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Verse:And Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders did hew them, and the stonesquarers: so they prepared timber and stones to build the house. —1 Kings 5:18
Solomon’s second mistake was employing foreigners to erect the temple.
While Solomon tasked a crew of Israelite laborers to construct the temple (1 Kings 5:13, 14), these men were not skilled stonemasons or carpenters.
They could not successfully handle the raw materials.
This conscription of Israelites was not well received by those pressed into service one month out of every three, and it caused a good deal of disgust toward Solomon (1 Kings 12:4). King Hiram sent Huram, a man from Tyre (1 Kings 7:13), to be the chief supervisor of the temple project (2 Chronicles 2:14). Solomon agreed to hire this master craftsman at high wages. The king should have looked to God for consecrated workers possessing the special talents needed to build to exact specifications. Instead, he lost this opportunity to exercise faith in God.
“The baleful influences set in operation by the employment of this man of a grasping spirit, permeated all branches of the Lord’s service, and extended throughout Solomon’s kingdom. The high wages demanded and received gave many an opportunity to indulge in luxury and extravagance. In the far-reaching effects of these influences, may be traced one of the principal causes of the terrible apostasy of him who once was the wisest of mortals. . . . The poor were oppressed by the rich; the spirit of self-sacrifice in God’s service was well nigh lost.” “Solomon prepared the way for his own ruin when he sought for wise men from other nations to build the temple. God had been the educator of his people, and he designed that they should stand in his wisdom, and with his imparted talents should be second to none. If they had the clean hands, the pure heart, and the noble, sanctified purpose, the Lord would communicate to them his grace. But Solomon looked to man instead of God, and he found his supposed strength to be weakness. He brought to Jerusalem the leaven of the evil influences which were perpetuated in polygamy and idolatry.” “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:6).