The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Chronicles — Section 100

both becomingly e.nd rightly. In all undertakings, national, political, social commercial as well as individua.l 11.nd religious, not only should God's glory be the g~vorning e.i~ (1 Cor. x. 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" (Prov. iii. 9); "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness" (Matt. vi. 33). A recently published memoir furnishes t.he 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 pur- pose 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 vii. 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 appea; 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 hie reign (1 Kings vii. 8), and had hitherto lodged in the city of David (1 Kings iii. 1) until a permanent a.bode for her should be erected. This Pharaoh is supposed to have been Pashebensha II., the lasi of the Tanitic or twenty-first dynasty (Lenormant, Winer, Kleinert in Riebm'e 'Ha.ndworterbuch '), 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 hie daughter to Solomon is not surprising when the weak- ness 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 Chron, iv. 18). As a dowry for his daughter, Gezer (Josh. xii. 22), an old Canaanitish town whose king, Horam, was slain by Joshua (x. 33), without being itself destroyed, and whose inhabitants were not expelled, but only ma.de tributary (Josh. xvi. 10), was con- quered 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 Ambrie, King of Tubal, who had married one of hie daughters, as the princess's dowry" (RawliDson, '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-nUILDING. The subsequent years of Solomon's reign were so employed. l. 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 ix. 10-14), and Hiram declined to ;.iccept (Keil), as either an insufficient recompense, being in his estimation mean and con- temptible, whence he called them Cabul (Josephus, viii. 5. 3), or as being unsuitable to the commercial habits of hie 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, becallBe it seemed to him inconceivable that Solomon should have parted with twenty cities standing on Isre.elitish soil (Bertheau), while a possible hypothesis, is not demonstrable. These towns Solomon, having first wrested them from the Canaa.oites, repaired and peopled with the children of Israel, to whom, in virtue of God's promise, they really belonged. 2. New cities founded. (1) Ta.Jmor, or Tamar, "a palm tree" (1 Kings ix. 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.,' viiL 6. 1), and still called by the Dnmascenes 'l'admor (Conder, 'Handbook to the Bible,' p. 281); though Tamar, mentioned in Ezekiel ott. vm. 1-18.J THE SECO~D BOOK OF '1'1IE CIIRONICLES. 101