1 Chronicles: A Commentary

29 1/ 6/ 10/ Translation King David said to the whole assembly, "Solomon my son, whom alone God has chosen, is young and inexperienced and the work is great; for the temple1 will not be for humans but for Yahweh God. 2/ With all my strength I have provided for the house of my God gold for gold things, silver for silver things, bronze for bronze things, iron for iron things, and lumber for wooden things, and great amounts of red carnelian, and [stones for] setting, colorful stones set into mortar to form a mosaic, and all sorts of precious stones, and stones of alabaster. 3/ In addition to all I have provided for the holy house, I have treasure of my own of gold and silver, and because I take pleasure in the house of my God, I give it to the house of my God: 41 three thousand talents of gold from the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver for overlaying the walls of the chambers of the house,2 5/ and for all the work to be done by artisans, gold for the things of gold and silver for the things of silver.3 Who then will offer themselves willingly , consecrating themselves today to Yahweh?" Then the leaders of the ancestral houses offered themselves willingly, as did the leaders of the tribes4 of Israel, and the commanders of the thousands and the hundreds, and the officers5 over the work of the king. 7I They gave for the service of the house of God6 five thousand talents and ten thousand darics of gold, and ten thousand talents of silver, and eighteen thousand talents of bronze, and one hundred thousand talents of iron. 8/ Whoever had precious stones gave them to the treasury of the house of Yahweh through the hand of Jehiel the Gershonite. 9/ Then the people rejoiced because these have given voluntarily, for they had volunteered with a perfect heart to Yahweh, and also King David rejoiced with a great rejoicing. David blessed Yahweh before the whole assembly, and David said, "Blessed are you Yahweh, God of Israel our ancestor, forever and ever. 11/ To you Yahweh belong greatness , and power, and honor, and splendor, and majesty, indeed/ all things in heaven and earth; yours is the kingdom, Yahweh, and you are exalted as head above all.8 12/ Riches and wealth9 come from you, and you rule over all, and in your hand are strength and power, and it is in your power to make great and to give strength to all. 13/ And now, our God,10 we give thanks to you and we praise your magnificent name. 14/ For who am I and who is my people that we should have enough strength to make a freewill offering like this? For from you 29:1-30 Freewill Offerings; David's Final Prayer; Enthronement of Solomon; David's Death and a Summary of His Reign i11'J.il; omitted by LXX, which paraphrases the sec· ond half of v. 19, where this term appears again. The LXX translator may not have known what to do with this Akkadian word, which usually means "palace" or the like. See the commentary and Polzin, Late Biblical Hebrew, 130, #12. 2 t:J'il:::J.il. For this construal see the commentary. LXX, Syr, Vg, Arab. read il'J.il "the house," the "less diffi· cult" reading, and therefore probably secondary. 3 t:J'tli1n i'J. ilJ~'?a '?J'?1 'lOJ'? 'l0J'?1 J.nr'? J.ili'?. LXX omits the first six Hebrew words in this verse and makes the artisans responsible for the gold plate on the walls fmm the previous verse. This is the trans· Jatar's (mistaken) attempt to make sense of the text and does not presuppose a different Hebrew Vo1·lage (cf. Allen, Greek Chronicles, 1:115; contra Throntveit, When Kings Speak, 34). 4 't!IJ.tli; LXX "sons" ('JJ.). 5 '1tD'?1. The lamed before the last noun in a series is emphatic and perhaps represents Aramaic influence . See Polzin, Late Biblical Hebrew, 66-68. 6 r:l'il'?~il; LXX "Lord" (i11il'). 7 'J is an emphatic rather than a causative particle (Kropat, Syntax, 31; Curtis and Madsen, 306; BDB, 472). Others (including BHS with a question mark) follow Vg and add l'? "(for) to you belong" to the text. 8 tli~1'? '?J'? ~tDJi"'Qi11; LXX reads: "before your face every king and nation is...