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Selected Verse: 1 Kings 5:18 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| 1Ki 5:18 |
King James |
And Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders did hew them, and the stonesquarers: so they prepared timber and stones to build the house. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
| and the stone squarers--The Margin, which renders it "the Giblites" (Jos 13:5), has long been considered a preferable translation. This marginal translation also must yield to another which has lately been proposed, by a slight change in the Hebrew text, and which would be rendered thus: "Solomon's builders, and Hiram's builders, did hew them and bevel them" [THENIUS]. These great bevelled or grooved stones, measuring some twenty, others thirty feet in length, and from five to six feet in breadth, are still seen in the substructures about the ancient site of the temple; and, in the judgment of the most competent observers, were those originally employed "to lay the foundation of the house." |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
| The stone-squarers - The Gebalites (see the margin), the inhabitants of Gebal, a Phoenician city between Beyrout and Tripolis, which the Greeks called Byblus, and which is now known as Jebeil. |
| Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
With Kg1 5:18 the account of the preparations for the building of the temple, which were the object of Solomon's negotiations with Hiram, is brought to a close. "Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders, even the Giblites, hewed and prepared the wood and the stones for the building of the house." The object to יפסלוּ is not the square stones mentioned before, but the trees (beams) and stones mentioned after ויּכנוּ. והגּבלים is to be taken as explanatory, "even the Giblites," giving a more precise definition of "Hiram's builders." The Giblites are the inhabitants of the town of Gebal, called Byblos by the Greeks, to the north of Beirut (see at Jos 13:5), which was the nearest to the celebrated cedar forest of the larger Phoenician towns. According to Eze 27:9, the Giblites (Byblians) were experienced in the art of shipbuilding, and therefore were probably skilful builders generally, and as such the most suitable of Hiram's subjects to superintend the working of the wood and stone for Solomon's buildings. For it was in the very nature of the case that the number of the Phoenician builders was only a small one, and that they were merely the foremen; and this may also be inferred from the large number of his own subjects whom Solomon appointed to the work.
(Note: Without any satisfactory ground Thenius has taken offence at the word והגּבלים, and on the strength of the critically unattested καὶ ἔβαλον αὐτούς of the lxx and the paraphrastic ἁρμόσαντας καὶ συνδήσαντας of Josephus, which is only introduced to fill in the picture, has altered it into ויּגבּילוּם, "they bordered them (the stones)." This he explains as relating to the "bevelling" of the stones, upon the erroneous assumption that the grooving of the stones in the old walls encircling the temple area, which Robinson (Pal. i. 423) was the first to notice and describe, "occurs nowhere else in precisely the same form;" whereas Robinson found them in the ancient remains of the foundations of walls in different places throughout the land, not only in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, viz., at Bethany, but also at Carmel on the mountains of Judah, at Hebron, Semua (Esthemoa), Beit Nusib (Nezib), on Tabor, and especially in the north, in the old remains of the walls of the fortification es Shukif, Hunn, Banias, Tyrus, Jebail (Byblus), Baalbek, on the island of Ruwad (the ancient Aradus), and in different temples on Lebanon (see Rob. Pal. ii. 101,198, 434,627; iii. 12,213, 214; and Bibl. Researches, p. 229). Bttcher (n. ex. Krit. Aehrenl. ii. p. 32) has therefore properly rejected this conjecture as "ill-founded," though only to put in its place another which is altogether unfounded, namely, that before והגּבלים the word הצּרים ("the Tyrians") has dropped out. For this has nothing further in its favour than the most improbable assumption, that king Hiram gathered together the subjects of his whole kingdom to take part in Solomon's buildings. - The addition of τρία ἔτη, which is added by the lxx at the end of the verse, does not warrant the assumption of Thenius and Bttcher, that שׁנים שׁלשׁ has dropped out of the text. For it is obvious that the lxx have merely made their addition e conjectura, and indeed have concluded that, as the foundation for the temple was laid in the fourth year of Solomon's reign, the preliminary work must have occupied the first three years of his reign.) |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| Stone - squarers - Heb. the Giblites, the inhabitants of Gebel, a place near Zidon, famous for artificers and architects, Jos 13:5. These are here mentioned apart, distinct from the rest of Hiram's builders, as the most eminent of them. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
| And the stone-squarers - Instead of stone-squarers the margin very properly reads Giblites, הגבלים haggiblim; and refers to Eze 27:9, where we find the inhabitants of Gebal celebrated for their knowledge in ship-building. Some suppose that these Giblites were the inhabitants of Biblos, at the foot of Mount Libanus, northward of Sidon, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea; famous for its wines; and now called Gaeta. Both Ptolemy and Stephanus Byzantinus speak of a town called Gebala, to the east of Tyre: but this was different from Gebal, or Biblos. It seems more natural to understand this of a people than of stone-squarers, though most of the versions have adopted this idea which we follow in the text. |
5 And the land of the Giblites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrising, from Baalgad under mount Hermon unto the entering into Hamath.
9 The ancients of Gebal and the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers: all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise.
5 And the land of the Giblites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrising, from Baalgad under mount Hermon unto the entering into Hamath.
18 And Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders did hew them, and the stonesquarers: so they prepared timber and stones to build the house.
5 And the land of the Giblites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrising, from Baalgad under mount Hermon unto the entering into Hamath.
9 The ancients of Gebal and the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers: all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise.