1 Chronicles 29:16

16 God, our God, all these materials - these piles of stuff for building a house of worship for you, honoring your Holy Name - it all came from you! It was all yours in the first place!

1 Chronicles 29:16 Meaning and Commentary

1 Chronicles 29:16

O Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared
Of gold, silver that he and his people had provided and contributed: the gold, according to Jacob Leon ^F18, amounted to 59,766 tons of gold, and 46,123 gilders, each ton to be reckoned at least 1000 pounds sterling; the silver, reduced to the value of gold, made 46,337 tons, and two hundred and fifty gilders; but both, according to Witsius ^F19, amounted to 20,585 tons of gold; and if the talents were talents of the sanctuary, and they double the common talents, as some say they were, it was as much more, and may well be expressed by

all this store,
besides the brass, iron

to build thee an house for thine holy name;
to perform holy and religious worship in it, for the glory of his name: cometh of

thine hand, and [is] all thine own:
this he repeats, that God might have all the glory of all they had and did.

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FOOTNOTES:

F18 Relation of Memorable Things in the Tabernacle and Temple, ch. 3. p. 14, 15.
F19 Miscellan. tom. 2. p. 258.

1 Chronicles 29:16 In-Context

14 "But me - who am I, and who are these my people, that we should presume to be giving something to you? Everything comes from you; all we're doing is giving back what we've been given from your generous hand.

15 As far as you're concerned, we're homeless, shiftless wanderers like our ancestors, our lives mere shadows, hardly anything to us.

16 God, our God, all these materials - these piles of stuff for building a house of worship for you, honoring your Holy Name - it all came from you! It was all yours in the first place!

17 I know, dear God, that you care nothing for the surface - you want us, our true selves - and so I have given from the heart, honestly and happily. And now see all these people doing the same, giving freely, willingly - what a joy!

18 O God, God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, keep this generous spirit alive forever in these people always, keep their hearts set firmly in you.