1 Kings 5:17

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁰So Hiram provided Solomon with all the cedar and cypress timber he wanted, ¹¹and year after year Solomon would provide Hiram with twenty thousand cors of wheat as food for his household, as well as twenty thousand baths of pure olive oil. ¹²And the LORD gave Solomon wisdom, as He had promised him. There was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty. ¹³Then King Solomon conscripted a labor force of thirty thousand men from all Israel. ¹⁴He sent them to Lebanon in monthly shifts of ten thousand, so that they would spend one month in Lebanon and two months at home. And Adoniram was in charge of the labor force. ¹⁵Solomon had 70,000 porters and 80,000 stonecutters in the mountains, ¹⁶not including his 3,300 foremen who supervised the workers. ¹⁷And the king commanded them to quarry large, costly stones to lay the foundation of the temple with dressed stones.¹⁸So Solomon's and Hiram's builders, along with the Gebalites, quarried the stone and prepared the timber and stone for the construction of the temple.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

costly stones: 1 Kings 6:7, 1 Kings 7:9, 1 Chronicles 22:2, Isaiah 28:16, 1 Corinthians 3:11, 1 Corinthians 3:12, 1 Peter 2:6, 1 Peter 2:7, Revelation 21:14-21

Reciprocal: 2 Kings 12:12 - masons Proverbs 24:27 - General Isaiah 54:11 - I will lay

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And the king commanded, and they brought great stones,.... Not in quality, but in quantity, large stones, fit to lay in the foundation; strong, and durable against all the injuries of time, as Josephus says i:

costly stones; not what are commonly called precious stones, as gems, pearls, c. but stones of value, as marble, porphyry, c.

[and] hewed stones not rough as they were taken out of the quarry, but hewed, and made smooth:

to lay the foundation of the house which, though out of sight, was to be laid with goodly stones for the magnificence of the building; so the church of Christ, its foundation is said to be laid even with sapphires and other precious stones, see Isaiah 54:11.

i Antiqu. l. 8. c. 3. sect. 2.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Some of these “great, hewed (no and) stones,” are probably still to be seen in the place where they were set by Solomon’s builders, at the southwestern angle of the wall of the Haram area in the modern Jerusalem. The largest found so far is 38 ft. 9 in. long, and weighs about 100 tons.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 1 Kings 5:17. Great stones — Stones of very large dimensions.

Costly stones — Stones that cost much labour and time to cut them out of the rock.

Hewed stones — Everywhere squared and polished.