2 Chronicles 3:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Bible Comments

In mount Moriah Part of this mountain was in the tribe of Judah, and part of it in the tribe of Benjamin: so that the temple is ascribed to them both. To Judah, Psalm 77:68, 69, and to Benjamin, Deuteronomy 33:12. For the greatest part of the courts were in the tribe of Judah; but the altar, the porch, the most holy part of the temple, where the ark and the cherubim were, in the tribe of Benjamin. It was the belief of the ancient Jews, that the temple was built on the very spot where Abraham offered up Isaac. So the Jewish Targum (a paraphrase on the books of Moses, in the Chaldee language) says expressly, adding, But he (Isaac) was delivered by the word of the Lord, and a ram provided in his place. That offering of Isaac was typical of Christ's sacrifice of himself: therefore fitly was the temple built there, which was also a type of him. Where the Lord appeared unto David That is, which place the Lord had consecrated by his gracious appearance there, 1 Chronicles 21:26. The place that David had prepared Which he had not only purchased with his money, but which he had pitched upon by divine direction, and made ready for the purpose by pulling down the buildings that were upon it or near it, by levelling the ground, and possibly by marking it out for the temple and courts, the dimensions whereof he probably very particularly and exactly understood by the Spirit of God. In the thrashing-floor of Ornan In that place where the thrashing-floor formerly was.

2 Chronicles 3:1

1 Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the LORD appeareda unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.