And Hiram added: “Praise be to the Lord , the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth! He has given King David a wise son, endowed with intelligence and discernment, who will build a temple for the Lord and a palace for himself.   “I am sending you Huram-Abi, a man of great skill, whose mother was from Dan and whose father was from Tyre. He is trained to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, and with purple and blue and crimson yarn and fine linen. He is experienced in all kinds of engraving and can execute any design given to him. He will work with your skilled workers and with those of my lord, David your father.   “Now let my lord send his servants the wheat and barley and the olive oil and wine he promised, and we will cut all the logs from Lebanon that you need and will float them as rafts by sea down to Joppa. You can then take them up to Jerusalem.”   Solomon took a census of all the foreigners residing in Israel, after the census his father David had taken; and they were found to be 153,600. He assigned 70,000 of them to be carriers and 80,000 to be stonecutters in the hills, with 3,600 foremen over them to keep the people working. – 2 Chronicles 2:12-18

Well that was a pretty lean book in terms of water references to water…it made up for it in lists of names though.  We have coasted into the book of 2 Chronicles which appears to take up where 1 chronicles left off and David handed over the reigns, and the privilege of building the temple, to his Son Solomon, known for his wisdom and wealth.

This passage is a retelling of to story in 1 Kings 5:1-9 which I reflected on December 13, 2014 in a post entitled “wood rafted for worship”.  This account is not as word for word as the passage from a couple of day ago where I felt like I was running the same river.  The essential part of the story are pretty much the same.  David passes away, Hiram the king of Tyre, a former enemy of David see a chance to build a new relationship with Solomon and make a trade deal for cedars for the temple and palace.

The only real difference I can see is in the specificity and quantitative details provided in the 2 Chronicles account.  Perhaps the author was a bit OCD and felt the need to provide specific numbers, as we saw in the post a couple of days ago these numbers do not always match the earlier accounts.

Clearly the author of 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles believes the time of David and Solomon are a pivotal time in the history of Israel.  I suppose this is fitting as it is the time that God declared He would for the first time, since the Garden of Eden, come dwell with us on earth.  This time in the Israelite’s history is as important as what will happen “down the river” when God comes to dwell in a temple shaped like a man named Jesus.

Prayer: God You have sent the Holy Spirit to dwell with us and lead us.  Help us to follow.