Wisdom Truck 15

 

This week we hit a story housed in 1 Kings 5 and 9, and 2 Chronicles 8, with detours through Luke 16 and a start in 2 Samuel!  So I will keep the verse pastes to a minimum in order to damp the confusion.

In 2 Samuel, David makes treaties of commerce and friendship with Hiram, the King of Tyre.Tyre was a Phoenician city of great maritime commerce, and through them, David laid up a LOT of provisions for the Temple he wanted Solomon to build:

1Ch 22:14  And, behold, in my trouble I have prepared for the house of Jehovah a hundred thousand talents of gold, and a million talents of silver, and of bronze and iron without weight, for it is in abundance. I have prepared timber also, and stone, and you may add to them. 

Which was all well and good, but Solomon in his wisdom knew he didn't have the in-house resources to build it right.  So he in turn went to Hiram:

1Ki 5:6  And now command that they cut me cedar trees out of Lebanon, and my servants shall be with your servants. And I will give you hire for your servants according to all that you shall say. For you know that not a man among us can cut timber like the Sidonians. 

In Chronicles, the request is fleshed out a bit further:

2Ch 2:7  And now send me a man skillful to work in gold, and in silver, and in bronze, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue, and one who is skillful to engrave with the skillful men who are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David my father provided. 

So here was a King wise enough to serve his God well, but also wise enough to know he needed help.  That brings us to our main verse:

2Ch 2:12  And Hiram said, Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, who has given to David the king a wise son blessed with judgment and understanding, who might build a house for Jehovah and a house for his kingdom. 

Which is where we kind of hit a bunny trail, because Hiram goes on to suggest such a craftsman.  His name, also, was Hiram- which is occasionally translated as Huram, essentially the same word, to differentiate- and there was some backstory on him.  By combining the stories in Kings and Chronicles, we find that Huram was a "joint Jew-Gentile project".  His mother was a member of the tribe of Dan, who had married and been widowed by a man of Napthali, and then re-married a man of Tyre, of whom Huram was the son.  So in a way, the Gentile world was grafted into the Jewish Temple, just as Paul would describe the salvation of Christ much later.  This was the beginning of a long and fruitful alliance between Solomon and Hiram.  And I would venture to say that this relationship was blessed by God because Hiram had respect for God; years later, God ruined several attempts of King Jehoshaphat to do similar deals with Tyre, as they had become altogether Baal-worshippers, and antagonistic to God. (Jezebel was a daughter of one of those kings.)

But now, to sew up the lesson, we flash foreward 20-some years, to the completion of the Temple, and what came next of the relations between Hiram and Solomon- and 2 seemingly contradictory verses:

1Ki 9:11  Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedar trees and fir trees, and with gold, according to all his desires. Then King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. 

1Ki 9:12  And Hiram came out from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him. And they did not please him. 

1Ki 9:13  And he said, What cities are these which you have given me, my brother? And he called them the land of Cabul to this day. 

2Ch 8:1  And it happened at the end of twenty years, Solomon had built the house of Jehovah and his own house. 

2Ch 8:2  As to the cities that Hiram had given to Solomon, Solomon had built them, and he caused the sons of Israel to live there. 

So what the experts agree on is that Solomon gave the cities to Hiram first.  Tyre was a seafaring kingdom, and Galilee is a lake with no real outlet, tucked into a mountainous region.  These were tiny, poor villages, and Hiram frankly had no use for them.    But where Hiram complained, Solomon built up, and they became a part of Israel.  And not just any part...

Isa 9:1  But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. 

Isa 9:2  The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. 

Galilee of the Nations (or, more familiarly, "of the Gentiles") had a PURPOSE for being grafted onto Israel by Solomon- this unloved region would become home to the coming Messiah!

So where is our lesson?  That's where we tumble into Luke.  Jesus told the people a parable about a dishonest manager who had been up-charging the customers of his master to enrich himself.  Word gets back to the master, who says, "Get your books settled and bring them in, you're about to get fired".  Now he had been a lazy man, but a man of respect, so the alternatives on each end- working or begging- were not options to him.  So he went to the people he had screwed the most, changed their bills downward to what they should have been, in hopes that by "helping them out", they would give him a fall back after he got canned.  And the lesson Jesus drew from the story:

Luk 16:8  The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. 

Luk 16:9  And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. 

Solomon had done just that. By providing Hiram with a LOT of food (not to mention manpower), he was able to use money as a tool to make a greater good.  Think of it this way.  Say your company isn't averse to doing shady deals, up-charging things to the limits of legal honesty, or even not paying fair wages.  Your wages, though from ill-gotten sources, came to you by honest work, and when you tithe, you lay up treasure in Heaven no matter HOW your company got it.  Solomon built the Temple with help from a (probably) pagan King, and a "half-breed" craftsman (which would become more ironic after the exile), and still glorified God in it!  But there's a rub to this.  God came to Solomon after the Temple was complete:

1Ki 9:6  But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, 

1Ki 9:7  then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. 

1Ki 9:8  And this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?’ 

Money as a tool becomes righteous if used righteously.  But YOU must stay obedient.