1 Chronicles 22:2
So David gave orders to gather the foreigners in the land of Israel, from whom he appointed stonecutters to prepare finished stones for building the house of God.
Sermons
Alien Help in God's ServiceR. Tuck 1 Chronicles 22:2
What We Cannot Destroy May be Usefully EmployedJ. Parker, D. D.1 Chronicles 22:2
David's Preparation for Building the TempleF. Whitfield 1 Chronicles 22:1-5, 14
Willingness to Do What We May When We are Forbidden to Do What We WouldR. Tuck 1 Chronicles 22:2-5














David was willing to employ those who were not Israelites in the work of building the temple, and this is recorded as an indication of liberality and large-mindedness. By the "strangers" mentioned here we are to understand "aliens," the non-Israelite population of the land; and we have no ground for assuming that the persons he employed were necessarily proselytes. From 2 Chronicles 2:17 we learn that David took a census of these aliens, with the design of employing them in forced labours, as hewers of wood and stone, bearers of burdens, etc. It does not appear that the Israelites, as a people, have ever displayed mechanical or constructive skill. Their bias has been towards agriculture and trade. It is often somewhat anxiously questioned whether sanctuary belly - aid in church-building, and maintenance of Christian worship and work - can properly be received from worldly persons, who cannot be supposed to give themselves to God through their gifts in support of his service. Wider and nobler views of God's relations with men, and claims upon the service of all men, would make such questioning impossible. Exclusive feelings - caste sentiments - grow upon us only too easily; but they are always mischievous; they need to be carefully watched and repressed; and Christians, above all men, should cultivate the most liberal and generous sentiments. It should be their joy in God, that "the God of the whole earth must he be called." Keeping in mind that the object of this homily is to correct the "narrowness" which is too often the marked feature of pious sentiments, we consider -

I. ALL SOULS ARE GOD'S. "All souls are mine." George Macdonald well writes, "We are accustomed to say that we are bodies, and have souls, whereas we should rather say that we are souls, and have bodies." Paul pleads with the Gentile that we are all the "offspring of God." And our Lord, in his teaching on the mount, revealed God as providing for and overshadowing all, "making his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sending his rain on the just and on the unjust." All souls are to come under the Divine judgment, and that judgment must be based on Divine dealings with men, and men's response thereto.

II. ALL LIVES SHOULD BE CONSECRATED TO GOD. By the claims of creation, relation, and providence, God urges upon every man the duty of surrender to him. See the familiar answer to the question, "What is the chief duty of man?" When Paul urges the Romans to "present their bodies a living sacrifice," he does but express the demand made by the God "in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways." If this be established as a universal principle, then these two things follow.

1. All man's service he claims. Whatever a man can do, God has the right to ask him to do for him. Illustrate by the sentiments of earlier times, in regard to a king's right to claim the service of any member of his kingdom, day or night. God has the infinite right to make such claim; and the godly man fully recognizes it, and says -

"Take my body, spirit, soul;
Only thou possess the whole."

2. All man's possessions are for God's use as he may require them. Not merely what a man is he is for God, but what a man has he has for God. David fully recognized this, and in presenting to God the gathered material for the temple, he said, "Of thine own have we given thee." So when a worldly man gives of his property or time to God's service, we should feel that he is imperfectly and incompletely doing a part of the duty which rests on every man. Nothing of human service can be alien to God; and nothing should be alien to his people in working for him. We may encourage every man to do something, or give something to God, in the hope that, by-and-by, they may come to love God's service, and God himself. - R.T.

And David commanded to gather together the strangers.
Whom we are not able to destroy we may be able to employ in holy service, is a doctrine which is not applicable to persons only, but has a distinct reference to emotions, passions, impulses, and sympathies. We are to hold ourselves in bondage, and often we are to drive ourselves to forced labour, and to become hewers of wood and stone, bearers of burdens, and indeed slaves to our higher manhood.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

People
David, Sidonians, Solomon, Tyrians, Zidonians
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Aliens, Appointed, Appointeth, Assemble, Build, Building, Collect, Commanded, Cut, Cutting, David, Dressed, Foreigners, Gather, Hew, Hewers, Hewn-stones, Lands, Masons, Orders, Prepare, Sojourners, Stone, Stonecutters, Stone-cutters, Stones, Strange, Strangers, Worked, Wrought
Outline
1. David, foreknowing the place of the temple, prepares abundance for building it.
6. He instructs Solomon in God's promises, and his duty in building the temple.
17. He charges the princes to assist his son

Dictionary of Bible Themes
1 Chronicles 22:2

     4366   stones
     5212   arts and crafts
     5531   skill

1 Chronicles 22:1-2

     5240   building

1 Chronicles 22:1-19

     5089   David, significance

1 Chronicles 22:2-10

     5054   responsibility, examples

Library
David's Prohibited Desire and Permitted Service
'Then he called for Solomon his son, and charged him to build an house for the Lord God of Israel. 7. And David said to Solomon, My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God: 8. But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build an house unto My name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in My sight. 9. Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Solomon's Temple Spiritualized
or, Gospel Light Fetched out of the Temple at Jerusalem, to Let us More Easily into the Glory of New Testament Truths. 'Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Isreal;--shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out hereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof.'--Ezekiel 43:10, 11 London: Printed for, and sold by George Larkin, at the Two Swans without Bishopgate,
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

He Does Battle for the Faith; He Restores Peace among those who were at Variance; He Takes in Hand to Build a Stone Church.
57. (32). There was a certain clerk in Lismore whose life, as it is said, was good, but his faith not so. He was a man of some knowledge in his own eyes, and dared to say that in the Eucharist there is only a sacrament and not the fact[718] of the sacrament, that is, mere sanctification and not the truth of the Body. On this subject he was often addressed by Malachy in secret, but in vain; and finally he was called before a public assembly, the laity however being excluded, in order that if it were
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh

The Promise in 2 Samuel, Chap. vii.
The Messianic prophecy, as we have seen, began at a time long anterior to that of David. Even in Genesis, we perceived [Pg 131] it, increasing more and more in distinctness. There is at first only the general promise that the seed of the woman should obtain the victory over the kingdom of the evil one;--then, that the salvation should come through the descendants of Shem;--then, from among them Abraham is marked out,--of his sons, Isaac,--from among his sons, Jacob,--and from among the twelve sons
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Chronicles
The comparative indifference with which Chronicles is regarded in modern times by all but professional scholars seems to have been shared by the ancient Jewish church. Though written by the same hand as wrote Ezra-Nehemiah, and forming, together with these books, a continuous history of Judah, it is placed after them in the Hebrew Bible, of which it forms the concluding book; and this no doubt points to the fact that it attained canonical distinction later than they. Nor is this unnatural. The book
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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