June 10

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1 Kings 7:1-51
(1) (2010)This is the account of Solomon's construction of the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon. Perhaps a provincial retreat.

(2) Henry comments:

He built piazzas before one of his houses, either that at Jerusalem or that in Lebanon, which were very famous—a porch of pillars (v. 6), perhaps for an exchange or a guard-house, or for those to walk in that attended him about business till they could have audience, or for state and magnificence. He himself speaks of Wisdom's building her house, and hewing out her seven pillars (Prov. 9:1), for the shelter of those that, three verses before (ch. 8:34), are said to watch daily at her gates and to wait at the posts of her doors.

(3) Solomon fashioned his own house after God's. Henry comments:

The court of his own house was like that of the temple (v. 12, compare ch. 6:36); so well did he like the model of God's courts that he made his own by it.

(3) The pillars Jachin & Boaz. Henry again comments

Their significancy is intimated in the names given them (v. 21): Jachin—he will establish; and Boaz—in him is strength. Some think they were intended for memorials of the pillar of cloud and fire which led Israel through the wilderness: I rather think them designed for memorandums to the priests and others that came to worship at God's door, [1.] To depend upon God only, and not upon any sufficiency of their own, for strength and establishment in all their religious exercises. When we come to wait upon God, and find our hearts wandering and unfixed, then by faith let us fetch in help from heaven: Jachin—God will fix this roving mind. It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace. We find ourselves weak and unable for holy duties, but this is our encouragement: Boaz—in him is our strength, who works in us both to will and to do. I will go in the strength of the Lord God. Spiritual strength and stability are to be had at the door of God's temple, where we must wait for the gifts of grace in the use of the means of grace. [2.] It was a memorandum to them of the strength and establishment of the temple of God among them. Let them keep close to God and duty, and they should never lose their dignities and privileges, but the grant should be confirmed and perpetuated to them. The gospel church is what God will establish, what he will strengthen, and what the gates of hell can never prevail against. But, with respect to this temple, when it was destroyed particular notice was taken of the destroying of these pillars (2 Ki. 25:13, 17), which had been the tokens of its establishment, and would have been so if they had not forsaken God.

(4) The Lavers were set on wheels:

They were curiously adorned and set upon wheels, that the lavers might be removed as there was occasion; but ordinarily they stood in two rows, five on one side of the court and five on the other, v. 39. Each laver contained forty baths, that is, about ten barrels, v. 38. Those must be very clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. Spiritual priests and spiritual sacrifices must be washed in the laver of Christ's blood and of regeneration. We must wash often, for we daily contract pollution, must cleanse our hands and purify our hearts. Plentiful provision is made for our cleansing; so that if we have our lot for ever among the unclean it will be our own fault.

Acts 7:30-50
(2011) Worship of the sun, moon & stars - verse 42- I've always thought of the Hebrews as worshiping a golden calf when Moses was gone so long.

They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’[d] 41 That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and reveled in what their own hands had made. 42 But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon and stars. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets

(2)(2011) Borrowing from tomorrow's commentary by Henry, I always notice how "recently" men such as Henry understood the ancient & medieval cosmology more than the modern:

Those of the school of Epicurus fancied "that the world was made by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, which, having been in perpetual motion, at length accidently jumped into this frame." Against both these Paul here maintains that God by the operations of an infinite power, according to the contrivance of an infinite wisdom, in the beginning of time made the world and all things therein, the origin of which was owing, not as they fancied to an eternal matter, but to an eternal mind.

2. He is therefore Lord of heaven and earth, that is, he is the rightful owner, proprietor, and possessor, of all the beings, powers, and riches of the upper and lower world, material and immaterial, visible and invisible. This follows from his making heaven and earth. If he created all, without doubt he has the disposing of all: and, where he gives being, he has an indisputable right to give law.

Psalm 128:1-6
(1)(2010) The children shall be as olive shoots: Henry comments

The children shall be as olive plants, likely in time to be olive-trees, and, though wild by nature, yet grafted into the good olive, and partaking of its root and fatness, Rom. 11:17. It is pleasant to parents who have a table spread, though but with ordinary fare, to see their children round about it, to have many children, enough to surround it, and those with them, and not scattered, or the parents forced from them. Job makes it one of the first instances of his former prosperity that his children were about him, Job 29:5. Parents love to have their children at table, to keep up the pleasantness of the table-talk, to have them in health, craving food and not physic, to have them like olive-plants, straight and green, sucking in the sap of their good education, and likely in due time to be serviceable.

Proverbs 16:31-33

31: Gray hair is a crown of splendor;
it is attained by a righteous life.

32: Better a patient man than a warrior,
a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.

Years Read
2010, 2011, 2025