Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Chronicles 3:4 - 3:4

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com

Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Chronicles 3:4 - 3:4


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

The porch and the interior of the holy place. - 2Ch 3:4. The porch which was before (i.e., in front of) the length (of the house), was twenty cubits before the breadth of the house, i.e., was as broad as the house. So understood, the words give an intelligible sense. הָאֹרֶךְ with the article refers back to הָאֹרֶךְ in 2Ch 3:3 (the length of the house), and עַל־פְּנֵי in the two defining clauses means “in front;” but in the first clause it is “lying in front of the house,” i.e., built in front; in the second it is “measured across the front of the breadth of the house.”

(Note: There is consequently no need to alter the text according to 1Ki 6:3, from which passage Berth. would interpolate the words פָּנָיו עַל רָחְבֹּו בָּאַמָּה רָ עֵשֶׂר הַבַּיִת between עַל־פְּנֵי and הָאֹרֶךְ, and thereby get the signification: “and the porch which is before the house, ten cubits is its breadth before the same, and the length which is before the breadth twenty cubits.” But this conjecture is neither necessary nor probable. It is not necessary, for (1) the present text gives an intelligible sense; (2) the assertion that the length and breadth of the porch must be stated cannot be justified, if for no other reason, for this, that even of the main buildings all three dimensions are not given, only two being stated, and that it was not the purpose of the author of the Chronicle to give an architecturally complete statement, his main anxiety being to supply a general idea of the splendour of the temple. It is not probable; because the chronicler, if he had followed 1Ki 6:3, would not have written עַל־פָּנָיו, but הַבַּיִת עַל־פְּנֵי, and instead of הָאֹרֶךְ would have written וְעָרְכֹּי, to correspond with רָחְבֹּו.)

There is certainly either a corruption of the text, or a wrong number in the statement of the height of the porch, 120 cubits; for a front 120 cubits high to a house only thirty cubits high could not be called אוּלָם; it would have been a מִגְדָּל, a tower. It cannot with certainty be determined whether we should read twenty or thirty cubits; see in 1Ki 6:3. He overlaid it (the porch) with pure gold; cf. 1Ki 6:21.

2Ch 3:5-7

The interior of the holy place. - 2Ch 3:5. The “great house,” i.e., the large apartment of the house, the holy place, he wainscotted with cypresses, and overlaid it with good gold, and carved thereon palms and garlands. חִפָּה from חָפָה, to cover, cover over, alternates with the synonymous צִפָּה in the signification to coat or overlay with wood and gold. תִּמֹּרִים .dlo as in Eze 41:18, for תִּמֹּרֹות, 1Ki 6:29, 1Ki 6:35, are artificial palms as wall ornaments. שַׁרְשְׁרֹות are in Exo 28:14 small scroll-formed chains of gold wire, here spiral chain-like decorations on the walls, garlands of flowers carved on the wainscot, as we learn from 1Ki 6:18.

2Ch 3:6-7

And he garnished the house with precious stones for ornament (of the inner sides of the walls); cf. 1Ch 29:2, on which Bähr on 1Ki 6:7 appositely remarks, that the ornamenting of the walls with precious stones is very easily credible, since among the things which Solomon brought in quantity from Ophir they are expressly mentioned (1Ki 10:11), and it was a common custom in the East so to employ them in buildings and in vessels; cf. Symbolik des mos. Cult. i. S. 280, 294, 297. The gold was from פַּרְוַיִם. This, the name of a place rich in gold, does not elsewhere occur, and has not as yet been satisfactorily explained. Gesen. with Wilson compares the Sanscrit parvam, the first, foremost, and takes it to be the name of the foremost, i.e., eastern regions; others hold the word to be the name of some city in southern or eastern Arabia, whence Indian gold was brought to Palestine. - In 2Ch 3:7 the garnishing of the house with gold is more exactly and completely described. He garnished the house, the beams (of the roof), the thresholds (of the doors), and its walls and its doors with gold, and carved cherubs on the walls. For details as to the internal garnishing, decoration, and gilding of the house, see 1Ki 6:18, 1Ki 6:29, and 1Ki 6:30, and for the doors, 1Ki 6:32-35.