehovah and an observer of his ways;

(2) that Pharaoh's daughter is not named in ch. 11. among the king's wives who seduced their husband into idolatry;

(3) that there is not a trace of Egyptian worship to be found in Israel during this reign; and

(4) that the Song of Solomon and the forty-fifth psalm would not have been composed in honour of her wedding, and far less admitted to the canon, had she been an idolatress. But none of these is convincing.

(1) Solomon had already an Ammonite wife - Naamah, the mother of Rehoboam (cf. 1 Kings 11:42 with 1 Kings 14:21 and 2 Chronicles 12:13): was she a proselyte?

(2) Ch. 11. is regarded by some as placing Pharaoh's daughter among the outlandish women who caused Solomon to sin.

(3) Egyptian idolatry may have been practised in the queen's house, though not in the land; and

(4) it is not certain that either the song or the psalm was written in honour of this lady. To these may be added

(5) that, had she been a proselyte, Solomon would not have needed to exclude her from the stronghold of Zion where the ark was, and

(6) that Pharaoh's daughter was certainly an outlandish woman.

4. Extremely unadvised on Solomon's part, It led to his decline into idolatry, if not directly yet indirectly, by leading him to add more wives and concubines to his harem.

IV. THE QUEEN'S RESIDENCE,

1. In a separate house in the city of David. On her wedding, Solomon did not bring her into his father's palace where himself resided - though some hold he did (Bertheau) - but lodged her in a temporary dwelling (Keil, Bahr), assigning as a reason that the rooms of the royal palace had been consecrated and rendered holy by the presence of the ark of Jehovah, and meaning thereby that to have introduced into them an Egyptian queen, even though a proselyte, with probably an establishment of heathen maids, would have been, to say the least, an impropriety. The fact that Solomon could not lodge his wife in his father's house should have made him hesitate as to his marriage. That matrimonial alliance must be doubtful the contemplation of which leads one to apprehend the Divine displeasure, or which one sees to be incongruous with right religious feeling.

2. In a house contiguous to Solomon's palace. This house, specially prepared for her, not for a harem (Thenius), formed part of Solomon's own dwelling (1 Kings 7:8), being situated either behind (Winer) or above (Keil), or perhaps at the side of it.

LESSONS.

1. Marriage is honourable in all (Hebrews 13:4).

2. The duty of wedding only in the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:39).

3. The sin of polygamy.

4. The obligation of husbands to maintain their wives. - W.

I. THAT THE MATERIAL SHOULD SUBSERVE THE SPIRITUAL. Though the last stone had been carved and carried, and the last piece of furniture placed in its position, though the temple stood and shone before the eyes of Israel in all architectural completeness, yet was it not truly "finished" (ver. 16) until it was made a right use of, until sacrifice smoked on its altar, until "Solomon offered burnt offerings unto the Lord" (ver. 12). No edifice or erection of any kind, no work of art, nothing that is visible and material, can be said to have attained its end as an instrument of worship until it has been the means and medium by which the soul of man ascends to the Spirit of God and makes its offering "unto the Lord." Until that point is reached, it is as the sacrifice without the consuming fire; it is essentially imperfect. It is the wise, the true, the spiritual use we make of them that crowns and completes all instrumentalities in the service of God.

II. THAT METHOD BE EMPLOYED AS WELL AS INSPIRATION CALLED FORTH. "After a certain rate every day, according to the commandment" (ver. 13); "according to the order" (ver. 14). It is well, it is needful, to do everything to elicit zeal, to call forth spontaneous service; without this there is no life, and therefore no acceptance with Clod. But there must be method also. That Christian Church (or that Christian man) that thinks it (he) can dispense with regulation and order in its (his)devotion makes a serious mistake. The waters of a river are more essential than the banks; but the river would do very ill without these - it would soon be lost in diffusion. Piety that is not regulated is liable to be thus lost. Method is far lower down than inspiration, but it is an aid which the strongest and the worthiest can by no means afford to despise or to neglect.

III. THAT ATTENTION BE GIVEN TO THE HUMBLE AND MINUTE. Prevision was made for "the courses of the priests;" but the "porters also" were considered and cared for (ver. 14). These humbler ministrants had a part to play, a service to render, as well as the higher officials, and their work was specified and recorded. And all arrangements were made "as the duty of every day required;" regard was had to hourly necessity, and no smallest service was overlooked. In the worship we render and in the work we do for so great a Lord as our God, for so gracious a Master as our Divine Friend and Saviour, there is nothing actually small. One post may be lower than another, one duty may be slighter than another; but everything we do for him "that loved us and gave himself for us" is redeemed from insignificance; and if we have the true spirit in us we shall leave nothing of any kind undone which will make the smallest contribution to the perfecting of his service; we shall give heed to the humble and the minute as well as to the lofty and the large.

IV. THAT OFFERING BE PRESENTED TO GOD AS WELL AS BLESSINGS ASKED OF HIM. The priests and the Levites were to "praise" as well as to "minister" (ver. 14). They were to sing as well as to sacrifice to offer gratitude to God as well as to seek mercy and grace of him. And surely the service of the sanctuary will by no means be perfected until we bring to God the best we have to offer. We seek greatest things of him, let us bring greatest things to him; let us bring to his house and to himself our most reverent thought, our warmest gratitude, our meat serious and fixed resolution, our sweetest and purest song. Unto him that loved us we will yield the richest and worthiest offering our heart can render, our voice can raise. - C.

I. THE SACRIFICES ARRANGED. (Vers. 12, 13.)

1. The place on which these should henceforth be offered. "The altar of Jehovah before the porch." Hitherto Solomon and others had presented burnt offerings before the tabernacle at Gibeon (2 Chronicles 1:3) and elsewhere (2 Samuel 6:13). Henceforth these should be laid upon the brazen altar in the temple court. Solomon's doing so at the close of the dedication service was a formal inauguration of the practice meant to be followed.

2. The times when these should be offered.

(1) Every day - in the morning and evening sacrifice. So God demands the devotions and spiritual sacrifices of his people at early morn and dewy eve.

(2) At special seasons - on the sabbaths, the weekly sabbaths and those occurring in the midst of festivals, as on the great Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:31), and on the first and eighth days of the Feast of Ingathering (Leviticus 23:39); on the new moons (1 Samuel 20:5, 18; 2 Kings 4:23; Psalm 81:3; Isaiah 1:13, 14; Isaiah 66:23); and on the solemn feasts three times a year, i.e. the Passover, on the fourteenth day of the first month; the Feast of Harvest, or of the Firstfruits, in the beginning of harvest; and the Feast of Ingathering, or the Feast of Tabernacles, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month (Exodus 23:14-16; Leviticus 23:4-44). Other times might be chosen by the worshippper; these the worshipper was not at liberty to neglect. Under Christianity there is an irreducible minimum beneath which one cannot go in serving God and yet claim to be a disciple.

3. The measure according to which these should be offered. According to the daily rate prescribed by Moses (Exodus 23:14; Leviticus 23:37; Deuteronomy 16:16, 17). Though Solomon had been honoured to erect a temple, he did not feel himself at liberty to propound a new ritual, and far less to institute a new religion. For him, as for all before and after, until the fulness of the times, Moses was the sole authority in doctrine and in worship. Since the fulness of the times, Christ, the greater than Moses, is; and will-worship (Colossians 2:23) is as little permissible under the new dispensation as it was under the old.

II. THE PRIESTLY COURSES APPOINTED. (Ver. 14.)

1. The pattern followed. The order of David (1 Chronicles 24.). Whether, in thus arranging the priesthood, David acted under Divine direction or not, is not material. This detail could safely be left to sanctified prudence; and David, in effecting it, only showed his sagacity in knowing how to get a difficult work performed with ease and efficiency, as well as his regard for order and decorum in all things pertaining to the sanctuary. Solomon, in following David's example instead of resorting to new experiments, approved himself wise.

2. The number of the courses. Twenty-four (1 Chronicles 24:1-19). When these were arranged by David, twenty-four chief men were found who claimed descent from the house of Aaron. Of these, sixteen belonged to the sons of Eleazar, and eight to the sons of Ithamar. Consequently, these were selected as the heads of the several courses, their order of succession being determined by lot - to avoid all ground of complaint on the score of favouritism, and to lend the sanction of Divine authority to the order so established (Proverbs 16:33). As this arrangement was made in David's old age, and not after the Exile by another than David (De Wette, Herzfeld), it is probable that few important alterations required to be made.

3. The nature of their services. To conduct the sacrificial worship of the nation. The Christian Church has only one Priest, who, having once for all offered himself a Sacrifice for sin, and having passed within the veil with his own blood, there to appear in the presence of God for us, has been consecrated for evermore (Hebrews 7:28; Hebrews 9:11, 12; Hebrews 10:10).

III. THE LEVITES INSTRUCTED. (Ver. 14.)

1. Their courses. Three - the Gershonites, the Kohathites, the Merarites, according to the three great families of the sons of Levi; the first two consisting of nine, and the third of six, the three of twenty-four fathers' houses. Hence their courses were probably, like those of the priests', twenty-four in number (Josephus, 'Ant.,' 7:14. 7).

2. Their charges. To praise and minister before the priests, as the duty of every day required. They were no longer needed to carry the tabernacle or any of its vessels for the service thereof, seeing that Jehovah had given rest unto his people, that they might dwell in Jerusalem for ever (1 Chronicles 23:24-32; 1 Chronicles 25:1-6).

IV. THE PORTERS STATIONED. (Ver. 14.)

1. Their courses. Twenty-four. At least twenty-four men are mentioned as keeping daily guard at the temple gates (1 Chronicles 26:13-19); and these, it is conjectured, were the heads of twenty-four divisions.

2. Their stations. "At every gate." Every day were planted at the east gate six men; at the north, four; at the south, four; at the storehouses in the vicinity of the south gate, two and two, i.e. four; at Parbar towards the west, six; in all, twenty-four at the different gates (1 Chronicles 26:17, 18).

3. Their work. To keep the gates - esteemed an honourable service, and called ministering in the house of the Lord (1 Chronicles 26:12; cf. Psalm 84:10).

LESSONS.

1. The necessity and beauty of order in Divine worship.

2. The diversity of offices and gifts in the Church of God.

3. The dignity of even the humblest service in connection with religion. - W.

I. To WHOM THEY BELONGED.

1. Solomon - who constructed a navy of ships (1 Kings 9:26). The first mention of ship-building by the Israelites. An advance in civilization, it is doubtful whether this was in harmony with the calling of the Israelites as a theocratic people, whose business it was to keep themselves distinct from other nations.

2. Hiram - who sent the Israelitish monarch ships by the hands of his servants. Either Hiram sent to Eloth ship-carpenters, who built ships for Solomon (Bahr), or he built ships at Tyre, and sent them by the hands of sailors to join in Solomon's expedition (Bertheau). If the latter, they must either have rounded the continent of Africa (Bertheau), or been carried by land transport across the Isthmus of Suez (Keil). The former would not have been impossible had the circumnavigation of Africa been at that time known. This, however, is doubtful, as Herodotus (4:42) mentions Pharaoh Necho of the twenty-sixth dynasty ( B.C. 612) as the first to prove that Africa was entirely surrounded by water, with the exception of the small isthmus connecting it with Asia. This he did by sending Phoenician seamen in ships from the Arabian Gulf to seek their way to Egypt through the Pillars of Hercules and the Mediterranean Sea. Hence the latter method was more probably adopted for conveying Hiram's ships to the Gulf of Arabia - a method of transporting vessels known to the ancients. Herodotus (7:24) states that, while Xerxes cut a passage through the Isthmus of Mount Athos, he need not have done so, since without difficulty he might have carried his ships across the land. Thucydides (4:8) mentions that in this way the Peloponnesians conveyed eighty ships across the Leucadia-isthmus. (For additional examples, see Exposition.)

II. THE PORT WHENCE THEY SAILED.

1. Ezion-geber, a camping-station on the desert march of Israel (Numbers 33:35; Deuteronomy 2:8); afterwards the place where Jehoshaphat's ships were wrecked (1 Kings 22:48). When the town was built is unknown. Its name imports "the backbone of a man" (Gesenius); the Greeks called it Berenice (Josephus, 'Ant.,' 8:6. 4).

2. Near Eloth, the Ailane of Josephus, the Ailath of the Greeks, and the Elana of the Romans, the modern Akaba, on the eastern bay of the Gulf of Akabah. Whether Ezion-geber was also on the east side of the gulf or on the west is uncertain, as no trace of it now exists.

3. On the shore of the Red Sea. The Yam Suf was the eastern arm of the Arabian Gulf, or the Gulf of Akabah. At the present day navigation is perilous in the vicinity of Elath in consequence of the sharp and rocky coast and the easily excited storms.

4. In the land of Edom. Mount Seir, Edom, Idumaea, the Mount of Esau (Deuteronomy 2:5; Joel 3:19; Isaiah 24:5; Obadiah 1:21); in the Assyrian inscriptions, Udumu or Udumi (Schrader, 'Die Keilinsehriften,' p. 149); a desolate region extending from the head of the Elanitic Gulf to the foot of the Dead Sea, described by Robinson as "a rolling desert, the surface [of which] was in general loose gravel and stones, everywhere furrowed and torn with the beds of torrents ... now and then a lone shrub of the ghudah [being] almost the only trace of vegetation" ('Biblical Researches,' 2:502, 551).

III. THE SAILORS BY WHOM THEY WERE MANNED. Servants of Hiram, who had knowledge of the sea. The Phoenicians the earliest navigators of the ocean. An inscription of Queen Hatasu, of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, queen regnant first with Thothmes II. and afterwards with Thothmes III., has preserved a record of the construction by that royal lady of a navy on the Red Sea, and of a voyage of discovery to the land of Arabia in vessels manned by Phoenician seamen (Brugsch, 'Egypt,' 1:351, etc.; 'Records of the Past,' 10:11, etc.).

IV. THE COUNTRY TO WHICH THEY STEERED. Ophir. By eminent authorities (Lassen, Ritter, Bertheau) located in India, this gold-producing region was probably in Arabia (Knobel, Keil, Ewald, Bahr) - the land of Pun, to which the ships of Hatasu sailed for costly treasures.

V. THE CARGO WITH WHICH THEY RETURNED.

1. Gold. Whether the four hundred and fifty talents were the cargo of one voyage or of all the voyages cannot be determined. Reckoning a talent at £5475 sterling, the amount would be £2,463,750, or nearly two and a half millions. This precious metal was amongst the treasures fetched from the land of Pun by Hatasu's fleet.

2. Precious stones. Learnt from a later statement (2 Chronicles 9:10). These also were obtainable in the land of Pun.

3. Algum trees. (2 Chronicles 9:10). What these were is unknown; probably they corresponded with the balsam-wood or "incense trees" brought from Pun by Hatasu's ships. It was manifestly rare and costly, as Solomon made of it "terraces to the house of the Lord and the king's palace, as well as harps and psalteries for singers;" "and there were none such seen before in the land of Judah." So said Hatasu's scribes of her cargo. "Never has such a convoy [been made] like this one by any king since the creation of the world." Learn:

1. Man's dominion over nature - he can affront the perils of the sea.

2. The advantages (from a secular point of view) of navigation - in increasing the world's wealth and comfort, in extending man's knowledge and power, and in binding the nations into a mutually dependent and helpful brotherhood.

3. The dangers (from a spiritual point of view) of foreign exploration, in fostering the lust of conquest and possession, and in bringing God's people into contact with heathen nations. - W.