CHAP. III. Of fuch Places as are mentioned in the firft Book of Kings, and not spoken of before. THE 1. Solomon King at HE first book of Kings begins with giving us an account of David's being now grown old; and how thereupon anointed his then eldest fon Adonijah fet himself up for King, making Gihon. a great entertainment for his party near Enrogel. News whereof being brought to David, he ordered his fon Solomon to be anointed King at Gihon; of which place we have before spoken, in our description of the city of Jerufalem, chap, ii. §. 20. as of Enrogel, ibid. §. 36. 2. Of Ana Some time after David's death, Solomon orders Abiathar the priest, who had sided with Adonijah, to retire from Jeru- thoth. falem to Anathoth his own city, being one of the cities of the tribe of Benjamin, that were given to the sons of Aaron; and, as Eufebius and Jerom tell us, no more than three miles diftant from Jerufalem, and that to the north, as Jerom further informs us in his comments on Jerem. i. For the prophet Jeremiah was of this fame city, as he himself tells us, chap. i. ver. I. the mon's do Solomon going to Gibeon to facrifice, and there preferring of Tiphfaft wisdom before other things, God gave him not only wisdom, and the exbut alfo riches and honour, so that there was not any among tent of SoloKings like unto him all his days, chap. iii. 1—13. Accor-minion. dingly we are informed chap. iv. ver, 21. that Solomon reigned over all kingdoms, from the river (Euphrates) unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt; or, as it is expreffed ver. 24. He had dominion over all on this fide the river, (i. e. on the weft fide of the Euphrates) from Tiphfah, even to Azzah. Where, as by Azzah is denoted Gaza, a city lying CHAP. in the fouth-weft corner of the land of Ifrael, and * elsewhere III. fpoken of; fo Tiphfah is very probably thought to be the fame with Thapfacus, a confiderable city lying on the Euphrates, and frequently mentioned by Heathen writers. There is mention made, 2 Kings xv. 16. of a Tiphfah, that Menahem, then King of Ifrael, fmote: but this must be different from the Tiphfah before mentioned, and muft, according to the circumstances of the ftory, lie not far from Tirzah, and fo on the weft fide of the river Jordan, in the land of Ifrael. 4. Of Solo. ple. In the following chapters (from the fifth to the eighth inmon's Tem-clufively) we have an account of the building of Solomon's Temple, of which I have spoken largely in my Geography of the New Teftament, Part I. chap. iii. §. 7. It will not, I fuppofe, be unacceptable to the reader, to have here reprefented to him two draughts relating to Solomon's Temple, taken from Villalpandus. The first draught, No. 1. reprefents the ichnography or ground-plot of the whole Temple, both courts and buildings. The second draught, No. 2. reprefents the ichnography or ground-plot of the Temple, or house of the Lord more properly fo called; which confifted of these two principal parts, the fanctuary or holy, and the holy of holies, or most holy. . From these draughts compared together may be framed a fomewhat juft idea of the Temple of Solomon, as to the nobleness and magnificence of its ftructure. And that it was a most noble and magnificent ftructure, and every way most agreeable to the rules of fymmetry and proportion, can in no wife be rationally doubted, or indeed without great impiety, fince we learn from 1 Chron. xxviii. that the Temple was built by Solomon according to the pattern which God himself had been pleased to give to David for that purpose. Then David gave to Solomon his fon the pattern of the porch, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper chambers thereof, and of the inner parlours thereof, * Geography of the New Teftament, Part II. chap. ii. §. 6. and |
