Originally posted: 2/15/2020
Now King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre. 14 He was a widow’s son from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze; and he was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill for doing any work in bronze. So he came to King Solomon and performed all his work. (7:13-14).
1 Kings 7 lists several details regarding the construction of both Solomon’s palace and the temple of God. Dimensions and artistic attributes of cedar, costly stones and pure gold are described. But the majority of this chapter places attention and emphasis on the work to be completed in Bronze.
There is Biblical significance in all the materials used in the temple construction, patterned after God’s specific instruction for the tabernacle built in the wilderness. And while gold would fill the inside of the tabernacle, everything outside the tabernacle would be made of bronze, (Exodus 25-27).
Inside the tabernacle, filled with pure gold, would be the Holy of Holies, the place of God’s Pure Presence. Only one, the high priest would enter; but only after the animal sacrifice and cleansing outside of God’s Presence was completed.
There on the altar of Bronze and in the basin of Bronze, God’s judgment, atonement and purification from sin would be dispensed, enabling the high priest to enter into His Pure Presence to mediate on behalf of the people.
Consider His Worker in Bronze
In preparing His people to enter into fellowship with Him through the temple sacrifice, Bronze would be required. And all the Bronze utilized was to be prepared by His Worker in Bronze.
And only one is mentioned and only one was sent and brought to be His Worker in Bronze, to perform all his work; and only one finished doing all the work which he performed.
Now King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre. 14 He was a widow’s son from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze; and he was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill for doing any work in bronze. So he came to King Solomon and performed all his work… 40 …So Hiram finished doing all the work which he performed for King Solomon in the house of the Lord: (7:13-14, 40).
Hiram from Tyre “filled with wisdom and understanding and skill for doing any work in bronze,” is a type of prefiguring of Jesus from Nazareth.
When they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city of Nazareth. 40 The Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him, (Luke 2:39-40).
but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30).
…attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:2-3).
When God’s people rebelled and sinned against Him in the wilderness, His judgment came through the fiery serpents, (remember the serpent in the garden and fires of hell in His judgment). It would be as the people looked in faith to His Work in Bronze, fashioned in the very form of the plague of His judgment that they would receive their salvation and deliverance.
The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. 8 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” 9 And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived, (Numbers 21:6-9).
Again a foreshadowing of the only One qualified as His Worker in Bronze, to complete the work only He could accomplish. It is only as we look to Him in faith, that we too receive salvation and deliverance from the wages of sin, death.
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, (2 Corinthians 5:21).
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, (Ephesians 6:23).
and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed, (1 Peter 2:24)
Only in Christ Jesus is God’s judgment dispensed to accomplish atonement and purification from sin; only One, Christ Jesus, our Perfect High Priest and Mediator finished all the work He was sent to perform.
We must work the works of Him who sent Me… (John 9:4).
Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit, (John 19:30).
For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, (1 Timothy 2:5).
How do we respond to His Worker in Bronze?
That He would go to such lengths to become our Perfect Worker in Bronze; to be born a man, live a sinless life, suffer and die such an excruciating and humiliating death as He became sin, fashioned into the very form of the plague of His judgment on our behalf, is really too much to comprehend.
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, (2 Corinthians 5:21).
How can we possibly measure what He has done for us?
We can’t; it is absolutely beyond our ability to grasp, just as the weight of the bronze required to complete the work was impossible to ascertain.
Solomon left all the utensils unweighed, because they were too many; the weight of the bronze could not be ascertained, (7:47).
But as we consider His indescribable gift of salvation, may our gratitude and praise rise beyond measure… even to overflowing and impossible to ascertain.
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! (Romans 11:33).
Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude, (Colossians 2:6-7).