hat
he would not only preserve the temple, but would always abide in
it; that is, in case his posterity and the whole multitude would be
righteous. And for himself, it said, that if he continued according to
the admonitions of his father, he would advance him to an immense degree
of dignity and happiness, and that then his posterity should be kings
of that country, of the tribe of Judah, for ever; but that still, if
he should be found a betrayer of the ordinances of the law, and forget
them, and turn away to the worship of strange gods, he would cut him off
by the roots, and would neither suffer any remainder of his family to
continue, nor would overlook the people of Israel, or preserve them
any longer from afflictions, but would utterly destroy them with ten
thousand wars and misfortunes; would cast them out of the land which he
had given their fathers, and make them sojourners in strange lands; and
deliver that temple which was now built to be burnt and spoiled by their
enemies, and that city to be utterly overthrown by the hands of their
enemies; and make their miseries deserve to be a proverb, and such as
should very hardly be credited for their stupendous magnitude, till
their neighbors, when they should hear of them, should wonder at
their calamities, and very earnestly inquire for the occasion, why the
Hebrews, who had been so far advanced by God to such glory and wealth,
should be then so hated by him? and that the answer that should be made
by the remainder of the people should be, by confessing their sins, and
their transgression of the laws of their country. Accordingly we have it
transmitted to us in writing, that thus did God speak to Solomon in his
sleep.

CHAPTER 5. How Solomon Built Himself A Royal Palace, Very Costly And
Splendid; And How He Solved The Riddles Which Were Sent Him By Hiram.

1. After the building of the temple, which, as we have before said, was
finished in seven years, the king laid the foundation of his palace,
which he did not finish under thirteen years, for he was not equally
zealous in the building of this palace as he had been about the temple;
for as to that, though it was a great work, and required wonderful
and surprising application, yet God, for whom it was made, so far
co-operated therewith, that it was finished in the forementioned number
of years: but the palace, which was a building much inferior in dignity
to the temple, both on account that its materials had n