T4T 1KI Chapter 5

Preparations for building the temple

5 Hiram, the king of Tyre city, had always been a close friend of King David. When he heard that Solomon had been appointed to become the king after his father was no longer king, he sent some messengers to Solomon to congratulate him. 2 Solomon gave those messengers this message to take back to Hiram:

3 “You know that my father David led his soldiers to fight many wars against his enemies in the nearby countries. So he could not arrange to build a temple in which we [MTY] could worship Yahweh our God, until after Yahweh enabled the Israeli army to defeat [IDM] all his enemies. 4 But now Yahweh our God has enabled us to have peace with all the surrounding countries. ◄There is no danger that/We do not need to worry that► we will be attacked. 5 Yahweh promised my father David, ‘Your son, whom I will enable to be king after you are no longer king, will build a temple for me [MTY].’ Because of that, I have decided to build a temple in which we can worship [MTY] Yahweh our God.

6 “So I am requesting that you command your workers to cut cedar trees for me. My men will work with them, and I will pay your workers whatever you decide. But my men cannot do the work alone, because they do not know how to cut down trees like your workers from Sidon city do.”

7 When Hiram heard the message from Solomon, he was very happy and said, “I praise Yahweh today for giving David a very wise son to rule that great nation!”

8 He sent this message back to Solomon: “I have heard the message that you sent to me, and I am ready to do what you ask. I will provide cedar and cypress logs. 9 My workers will bring the logs down from the Lebanon mountains to the Mediterranean sea. Then they will tie them together to make rafts to float them in the water along the coast to the place that you indicate. Then my workers will untie the logs, and your workers will take them from there. What I want you to do is to supply food for the people who work in my palace.”

10 So Hiram arranged for his workers to supply all the cedar and cypress logs that Solomon wanted. 11 Each year Solomon gave Hiram 100,000 bushels of wheat and 110,000 gallons of pure olive oil to feed the people who worked in his palace. 12 Yahweh enabled Solomon to be wise, just like he had promised. Solomon and Hiram made a treaty/agreement that there would be peace between their two governments/countries.

13 King Solomon forced 30,000 men from all over Israel to become his workers. 14 Adoniram was their boss. Solomon divided the men into three groups. Each month 10,000 of them went to Lebanon and worked for a month there, and then they came back home for two months. 15 Solomon also forced 80,000 men to cut stones in the hilly area and 70,000 men to haul the stones to Jerusalem. 16 And he also assigned 3,600 men to supervise their work. 17 The king also commanded his workers to cut huge blocks of stones from the quarries and to smooth the sides of the stones. Those huge stones were for the foundation of the temple. 18 Solomon’s workers and Hiram’s workers and men from Gebal/Byblos city shaped the stones and prepared the timber to build the temple.