Chapter XXXIII. Letter of Solomon to Suron (Hiram), King of Phoenicia

‘”KING SOLOMON TO SURON KING OP TYRE AND SIDON AND PHOENICIA, HIS FATHER’S FRIEND, GREETING.

“KNOW thou that I have received the kingdom from my father David by help of the Most High God, who also enjoined on me to build a temple to the God who made the heaven and the earth, and withal to write to thee to send me some men from thy peoples, who shall stay and help us until we have fulfilled the requirement of God, according to the injunction laid upon me. I have written also to Galilee, and Samaria, and the land of Moab, and Ammon, and Gilead, to supply them with necessaries from the country every month, ten thousand cors of corn (a cor is six artabae) and ten thousand homers of wine (the homer of wine is ten measures): and oil and the rest shall be supplied to them from Judaea, and from Arabia, victims for sacrifice on which to feed.”

CHAPTER XXXIV ‘”SURON TO SOLOMON THE GREAT KING GREETING.

“BLESSED be God, who made the heaven and the earth, who hath chosen a worthy son of a worthy father. As soon as I read thy letter I rejoiced greatly, and gave praise to God for thy succession to the kingdom.

“And as to what thou writest concerning the men in our various peoples, I have sent thee of Tyrians and Phoenicians eighty thousand, and as chief architect I have sent thee a man of Tyre, of a Jewish mother of the tribe of David: on whatsoever thou shalt ask him of all things under heaven, relating to architecture, he will give thee advice, and will carry out the work.

“And with regard to necessary provisions, and to the servants whom I send to thee, thou wilt do well in commanding the local governors, that all things necessary he provided.” ‘

‘When Solomon with his father’s friends had passed over to mount Lebanon with the Sidonians and Tyrians, he transported the timber which had previously been cut by his father to Joppa by sea, and thence by land to Jerusalem. And he began to build the temple of God when he was thirteen years old: and the work was done by the nations before-mentioned, and the twelve tribes of the Jews supplied the hundred and sixty thousand with all things necessary, one tribe each month; and they laid the foundations of the temple of God, sixty cubits in length, and sixty cubits in breadth, but the breadth of the building and of the foundations was ten cubits, for so had Nathan the prophet of God commanded him.

‘And they built alternately a course of stone and a beam of cypress-wood, fastening the two courses together with bronze cramps of a talent in weight. And when he had built it thus, he boarded it outside with planks of cedar and cypress, so that the stone building was not visible: and covered the temple with gold on the inside, by piling up bricks of gold five cubits long, and nailing them to the walls with silver nails of a talent in weight, four in number, and shaped like a breast.

‘Thus he covered it with gold from floor to roof, and the ceiling he made of golden panels, and the roof he made of brass, that is of brass tiles, having smelted brass and poured it into moulds. He made also two columns of brass, and covered them with pure gold, a finger’s breadth in thickness.

‘And the columns were as high as the temple, and in size each pillar ten cubits in circumference: and they stood one on the right side of the house, and the other on the left. He made also golden lamp-stands, weighing ten talents each, having taken as a pattern the lamp-stand set by Moses in the tabernacle of the Testimony.

‘And he set them on either side of the shrine, some on the right and some on the left. He made also seventy golden lamps, so that there might be seven burning on each lamp-stand. He built also the gates of the temple, and adorned them with gold and silver, and roofed them over with panels of cedar and cypress.

‘He made a porch also on the north side of the temple, and supported it on forty-eight pillars of brass. He made also a brazen laver, twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in width, and five cubits high. And upon it he made a brim projecting on the outside towards the base one cubit, in order that the priests might stand up on it, and wash their feet and hands. Also he made the bases of the laver, twelve in number, molten and chased, and of the height of a man, and set them at the hinder side beneath the laver, on the right side of the altar.

‘He made also a brazen step two cubits high, near the laver, that the king might stand upon it, when praying, so that he might be seen by the Jewish people. Also he built the altar of twenty-five cubits by twenty cubits, and twelve cubits high.

‘He made also two brazen rings of chain-work, and set them upon machines rising twenty cubits in height above the temple, and they cast a shadow over the whole temple: and to each net-work he hung four hundred brass bells of a talent in weight, and the net-works he made solid, that the bells might sound, and frighten away the birds, that they might not settle upon the temple, nor nest upon the panels of the gates and porches, and defile the temple with their dung.

‘He also surrounded the city Jerusalem with walls and towers and moats, and built a palace for himself.

‘And the Lord’s house was at first called the Temple of Solomon (Ἱερὸν Σολομῶνος); afterwards by a corruption the city was named Hierusalem from the Temple, but by the Greeks was called Hierosolyma after the king’s name.

‘And when he had completed the Temple and the walls of the city, he went to Shiloh, and offered a thousand oxen for a burnt-offering. And he took the Tabernacle, and the altar, and the vessels which Moses made, and brought them to Jerusalem, and put them in the house.

‘Moreover the Ark, and the golden altar, and the lamp-stand, and the table, and the other vessels he deposited there, as the prophet commanded him.

‘And he offered to God an immense sacrifice, two thousand sheep, three thousand five hundred calves. And the whole amount of gold which was expended upon the two pillars and the temple was four millions six hundred thousand talents: and upon the nails and the rest of the furniture one thousand two hundred and thirty-two talents of silver: and of brass for the columns and the laver and the porch eighteen thousand and fifty talents.

‘And Solomon sent away both the Egyptians and the Phoenicians each to their own country, having given to every man ten shekels of gold; now the shekel is a talent. And to Vaphres the king of Egypt he sent ten thousand measures of oil, a thousand measures of dates, a hundred vessels of honey, and spices.

‘And to Suron at Tyre he sent the golden pillar which is dedicated in the temple of Zeus at Tyre.

‘But Theophilus says that Solomon sent the gold that remained over to the king of Tyre; and that he made a life-sized figure as an image of his daughter, and made the golden column into a covering for the statue.

‘And Eupolemus says that Solomon made also a thousand golden shields, each of which weighed five hundred staters of gold. He lived fifty-two years, of which he reigned forty in peace.’