Thursday 17 April 2014

1 Kings 5 Building projects

1 Kings 5

Israel has had peaceful relations with Sidon and Tyre for years and Hiram, king of Tyre sent a message to Solomon following his accession to the throne.

Solomon told Hiram of his plans to build a Temple to honour the name of God, and requests Hiram send him superior cedar wood from Lebanon. 
To build the temple Solomon and his officials conscript 30,000 labourers to help chop down the trees, transport them to the sea and build them into rafts for transport to Israel. These men worked 1 month away and had 2 months at home.
Solomon also employed 70,000 porters and 85,000 stone masons and 3,300 foremen.

Solomon paid Hiram for the labour and timber in the form of annual payment of 3250 Tonnes of grain and about 440,000 litres of pressed olive oil 

I don't know if any part of Solomon's temple still stands, however I am informed that the wailing wall in Jerusalem however is constructed from stone blocks that make the ones in the pyramids seem a bit on the small side.....

This is a really, really big building project. 
There is a really good novel (which has been turned into a TV series) by Ken Follett which covers the period of building a cathedral in the 11th and 12th century, it is probably as close as I can think of to the building of the Temple and gaining an insight into perhaps how it was to build these great buildings for the name and honour of God.

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