5:13,14
Thirty thousand labourers were conscripted to work in Lebanon. 1 Kings 9:15-23 makes it clear that these labourers were not taken from the Israelite population, but from the Canaanites who were living in the land. They were sent in shifts of ten thousand a month, working in a pattern of one month on, two months off. During the two months at home, some think they were working on Solomon’s temple. However, the whole context would seem to me to be more consistent with them working on the temple. For while materials had to come from Lebanon, the construction work had to take place in Jerusalem. However, I may be wrong.
5:15,16
We now read of seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand stonecutters, with thirty three hundred foreman to supervise them. Again, it is unclear whether these workers were from the Canaanite population, or whether they included Israelites. In either case we see a vast forced labour workforce.
5:17,18
These two verses seem to show the Israelite/Canaanite labourers doing the basic stuff, with the “craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram” doing the more skilled work. So we see a carefully planned and managed workforce employed in building the temple.
No comments:
Post a Comment