I have two items for my blog post today about II Chronicles 8.
1. II Chronicles 8:1-2 states in the NRSV: “At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon had built the house of the LORD and his own house, Solomon rebuilt the cities that Huram had given to him, and settled the people of Israel in them.”
In the KJV, we read: “And it came to pass at the end of twenty years, wherein Solomon had built the house of the LORD, and his own house, That the cities which Huram had restored to Solomon, Solomon built them, and caused the children of Israel to dwell there.”
Do you notice any significant difference between the two translations? According to the NRSV, King Huram of Tyre gave Solomon cities. According to the KJV, King Huram returned cities to Solomon, implying that Solomon had given Huram those cities earlier.
The Hebrew in this case is natan, which means “to give” (or literally, “he gave”). If the writer had wanted to say that Huram returned the cities, he probably would have used some form of sh-w-v. Why, then, did the King James Version translate natan as “restored”? The reason is probably that it was trying to harmonize II Chronicles 8:2 with I Kings 9:11, which states that Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in Galilee. Hiram in that chapter is displeased with those cities, however. We have II Chronicles 8:2, which states that Hiram gave Solomon cities. We have I Kings 9:11, which states that Solomon gave Hiram cities. One way that people try to harmonize those two texts is to say that Solomon gave Hiram the cities, Hiram was displeased with them, and so Hiram returned them to Solomon, who rebuilt the cities and settled Israelites in them.
I tend to believe that there are two separate agendas in I Kings and II Chronicles. I Kings is trying to explain why those cities came to be called Cabul, which is rather disparaging. The reason, in I Kings 9, goes back to Hiram’s dissatisfaction with those cities. II Chronicles 8, however, is presenting Huram as adoring and subordinating himself to Solomon, and thus giving Solomon cities. And Solomon rebuilding the cities and settling Israelites in them occurs within the context of his projects of expansion and building, which we read about in the subsequent verses.
Of course, I have read in the Jewish Study Bible that I Kings presents Solomon and Hiram as equal parties making an agreement, whereas II Chronicles depicts Huram as subordinate to Solomon. There is probably something to that, but it should not be taken in the direction of saying that Huram in II Chronicles lacked power in his own right. II Chronicles 8:18 affirms that Huram sent Solomon ships and servants familiar with the sea, and so Huram had a lot of resources!
2. II Chronicles 8:11 states (in the KJV): “And Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David unto the house that he had built for her: for he said, My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, because the places are holy, whereunto the ark of the LORD hath come.”
I Kings has a similar story, but II Chronicles adds a rationale for Solomon doing what he did: Solomon did not want his Egyptian wife to dwell in the holy city of Jerusalem.
Why not? A common explanation is that she was a Gentile. I heard more than one sermon saying that Solomon was sinning in being married to a Gentile, but he was somehow trying to be religious, too, by forbidding his wife to live in Jerusalem. It would be like someone making money off of a shady business deal, and deciding to get on God’s good side by donating the money to the church.
Granted, there are places in the Hebrew Bible that are against Israelites intermarrying with Gentiles. I Kings criticizes Solomon for intermarriage, since that was what turned him away from God, and Nehemiah 13:26 refers to him as an example in defending a policy against Jewish intermarriage. But I have problems saying that II Chronicles had this sort of view. For one, the genealogies in Chronicles refer to intermarriages, without any hint of criticism. The genealogies present intermarriage as part of the history of Israel. Second, the Chronicler (as far as I can remember) does not criticize Solomon for intermarriage.
Maybe the Chronicler still had problems with a Gentile dwelling in Jerusalem, or he was trying to depict Solomon in a positive way: yes, Solomon married a Gentile, but at least he did not let her live in Jerusalem.
Raymond Dillard, however, has another idea. He wonders if II Chronicles 8:11 could be sanctioning the late Jewish practice of separating men and women in worship. You see that in orthodox synagogues today: the men sit in one section, the women in another. Could II Chronicles 8:11 be about this sort of practice? I seriously doubt that there was a blanket prohibition on women living in Jerusalem, so I tend not to absolutize Dillard’s proposal. But to see it as a stray verse sanctioning the separation of men and women in worship? I am somewhat open to that being a function of the verse—-not that I am in favor of such a practice.
1. II Chronicles 8:1-2 states in the NRSV: “At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon had built the house of the LORD and his own house, Solomon rebuilt the cities that Huram had given to him, and settled the people of Israel in them.”
In the KJV, we read: “And it came to pass at the end of twenty years, wherein Solomon had built the house of the LORD, and his own house, That the cities which Huram had restored to Solomon, Solomon built them, and caused the children of Israel to dwell there.”
Do you notice any significant difference between the two translations? According to the NRSV, King Huram of Tyre gave Solomon cities. According to the KJV, King Huram returned cities to Solomon, implying that Solomon had given Huram those cities earlier.
The Hebrew in this case is natan, which means “to give” (or literally, “he gave”). If the writer had wanted to say that Huram returned the cities, he probably would have used some form of sh-w-v. Why, then, did the King James Version translate natan as “restored”? The reason is probably that it was trying to harmonize II Chronicles 8:2 with I Kings 9:11, which states that Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in Galilee. Hiram in that chapter is displeased with those cities, however. We have II Chronicles 8:2, which states that Hiram gave Solomon cities. We have I Kings 9:11, which states that Solomon gave Hiram cities. One way that people try to harmonize those two texts is to say that Solomon gave Hiram the cities, Hiram was displeased with them, and so Hiram returned them to Solomon, who rebuilt the cities and settled Israelites in them.
I tend to believe that there are two separate agendas in I Kings and II Chronicles. I Kings is trying to explain why those cities came to be called Cabul, which is rather disparaging. The reason, in I Kings 9, goes back to Hiram’s dissatisfaction with those cities. II Chronicles 8, however, is presenting Huram as adoring and subordinating himself to Solomon, and thus giving Solomon cities. And Solomon rebuilding the cities and settling Israelites in them occurs within the context of his projects of expansion and building, which we read about in the subsequent verses.
Of course, I have read in the Jewish Study Bible that I Kings presents Solomon and Hiram as equal parties making an agreement, whereas II Chronicles depicts Huram as subordinate to Solomon. There is probably something to that, but it should not be taken in the direction of saying that Huram in II Chronicles lacked power in his own right. II Chronicles 8:18 affirms that Huram sent Solomon ships and servants familiar with the sea, and so Huram had a lot of resources!
2. II Chronicles 8:11 states (in the KJV): “And Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David unto the house that he had built for her: for he said, My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, because the places are holy, whereunto the ark of the LORD hath come.”
I Kings has a similar story, but II Chronicles adds a rationale for Solomon doing what he did: Solomon did not want his Egyptian wife to dwell in the holy city of Jerusalem.
Why not? A common explanation is that she was a Gentile. I heard more than one sermon saying that Solomon was sinning in being married to a Gentile, but he was somehow trying to be religious, too, by forbidding his wife to live in Jerusalem. It would be like someone making money off of a shady business deal, and deciding to get on God’s good side by donating the money to the church.
Granted, there are places in the Hebrew Bible that are against Israelites intermarrying with Gentiles. I Kings criticizes Solomon for intermarriage, since that was what turned him away from God, and Nehemiah 13:26 refers to him as an example in defending a policy against Jewish intermarriage. But I have problems saying that II Chronicles had this sort of view. For one, the genealogies in Chronicles refer to intermarriages, without any hint of criticism. The genealogies present intermarriage as part of the history of Israel. Second, the Chronicler (as far as I can remember) does not criticize Solomon for intermarriage.
Maybe the Chronicler still had problems with a Gentile dwelling in Jerusalem, or he was trying to depict Solomon in a positive way: yes, Solomon married a Gentile, but at least he did not let her live in Jerusalem.
Raymond Dillard, however, has another idea. He wonders if II Chronicles 8:11 could be sanctioning the late Jewish practice of separating men and women in worship. You see that in orthodox synagogues today: the men sit in one section, the women in another. Could II Chronicles 8:11 be about this sort of practice? I seriously doubt that there was a blanket prohibition on women living in Jerusalem, so I tend not to absolutize Dillard’s proposal. But to see it as a stray verse sanctioning the separation of men and women in worship? I am somewhat open to that being a function of the verse—-not that I am in favor of such a practice.