obeisance to David and said, 'May my lord live forever.'

Then David said, 'Call to me Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada.' When they came before him he said to them, ‘Take with you the servants of your lord. Let Solomon my son ride upon my own mule, bring him down to Gihon, and there let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him as ruler over Israel and blow the trumpet and say, "May Solomon the ruler live!" Then you shall go up after him, and he shall go in and sit upon my throne, for he shall succeed me; and I have appointed him to be chief over Israel and Judah.' Benaiah the son of Jehoiada answered David, 'So may it be! May Jehovah confirm the words of my lord. As Jehovah has been with my lord, even so may he be with Solomon, and may he make his throne greater than the throne of my lord David!'

Then Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, together with the Philistine body guards, went down and put Solomon on David's mule and brought him to Gihon. Zadok the priest took the horn of oil out of the tent and anointed Solomon and they blew the trumpet, and all the people said, 'May Solomon live!' Then all the people went up after him and the people played on flutes and rejoiced so loudly that the earth seemed to be shaken by the sound that they made.

Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard it just as they had finished eating; and they were seized with terror and each rose up and went away. But Adonijah in his fear of Solomon went and caught hold of the horns of the altar. When it was reported to Solomon, 'See, Adonijah fears Solomon the ruler, for he has caught hold of the horns of the altar

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and says, "Let Solomon swear to me first that he will not kill his servant with the sword,' Solomon said, 'If he shall show himself a worthy man, not one of his hairs shall be touched, but if he is found guilty of treason, he shall die.' So Solomon had him brought from the altar. And he came and did obeisance to Solomon the ruler; and Solomon said to him, 'Go to your home.'

Then David died and was buried in the City of David; and Solomon sat upon the throne of David his father, and his rule was firmly established.

100. SOLOMON'S WISDOM

Then Solomon went to Gibeon to sacrifice there; for that was the great high place; a thousand burntofferings he offered upon that altar.

In Gibeon Jehovah appeared to Solomon in a dream by night and said, 'Ask what I shall give you.' Solomon said, 'Thou hast showed to thy servant David my father great kindness. Now, O Jehovah my God, thou hast made thy servant ruler in the place of David my father, although I am but a child who does not know how to go out or come in. Give thy servant, therefore, an attentive mind to rule thy people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to rule this thy great people?'

Jehovah was pleased that Solomon had made this request; and God said to him, 'Because you have made this request and have not asked for yourself long life nor riches nor the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself insight to discern what is just, I have now granted your request: I have given you a wise and discerning mind. I have also given you that which you have not asked, both riches and honor.'

When Solomon awoke, he found that it was a dream; and he returned to Jerusalem.

Once two harlots came to Solomon and stood before him. The one woman said, 'Oh, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house.

While with her in the

Three days later this

house I gave birth to a child. woman also gave birth to a child, and we were alone by ourselves in the house. While we two were alone this woman's child died in the night, because she lay upon it.

'Then she arose at midnight and took my son from beside me, while your servant slept, and laid it on her breast and laid her dead child on mine. When I rose at dawn to nurse my child, there it was dead; but when I looked at it closely in the morning, I discovered that it was not my son. Then the other woman said, "No; the living is my son, and the dead child is So they wrangled before Solomon.

your son.

Then Solomon said, 'One says, "This one who is alive is my son, and your son is dead." But the other says, "No; your son is dead, and my son is the one who is alive." Bring me a sword.' So they brought him a sword. Then he said, 'Divide the living child in two and give half to the one and half to the other.' At that the woman to whom the living child belonged spoke to Solomon-for her heart yearned for her son -and said, 'Oh, my lord, give her the living child and on no account put it to death.' But the other said, 'It shall be neither mine nor yours! Divide it!' Then Solomon said, 'Give the first woman the living child, and on no account put it to death; she is his mother.'

When all Israel heard of the decision which Solomon had rendered, they had great respect for him, for they saw that he possessed divine wisdom to dispense justice.

101. THE BUILDING OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE

In the fourth year of Solomon's rule over Israel he built the temple of Jehovah. The length of the temple was ninety feet and its breadth thirty feet, and its height forty-five feet. The porch before the large room of the temple was thirty feet wide corresponding to the breadth of the temple, and fifteen feet deep. And he made windows for the temple with casings broad on the inside and narrow on the outside.

Against the wall of the temple on the outside he built wings, both around the larger room and the inner sanctuary, and made side-chambers about the temple. The lower side-chamber was seven and a half feet wide, the middle nine, and the third ten feet wide, for on the outside he made flying buttresses about the temple that the beams might not be set into the walls of the temple. In building the temple it was built with stone which had been made ready at the quarry; neither hammer nor chisel nor any iron tool was heard while the temple was building.

The entrance into the lower side-chambers was on the south side of the temple. Winding stairs led into the middle story, and from the middle into the third. And he built the wings against all sides of the temple, each seven and a half feet high; and they were joined to the temple with timbers of cedar. So he built the temple and finished it; and he covered it with cedar.

He covered the walls of the temple on the inside with boards of cedar from the floor of the temple to the rafters: and he covered the floor of the temple with boards of cypress.

He also partitioned off thirty feet in the back part of the temple with boards of cedar from the floor to the rafters: he built it as an inner room, even as the

most holy place. The temple, that is the large room in front of the inner sanctuary, was sixty feet long. And there was cedar in the interior of the temple with carving in the form of gourds and open flowers; all was cedar, no stone was seen. Solomon prepared the inner sanctuary in the interior of the temple in order to place there the ark which symbolized the solemn agreement between Jehovah and the people. And the inner sanctuary was thirty feet long, thirty feet wide and thirty feet in height.

In the inner room Solomon made two winged bulls of olive wood. The height of each was fifteen feet. Each of their wings measured seven and a half feet across, fifteen feet from the extremity of one wing to the extremity of the other. And he set these up in the inner sanctuary of the temple; and their wings were stretched out so that the wing of the one touched the one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched each other in the middle of the temple; and he overlaid them with gold.

102. THE DEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE

Then Solomon gathered in Jerusalem the leaders of Israel to bring up the ark of Jehovah out of Zion, the City of David, at the time of the autumn festival in September. When all the leaders of Israel had come, the priests took up the ark and the tent of meeting and all the sacred vessels that were in the tent. And when the priests came out from the inner sanctuary, the cloud filled the temple of Jehovah, so that the priests could not stand and perform their service on account of the cloud, for the glory of Jehovah filled his temple.

Then Solomon said: