Solomon and Huram
1He put 70,000 men to work transporting materials, 80,000 to quarry in the hill country, and 3,600 supervisors in charge of them. 2Solomon then sent this message to Huram king of Tyre, “Deal with me as you dealt with my father David when you sent him cedars to build a house to live in. 3I am now building a house to honor Yahweh, my God, to acknowledge his holiness by burning incense of scented spices in his presence, by the loaves that are perpetually set out, by offerings morning and evening, on the sabbath, New Moon, and the solemn festivals of Yahweh our God – and this forever in Israel. 4The house I am building will be large, for our God is greater than all gods. 5Yet no one can really build a temple for God since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him. And I cannot build him a house for anything more than to burn incense in his presence. 6So send me a man skilled in working with gold, silver, bronze, iron, scarlet, crimson, violet, and the art of engraving too; he is to work with the skilled men whom my father David provided here in Judah and Jerusalem. 7From Lebanon send me cedar wood, juniper and algummim, since I know your servants are experts in felling the trees of Lebanon. My servants will work with yours. 8They will prepare wood in bulk for me, since the house I wish to build is to be of astounding size. 9For the woodmen who are to fell the trees I assign twenty thousand kors of grain, twenty thousand kors of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil – this is for the maintenance of your servants.”
10In a letter sent to King Solomon, Huram king of Tyre replied, “Because Yahweh loves his people he has made you king. 11Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, who has made the heavens and the earth, and given King David a wise son, full of understanding and skill, who is going to build a house for Yahweh and a palace for himself and his court. 12And I am also sending you a skilled craftsman, Huram-abi, 13the son of a Danite woman by a Tyrian father. He is skilled in the use of gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, wood, scarlet, violet, fine linen, crimson, in engraving of all kinds, and in the execution of any design suggested to him. Let him be put to work with your craftsmen and those of my lord David, your father. 14So now let my lord send his servants the wheat, barley, oil and wine, as already suggested.
15For our part, we will cut down all the cedar trees you need from Lebanon, and bring them to you in rafts by sea to Joppa, and you will transport them to Jerusalem.”
16Solomon took a count of all the foreigners living in the land of Israel, following the census that David his father had taken; it was found there were a hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred. 17He assigned seventy thousand of these for carrying loads, eighty thousand as stonecutters in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred as overseers to make sure the people worked.
