The Jews prepare to build the temple’s foundation by hiring masons and carpenters. Masons work on stone and carpenters work with wood. Most of the Israelites who returned probably did not have the skills needed to work with stone and wood. As a result, they had to hire labourers.
7 So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and the Tyrians to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus king of Persia.