an artificer in stone. The Tyrians seem to have been specially skilled in architecture (1Ki 5:17-18; 2Sa 5:11). This art the Hebrews no doubt learned in Egypt (Ex 1:11,14), where ruins of temples and palaces fill the traveller with wonder at the present day.
So they put overseers of forced work over them, in order to make their strength less by the weight of their work. And they made store-towns for Pharaoh, Pithom and Raamses.
And made their lives bitter with hard work, making building-material and bricks, and doing all sorts of work in the fields under the hardest conditions.
By the king's orders great stones, stones of high price, were cut out, so that the base of the house might be made of squared stone. Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders did the work of cutting them, and put edges on them, and got the wood and the stone ready for the building of the house.
Basic English, produced by Mr C. K. Ogden of the Orthological Institute - public domain