It was to these apostates that Solomon looked for a master workman to superintend the construction of the temple on Mount Moriah. Minute specifications, in writing, regarding every portion of the sacred structure, had been entrusted to the king, and he should have looked to God in faith for consecrated helpers, to whom would have been granted special skill for doing with exactness the work required. But Solomon lost sight of this opportunity to exercise faith in God. He sent to the king of Tyre for “a man cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue, and that can skill to grave with the cunning men ... In Judah and in Jerusalem” (2 Chronicles 2:7).
(2SM 175.1)
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The Phoenician king responded by sending Huram, “a cunning man, endued with understanding, ... The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre” (2 Chronicles 2:13, 14). This master workman, Huram, was a descendant, on his mother’s side, of Aholiab, to whom, hundreds of years before, God had given special wisdom for the construction of the tabernacle. Thus at the head of Solomon’s company of workmen there was placed an unsanctified man, who demanded large wages because of his unusual skill.
(2SM 175.2)
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Huram’s efforts were not prompted by a desire to render his highest service to God. He served the god of this world—Mammon. The very fibers of his being had been inwrought with principles of selfishness, which were revealed in his grasping for the highest wages. And gradually these wrong principles came to be cherished by his associates. As they labored with him day after day, and yielded to the inclination to compare his wages with their own, they began to lose sight of the holy character of their work, and to dwell upon the difference between their wages and his. Gradually they lost their spirit of self-denial, and fostered a spirit of covetousness. The result was a demand for higher wages, which was granted them.
(2SM 175.3)
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