The Gospel Goes to Tyre: Building God's House with Pagan Hands
Introduction: God's Global Ambitions
We live in an age that is simultaneously globalist and tribalist, and both for all the wrong reasons. Our secular elites want a one-world order built on money, godless humanism, and bureaucratic control. At the same time, our culture is fracturing into a thousand little tribes, each with its own set of grievances and manufactured identities. The world wants unity without Christ, which is tyranny, and it wants identity without Christ, which is chaos. But the Scriptures have always had a truly global vision, one that is neither tyrannical nor chaotic. It is the vision of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covering the earth as the waters cover the sea.
This vision did not begin in the New Testament. It was seeded deep in the Old. When we come to a passage like this one, describing the collaboration between Solomon, the king of Israel, and Huram, the pagan king of Tyre, our modern evangelical instincts can be a little baffled. We tend to put things in neat boxes: the sacred and the secular, the church and the world, Israel and the Gentiles. But God has always delighted in kicking the sides out of our tidy little boxes. The construction of the Temple, the central house of worship for the one true God, was not an exclusively Israelite affair. It was an international project. God conscripted pagan kings, pagan materials, and pagan craftsmen to build His house.
This is not an anomaly. This is a trailer, a preview of coming attractions. This is the gospel in seed form. God's plan was never to have a small, holy huddle in Jerusalem while the rest of the world went to hell in a handbasket. His plan was always to bless Abraham so that Abraham might be a blessing to all the families of the earth. In this correspondence between Solomon and Huram, we see a glorious picture of how God's wisdom, grace, and covenant purposes spill over the borders of the covenant community to draw the nations in. This is not syncretism; it is conquest. It is not compromise; it is dominion. God is building His house, and He will use whatever tools He pleases.
The Text
Then Huram king of Tyre said in a letter sent to Solomon: “Because Yahweh loves His people, He has given you to be king over them.” Then Huram said, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, who has made heaven and earth, who has given King David a wise son, knowledgeable in insight and understanding, who will build a house for Yahweh and a royal palace for himself. So now, I am sending Huram-abi, a wise man, who is knowledgeable in understanding, the son of a Danite woman and a Tyrian father, who knows how to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, and in purple, blue, linen, and crimson fabrics, and who knows how to make all kinds of engravings and to devise any design which may be given to him, to work with your wise men and with the wise men of my lord David your father. So now, let my lord send to his servants wheat and barley, oil and wine, of which he has spoken. And we will cut whatever timber you need from Lebanon and bring it to you on rafts by sea to Joppa, so that you may carry it up to Jerusalem.
(2 Chronicles 2:11-16 LSB)
A Pagan's Astonishing Confession (v. 11-12)
We begin with the surprising words of a Gentile king.
"Then Huram king of Tyre said in a letter sent to Solomon: 'Because Yahweh loves His people, He has given you to be king over them.' Then Huram said, 'Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, who has made heaven and earth...'" (2 Chronicles 2:11-12)
Stop right there. Let that sink in. This is not David writing a psalm. This is not a prophet speaking. This is Huram, king of Tyre. Tyre was a center of pagan commerce, a seafaring power, a city that would later be condemned by the prophets for its pride and slave-trading. And yet, out of the mouth of its king comes this stunning theological confession. He gets two fundamental things right that many in the church today get wrong.
First, he understands the basis of godly government. Why does Solomon rule? "Because Yahweh loves His people." Legitimate authority is not a raw power grab. It is not the result of a social contract. It is a gift of God's covenant love to His people. Good rulers are an expression of God's kindness. Bad rulers are a form of His judgment. Huram, the pagan, understands that political theology better than most modern political science departments. He sees that Solomon's throne is a manifestation of God's grace.
Second, he blesses the right God. He says, "Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel." He uses God's covenant name, Yahweh. And he doesn't just identify Him as a local, tribal deity. He is the God "who has made heaven and earth." This is a direct quote from the language of Genesis. Huram is making a creation-level confession. He is acknowledging that the God of this small nation, Israel, is the transcendent Creator of all things. Now, is Huram a fully converted, regenerate believer? The text doesn't say. He may be simply a shrewd diplomat, speaking the language of his business partner. But it doesn't matter. God can make the rocks cry out, and He can certainly make a pagan king speak the truth. This is common grace, at the very least, and it demonstrates that the testimony of God's work in Israel was having its intended effect. It was getting out. The Gentiles were hearing the rumors of Yahweh.
This is a picture of the fear of the Lord falling on the nations. When God's people are faithful, when they are building what He has called them to build, the world takes notice. They may not like it, but they cannot ignore it. Huram's confession is what happens when the church is acting like the church. The world is forced to reckon with our God.
Wisdom for God's House (v. 12-14)
Huram continues by recognizing the source and purpose of Solomon's wisdom, and then provides a man to match it.
"...who has given King David a wise son, knowledgeable in insight and understanding, who will build a house for Yahweh and a royal palace for himself. So now, I am sending Huram-abi, a wise man, who is knowledgeable in understanding, the son of a Danite woman and a Tyrian father..." (2 Chronicles 2:12-14)
Notice the connection. God's gift of a wise son is directly linked to the task at hand: building a house for Yahweh. True wisdom is not abstract; it is architectural. It is for building. God gives wisdom for a purpose, and that purpose is the establishment of His kingdom, His dwelling place. Solomon's wisdom was not just for judging court cases or writing proverbs; it was for the glorious, practical, gritty work of building the temple. This is a principle we must recover. Theology is for building the church. Doctrine is for doxology. Wisdom is for work.
And in response to Solomon's wisdom, Huram sends a man of commensurate skill, Huram-abi. This man is a master craftsman, a genius in multiple disciplines, from metallurgy to fabrics to engraving. He is the man who will fashion the glorious implements of the temple. But look at his lineage: his mother is a Danite, from Israel, but his father is a Tyrian. He is a half-breed. He is a living embodiment of this joint venture. He has the heritage of Israel and the skill of Tyre. God brings together these two streams to accomplish His purpose.
This is a beautiful foreshadowing of the gospel. The church is built by the ultimate Wise Son, Jesus Christ. And He builds His church not just with pure-bred Jews, but by calling craftsmen from every tribe and tongue. He takes the raw skill of the Gentiles, sanctifies it, and puts it to work for His glory. Your background, your talents, your earthly trade, they are not irrelevant to the kingdom. God wants to press them into the service of building His house, just as He did with Huram-abi's skill in gold and silver and bronze.
Covenantal Commerce (v. 15-16)
The arrangement is finalized with a description of the trade, a kind of covenantal commerce.
"So now, let my lord send to his servants wheat and barley, oil and wine, of which he has spoken. And we will cut whatever timber you need from Lebanon and bring it to you on rafts by sea to Joppa, so that you may carry it up to Jerusalem." (2 Chronicles 2:15-16)
This is not exploitation. This is a mutually beneficial, orderly exchange. Solomon provides the fruit of the Promised Land, the agricultural bounty of God's blessing: wheat, barley, oil, and wine. These are covenant staples. In return, Huram provides the cedars of Lebanon, legendary for their quality, and the logistics to get them to Israel. Israel's sustenance feeds the Gentile workers who are preparing the materials for God's house.
This is a picture of the Great Commission in economic terms. The church, nourished by the bread and wine of Christ, has a spiritual sustenance that the world needs. And the world has resources, structures, and skills that God intends to commandeer for His purposes. When the church is healthy and confident in its mission, it doesn't hide from the world; it engages in robust, transformative commerce with it. We take their timber and build a temple. We take their technology and spread the gospel. We take their art forms and fill them with Christian truth. We are not to be afraid of the cedars of Lebanon. We are to be wise master builders, like Solomon, knowing how to acquire them and what to do with them.
The logs are floated down to Joppa, the port city. It is from Joppa that Jonah would later try to flee from his mission to the Gentiles. But here, long before, Joppa is the entry point for Gentile resources to build the house of God. And it is from that same area that Peter would receive his vision to take the gospel to the Gentile Cornelius. God is weaving His story together with stunning consistency. The path of the logs from Lebanon to Jerusalem is a prophecy of the path the gospel would take, going out to the nations and drawing their glory back into the city of God.
Conclusion: Building the True Temple
This entire episode is more than a historical account of an ancient building project. It is a type, a shadow, of a greater reality. Solomon is a son of David, a king of peace, a wise builder. But he is a pointer to the ultimate Son of David, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom.
Solomon built a house of stone and wood. Christ is building a house of living stones (1 Peter 2:5). That house is the church. And He is building it in the exact same way: with an international crew. The Apostle Paul says that in Christ, the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile has been torn down, creating one new man. He says we, the Gentiles, who were once far off, have been brought near. We are "fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone" (Ephesians 2:19-20).
We are the fulfillment of this story. The confession of Huram finds its ultimate expression in the mouths of billions of former pagans who now bless the God of Israel, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The craftsmanship of Huram-abi is a picture of the Spirit-giftedness of every believer, called to use their skills to build up the body of Christ. The covenantal trade of wheat for timber is a picture of the gospel going out into all the world and the glory and honor of the nations being brought into the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:26).
Therefore, we must not think small. Our God has global ambitions. He is building His house, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. He has called us to be part of the construction crew. This means we must be wise like Solomon, engaging the world without being compromised by it. It means we must be skillful like Huram-abi, dedicating our earthly talents to a heavenly purpose. And it means we must be confident, like Huram himself was, that our God is the God of heaven and earth, and that His love for His people will ultimately result in a house so glorious that it fills the whole earth.