KJV ORIGINAL
And he set threescore and ten thousand of them to be bearers of burdens, and fourscore thousand to be hewers in the mountain, and three thousand and six hundred overseers to set the people a work.
Close to the original. Clear modern English.
✦ MADE SIMPLE
He assigned 70,000 of them to carry materials, 80,000 to cut stone in the mountains, and 3,600 supervisors to manage the workers.
⚡ THE BOTTOM LINE
King Solomon organized a massive workforce with specific jobs - laborers, stonecutters, and supervisors - to build God's temple.
📚 Historical Context
This verse describes Solomon's organization of foreign workers (mainly from conquered peoples) to build the temple in Jerusalem around 960 BC. These numbers show the enormous scale of this construction project, which was considered one of the greatest building endeavors of the ancient world. The temple took seven years to complete and required skilled craftsmen and massive amounts of materials.
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