The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Chronicles — Section 32

sion. W C' do not read 11,nvwhere thl\t tho Lord Commentary,' vol. ii. pp. 575, 676), seem to did.then 11,nd there 11,ppear to D11,vid, though show convincingly thnt no fo.ith cnn be we do rell.d that "the angel of the Lord" reposed in the o.uthenticity of the ohrono• appeared to him (2 SC\m. xxiv. 16. passim; logice.l statement of our pe.re.llel. l Chron. xxi. 15, 19, passim). Nor is it Ver. 3.-Now these. Perhaps the easiest desirable to force the niph. preterite of the predicate to supply to this elhpticnl ole.use verb here, rightly rendered "11,ppeared" or is are the meas1wes, or the cubits. We.a " WR.S 1c1een," into " w11,s shown." W o should instruoted. The verb is hoph. conjugation prefer to solve the difficulty oco.c'!Bioned by of ,9; to " found ; " and the purport of the the somewhat unfinished shape of the clause is that Solomon camed the founda- clause (or cla11ses) by reading it in close tions of the building to be laid of suoh dimen- relation to 1 Chron. xxii. 1. Then the vivid sions by cubit. Ezra iii. 11 and Isa.. xxviii impressions that had been made both by 16 give the only other occurrences of the works and words of the angel of the Lord hoph. conjugation of this verb. Cubits caused David to feel o.nd to sa.y with after the first measure. This possibly means emphasis." This is the (destined) house of the cubit of pre-Ce.ptivi ty times, but at all the Lord God," etc. In this light our present events the Israelites' own e.noient cubit- pa.ssage would read, in a parenthetic manner, perhaps e. hand-bree.dth (Ezek. :x:llii. 13) "which (i.e. the house, its Morie.h position longer than the present, or seven in place and all) was seen of David;•• or with some- of six. The cubit (divided into six pa!IDB, what more of ease, "as was seen of D11,vid;" e.nd a palm into four finger-breadths) was and the following " in the place," eto., will the unit of Hebrew lineal measnre. It read in a breath ~ith the preceding "began stands for the length from the elbow to the to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem wrist, the knuckle, or the tip of the longest . . . in the pl.D.ce," etc. David had prepe.red finger. There is still considerable variation (so 1 Cbron. xxii. 2-4). In the threshing- in opinion e.s to the number of inches that the :fioor of Oman (so 2 Sam. :x:xiv. 18; 1 Chron. cubit represents, e.nd considerable perplexity xxi. 15, 16, 18, 21-28). e.s to the two or three different cubits (Dent. Ver. 2.-In the second day. The word iii. 11 ; Ezek. xl. 5; :x:liii. 13) mentioned in "day" as ite.licized in our Authorized Version Scripture. One of the le.test authorities, type is of course not found in the Hebrew Conder(' Handbook to the Bible,' 2nd edit., te:i..-t. Severe.I manuscripts fail also to show pp. 56-59, 371, 386), gives whe.t seem to the other words of this clause, viz. "In the be reasons of almost decisive chare.cter for Becond;" and that they are probe.bly spurious re.,.arding the cubit of the temple buildings derives confirmation from the fact that os° one of sixteen inches. The subject is neither the Arabic nor Syrie.c Versions, nor also discussed e.t length in Smith's 'Bible the Septuagint nor Vulgate translations, Dictione.ry,' iii. 1736 -1739. And the produce them. In the second month, in the writer finally concludes to accept, under fourth yee.r. Reading the verse, therefore, protest, Thenius's calculations, which give BB though it began thus, the most interesting the cubit as rather over nineteen inches. bnt doubtful question of fixing a.n exact Ver. 4.-The porch , •. an h11I1dred and chronology for what preceded Solomon's twenty. The " porch" (c~1!!, Greek, 6 Teign is opened. In our present te?tt there ,rp&vcios). It is out of the question that the is little sign of anything to ~atisfy. the porch should be of this height in itself. question; but the parallel,_ 1 Km~s Vl•• I, And almost 11,s much out of the question offers to do so, if only agam to dwappomt that if it could be so, this should be the the more grievously. There we read of "four only place to mention it by word or descrip- hundred and ei.,.hty years" from the Exodus tion. There can be no doubt that the text to this beginning of the building of Solomon's is here slightly corrupt, n:nd perhe.p~ it is a temple. Now, this latter date ea~ be deter- further indication of this that, while the mined with tolerable e.ccure.cy (viz. as some parallel contaias nothing of the height, t~ia twenty years before B.c. 1000) by travelling place fails (but comp. our ver. 8) to give backward!! from the date (B.c. 586) of Cyrus the breadth (" ten cubits"), which the to.king Babylon, and the beginning of the para.lie! does give. The words for" hundred" return from the Captivity (B.C. 535), making and for " cubit" easily confuse with one allowance for the seventy years of the c.. p- another. And our present Hebrew text, tivity, the duration of the line of separate J nde.h-kings, and the remanet, e. larg~ one, of c•:ii?.P.1 n~i;,, read Cl'':i\'!~ nioJ7,, will make good the years of Solomon's reign. ~II this, hC?W· Hebrew syntax, and be _in harmony ~th the ever helps nothing e.t all the penod stretching Septuagint (Alexandrian), and with the troU: the Exodus to the beginning of the Syrie.o and Arabi9 Versions. Thie gives building of the temple. And the events of the height of the porch as 20 cubits, which this period, strongly corroborated by other will be in harmony with the genera.I height testimony (see Ca110D Rawlinson,' Speaker's of tile building, which was 30 cubits. Thus cm. m. 1-17.J THE SECOND BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. 33