Which were to be employed in the most honourable and easy parts of the work relating to the temple, in manner expressed, 1 Kings 5:14. And these were Israelites; but those 150,000, mentioned 1 Kings 5:15, were strangers, by comparing this with 1 Kings 9:21,22. If it seem strange to any man that so many thousands should be employed about so small a building as the temple was, it must be considered,
1. That the temple, all its parts being considered, was far larger than men imagine, of which more hereafter.
2. That it is probable, that they were employed by turns, as the 30,000 were, 1 Kings 5:14, else they had been oppressed with hard and uninterrupted labours.
3. That the timber and stone hewed and carried by them was designed, not only (though principally) for the temple, but also for Solomon's own houses and buildings; because we read of no other levy of men, nor of any great care and pains taken, after the building of the temple, for the procurement or preparation of materials for his own houses, or his other buildings; which implies, that that work was done before; nay, that this very levy of men was made and employed for the building of the Lord's house, and Solomon's house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor and Megiddo, and Gezer, is expressed 1 Kings 9:15, which may fully satisfy that scruple.