King Solomon offered as a sacrifice twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep: Kings in other ancient Near Eastern countries also offered large sacrifices on special occasions. The Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II offered more than 74,000 animals when he dedicated his palace at Calah in 879 B.C. If the king is explicitly named in the previous verse, King Solomon may be translated with a pronoun here. As in the previous verse, sacrifice has a plural sense here. Good News Translation says “fellowship offerings.” Fellowship offerings were sacrifices in which only a part of the animal was burned on the altar while the rest was eaten by the worshipers (see the comments on 1 Chr 16.1). The context indicates that this is the particular type of sacrifice intended here. Revised Standard Version refers to these sacrifices as “peace offerings” (verse 7). For oxen see the comments on 1 Chr 12.40. The number a hundred and twenty thousand probably suggests that ten thousand sheep were killed for each of the twelve tribes. The Hebrew word for sheep may refer to “sheep and goats” (New International Version, Bible en français courant).

So the king and all the people dedicated the house of God: The Hebrew verb translated dedicated has a basic meaning of “to use for the first time” or “to put [something] into use.” This Hebrew root lies behind the word “Hanukkah,” the Jewish winter celebration in memory of the rededication of the Temple at the time of the Maccabees. In some languages the idea here may have to be rendered as “inaugurated” (Bible en français courant) or “opened.”

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Chronicles, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2014. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .