gathering of all the materials; for felling, hewing, seasoning of the timber. In the fourth year therefore of his reign did Solomon begin this magnificent structure of the temple, and in the second mouth, which, by God's own computation, was the month of April.

4. "And for the house he made windows of narrow lights."And for the temple he made windows, narrow without and large within, for the more clear transmitting of the light into all the parts of the house.

30. "And the floor of the house he overlaid with gold, within and without."]-And the floor of the temple he overlaid with gold; not only in that part which was within the partition of the oracle or Holy of Holies, but in the outer part thereof also.

38. "In the month Bul."]-In the month of October.

VII. 21. "And he set up the pillars in the porch of the temple; and he set up the right pillar, and called the name thereof Jachin: and he set up the left pillar, and he called the name thereof Boaz."] -To figure out the firmness and stability of his Church for ever, he erected two brazen pillars in the porch of the temple; and called the one, God shall establish, and the other, In it is strength, implying, both what invincible strength the Church of God should have, and whence it should be received.

23. "And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other."]—And he made a large and vast vessel of brass, for the use of their manifold washings, which seemed like to some spacious pond or sea, for the quantity of water which it contained: the wideness whereof was ten cubits from the one side to the other.

26. "It contained two thousand baths."]-It contained two thousand of those measures whereof every one held six gallons of

our account.

VIII. 9." There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone."]-Within the ark under the cover thereof there was nothing but the two tables of the Law, but on the verge of the ark were Aaron's blossomed rod and the pot of manna reserved.

12. "The LORD said that he would dwell in the thick darkness."] -The Lord hath said, that the thick cloud in his most Holy Place should be the testimony of his presence there.

31. "If any man trespass against his neighbour, and an oath. be laid upon him to cause him to swear, and the oath come before thine altar in this house."]-If in a case of some great trespass

against a man's life, good name, estate, there cannot be other evidences brought forth, so as the matter must necessarily be determined by the oath of the party accused; and that oath shall be solemnly required of him before thy presence at thine holy altar.

64. "The same day did the king hallow the middle of the court that was before the house of the LORD, &c. because the brazen altar was too little," &c.]-And Solomon, by command and instinct from God, required the priest to sanctify the pavement of the outer court, which was called The Court of the Priests, to the use of the sacrifices; for that the brazen altar, how great soever it was, could not be capable of these many offerings.

65. "A great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt."]-A great congregation of all the subjects of Solomon, from the eastern borders of his dominions to the western, that reach unto that arm of Nilus which runs towards Palestine.

IX. 13. "What cities are these which thou hast given me, my brother? And he called them the land of Cabul unto this day."] -How mean and base are these towns which thou hast given me in lieu of those great things wherewith I have furnished thee! And he called them The displeasing land to this day, being twenty cities in that upper Galilee which was after called Galilee of the Gentiles.

X. 5. "There was no more spirit in her."]-She was so astonished at the exceeding wisdom of Solomon, that she was even transported from herself with admiration.

11. "Great plenty of almug trees."]-Great plenty of the trees of Heben wood, which, for the solidness and shining brightness, were fit for the use and ornament of his building, and for instruments.

29. "And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and an horse for an hundred and fifty: and so for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, did they bring them out by their means."]--And Solomon, through the favour of his father-in-law the king of Egypt, had the benefit of all the trade of Egypt, for chariots and horses (wherewith that country had wont to furnish the neighbour regions) to pass through the hands of his merchants to his behoof; so as, if the kings of the Hittites or of Syria would have either chariots or horses, they must obtain them by the means of Solo

mon's merchants at a set rate; their chariots must cost them sixhundred shekels, their horses an hundred and fifty.

XI. 1. "But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites," &c.] -But Solomon, after he had holily and happily reigned five or six and twenty years, at last gave himself over to his inordinate lusts; and added to the daughter of Pharaoh, his lawful wife, a number of women that were strangers both in nation and religion.

5. "For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians," &c.]-For Solomon gave way and countenance to the idolatry of his wives, whom he willingly admitted to build houses and altars to Ashtoreth.

7. "Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem."]Then did Solomon consent to the building of an high place for Chemosh, the abominable idol of the Moabites; and that, in the very face of the Temple, on an hill over against Jerusalem.

36. "That David my servant may have a light alway before me," &c.]-That David my servant may have one of his seed, eminent in honour and authority, always, &c.

XII. 10. "My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins."-The easiest impositions that I shall lay upon you shall be more grievous than the heaviest that you complain of from my father.

24. "For this thing is from me."]-I have ordered and contrived this business for the just punishment of thy father's defection from me.

28. "Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt."]-Behold, O Israel, the remembrances and representations of that God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: in and by these mayest thou recall and worship that deity. 31. "And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people."]-Instead of God's temple at Jerusalem, he set up houses of pretended devotion, wherein he appointed God to be worshipped in his own idolatrous fashion; and ordained priests accordingly, men that were of other tribes, besides the sacred tribe of Levi, and men of base condition, fit for the idols he had set up.

33. "He offered, &c. on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised," &c.]-And he appointed, of his own head, the feast of tabernacles to be kept, not

in the seventh month, as God had appointed, but in the eighth, which was October; that so the place, and time, and priests, and gods, might be all of his own devising.

XIII. 1. "And Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense."] -Not only did Jeroboam ordain base priests out of undue tribes to offer unto God, but himself also would be taking presumptuously upon him the execution of this sacred function; he stood therefore by the altar to burn incense.

XIV. 10. "That pisseth against the wall."] Sce 1 Sam. xxv. 22. Ibid. "And him that is shut up and left in Israel."]-As well him who, for his more sure defence, hath shut up himself within the strong walls of your cities, as he that is left at liberty in the fields and villages.

XV. 4. "Give him a lamp in Jerusalem."] See chapter xi. verse 36.

5. "He turned not aside from any thing, &c. save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite."]-He was not miscarried into any heinous and enormous crime, whereby his profession was notoriously blemished, all the days of his life, save only into that his murder of Uriah the Hittite, and the sins that were appendant unto it.

14. "But the high places were not removed."]-Those high places wherein altars were built unto God in an ungrounded devotion, contrary to the charge of God who had appropriated his worship to the place which he should choose to put his name there, remained still entire and undemolished, and were put to that unwarrantable use.

XVII. 1. "There shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word."]-There shall not be dew nor rain for the space of these three years, and more, that this drought may bring a just dearth upon Israel; neither shall it then fall, but upon my prayer to that God who hath thus decreed to punish Israel, and to confirm his mission of me.

XVIII. 10. "There is no nation or kingdom whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee; and when they said, He is not here; he took an oath of the kingdom," &c.]-There is no nation or kingdom round about bordering upon Israel, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee; and of all those neighbouring kingdoms, whether tributary to him or allied, he hath by oath inquired of thy presence.

17. "Art thou he that troubleth Israel?"]-Art thou the man

that hast brought this grievous judgment of dearth and drought upon Israel?

29. "They prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice."]-They ran up and down in a furious raving and distracted fashion, until the time that the evening sacrifice was, by God's appointment, wont to be offered.

41. "Here is a sound of abundance of rain."]-I have a sure intimation from God that there is very great store of rain coming.

XIX. 18. "Yea I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him."]-Whereas thou complainest that thou art left alone, know that I have reserved to myself many thousands that are not at all infected with the idolatry of Baal, having neither in heart nor in outward gestures yielded themselves to the adoration of those false gods.

20. "Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother."]Let me go and take leave of my father and mother, ere I betake myself to follow thee.

XX. 4. "I am thine, and all that I have."]-I do acknowledge myself a tributary unto thee, and yield myself over as thy liege

man.

:

9. "All that thou didst send for to thy servant at the first I will do but this thing I may not do."]--Thy first message, which challenged a power and interest in my silver and gold and houses and land, I was willing to yield unto; but this, that thou shouldst utterly take them away out of my possession, I may by

no means assent unto.

XXI. 3. "The LORD forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee."]-Were it a thing free and lawful for me to do, I should not stick at the motion; but thou knowest that God hath expressly forbidden a final alienation of the land of our inheritance. I dare not sin to pleasure thee. See Levit. xxv. 23.

7. "Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel?"]—Is it for thee, that art the king of Israel, to take a denial of so mean a suit, or to be thus affected with the repulse? hast not thou power enough to give thyself satisfaction? Other spirits would become sovereignty away with this poor dejectedness.

9. "Proclaim a fast," &c.]-Proclaim a fast, as those that have cause of a public humiliation, for this heinous sin of Naboth's blasphemy.