Connected with the circumstances of this same colony of Laish is another coincidence which I have to offer, and I introduce it in this place, because it is so connected, for otherwise it anticipates a point of Jewish history, which, in the order of the books of Scripture, lies a long way before me. The construction of Solomon’s Temple at Jerusalem is the event at which it dates.
In the seventh chapter of the First Book of Kings I read, “And king Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre. He was a widow’s son of the Tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass; and he was filled with wisdom and understanding, and cunning to work all works in brass. And he came to king Solomon, and wrought all his work.” (v. 13.) But in the parallel passage in the second chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles (v. 13), where we have the answer which king Hiram returned to Solomon, when the latter desired him to “send him a man, cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass;” I find it running thus:—“Now I have sent a cunning man, endued with understanding, of Huram my father’s (or perhaps Huram-Abi by name), the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre, skilful to work in gold.” It is evident, that the same individual is meant in both passages; yet there is an apparent discrepancy between them: the one in Kings asserting his mother to be a woman of the Tribe of Naphtali; the other, in Chronicles, asserting her to be a woman of the daughters of Dan.
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Author: John James Blunt
Keywords: Hiram, Tyre, Hiram of Tyre, Solomon and Hiram, Solomon, Solomon's temple, temple of Solomon, first temple, temple construction, construction of the temple, Tyre and Sidon, Danites, Danite, intermarriage, intermarrying
Bible reference(s): 1 Kings 5:6, 1 Kings 7:13, 2 Chron 2:13
Source: Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings of the Old & New Testament (London: John Murray, 1869).
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