Kore

Biblical Record

Kore appears only in 2 Chronicles 31:14. The text introduces him as "Kore the son of Imnah the Levite, the porter toward the east." After Hezekiah restored temple worship, the people brought tithes and offerings in abundance, and the king ordered storerooms to be prepared in the temple. Oversight of the storerooms as a whole was entrusted to Conaniah and his brother Shimei (2 Chronicles 31:11-13).

Within this arrangement, Kore was responsible for two things:

• Freewill offerings: offerings given not as a fixed obligation but voluntarily, of the giver's own accord.
• The most holy things: the portions of the sacrifices set apart as "most holy," which belonged to the priests.

Kore distributed these. Under him, Eden, Miniamin, Jeshua, Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shecaniah served in the cities of the priests. They gave portions "to their brethren by courses, as well to the great as to the small" (2 Chronicles 31:15), that is, according to their divisions and without regard to age. Nothing else is recorded about his life.

Significance in Scripture

Kore illustrates the administrative work behind Hezekiah's reform. Chronicles records that the restoration of worship led to the fair management and distribution of offerings, and Kore's office is presented as one part of that work. He is not mentioned in the New Testament.

Interpretation and Issues

Kore should be distinguished from another man of the same name. The Kore of 1 Chronicles 9:19 and 26:1 was a descendant of Korah and the father of Shallum and Meshelemiah. That Kore belonged to a family of gatekeepers in the time of David. Moreover, in 1 Chronicles 26:14 the family of Meshelemiah (Shelemiah) was assigned the east gate. For this reason, some suggest that Kore, the east-gate gatekeeper of Hezekiah's time, may have come from the same family and borne the name of an ancestor. The text of 2 Chronicles, however, identifies his lineage only as the son of Imnah.

In the Korean Revised Version, a search for "Kore" (고레) also returns the Persian king Cyrus and the place name En-hakkore (Judges 15:19), because their Korean spellings contain the same syllables; these, however, are unrelated to this individual.

In the Korean Church

Kore is rarely treated on his own in sermons or Sunday school. He is usually mentioned only as one of the temple servants when Hezekiah's reform in 2 Chronicles 31 is explained.