Then Solomon said, “Yahweh has said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. I have surely built you a house of habitation, a place for you to dwell in forever.”
The king turned his face around, and blessed all the assembly of Israel; and all the assembly of Israel stood. He said, “Blessed is Yahweh, the God of Israel, who spoke with his mouth to David your father, and has with his hand fulfilled it, saying, ‘Since the day that I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel to build a house, that my name might be there; but I chose David to be over my people Israel.’
“Now it was in the heart of David my father to build a house for the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel. But Yahweh said to David my father, ‘Whereas it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart. Nevertheless, you shall not build the house; but your son who shall come out of your body, he shall build the house for my name.’ Yahweh has established his word that he spoke; for I have risen up in the place of David my father, and I sit on the throne of Israel, as Yahweh promised, and have built the house for the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel. There I have set a place for the ark, in which is Yahweh’s covenant, which he made with our fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.”
Solomon stood before Yahweh’s altar in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven; and he said, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above, or on earth beneath; who keeps covenant and loving kindness with your servants, who walk before you with all their heart; who has kept with your servant David my father that which you promised him. Yes, you spoke with your mouth, and have fulfilled it with your hand, as it is today. Now therefore, may Yahweh, the God of Israel, keep with your servant David my father that which you have promised him, saying, ‘There shall not fail from you a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children take heed to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.’
“Now therefore, God of Israel, please let your word be verified, which you spoke to your servant David my father. But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built! Yet have respect for the prayer of your servant, and for his supplication, Yahweh my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you today; that your eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there;’ to listen to the prayer which your servant prays toward this place. Listen to the supplication of your servant, and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. Yes, hear in heaven, your dwelling place; and when you hear, forgive.
“If a man sins against his neighbor, and an oath is laid on him to cause him to swear, and he comes and swears before your altar in this house; then hear in heaven, and act, and judge your servants, condemning the wicked, to bring his way on his own head, and justifying the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness.
“When your people Israel are struck down before the enemy, because they have sinned against you; if they turn again to you, and confess your name, and pray and make supplication to you in this house; then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land which you gave to their fathers.
“When the sky is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against you; if they pray toward this place, and confess your name, and turn from their sin, when you afflict them, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, and of your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on your land, which you have given to your people for an inheritance.
“If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight, mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities; whatever plague, whatever sickness there is; whatever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who shall each know the plague of his own heart, and spread out his hands toward this house, then hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and give to every man according to all his ways, whose heart you know (for you, even you only, know the hearts of all the children of men); that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land which you gave to our fathers.
“Moreover concerning the foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, when he comes out of a far country for your name’s sake (for they shall hear of your great name, and of your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm); when he comes and prays toward this house; hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you for; that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, to fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by your name.
“If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to Yahweh toward the city which you have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for your name; then hear in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause. If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn’t sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near; yet if they repent in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, ‘We have sinned, and have done perversely; we have dealt wickedly;’ if they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built for your name; then hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven, your dwelling place, and maintain their cause; and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions in which they have transgressed against you; and give them compassion before those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them (for they are your people, and your inheritance, which you brought out of Egypt, from the middle of the iron furnace); that your eyes may be open to the supplication of your servant, and to the supplication of your people Israel, to listen to them whenever they cry to you. For you separated them from among all the peoples of the earth, to be your inheritance, as you spoke by Moses your servant, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, Lord Yahweh.”
It was so, that when Solomon had finished praying all this prayer and supplication to Yahweh, he arose from before Yahweh’s altar, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread out toward heaven. He stood, and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying, “Blessed be Yahweh, who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. There has not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by Moses his servant. May Yahweh our God be with us, as he was with our fathers. Let him not leave us or forsake us; that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and his ordinances, which he commanded our fathers. Let these my words, with which I have made supplication before Yahweh, be near to Yahweh our God day and night, that he may maintain the cause of his servant, and the cause of his people Israel, as every day requires; that all the peoples of the earth may know that Yahweh himself is God. There is no one else.
“Let your heart therefore be perfect with Yahweh our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as it is today.”
The king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before Yahweh. Solomon offered for the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered to Yahweh, twenty two thousand head of cattle, and one hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated Yahweh’s house. The same day the king made the middle of the court holy that was before Yahweh’s house; for there he offered the burnt offering, and the meal offering, and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar that was before Yahweh was too little to receive the burnt offering, the meal offering, and the fat of the peace offerings. So Solomon held the feast at that time, and all Israel with him, a great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of Egypt, before Yahweh our God, seven days and seven more days, even fourteen days. On the eighth day he sent the people away; and they blessed the king, and went to their tents joyful and glad in their hearts for all the goodness that Yahweh had shown to David his servant, and to Israel his people.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv13, 20, 21, 23, 27, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38, 41, 43, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 54, 58, 59, 63, 65, 66 He spake according to the tenor of God’s promise…
He spake according to the tenor of God’s promise which was conditionally that they should serve him aright.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv12–66 1Ki 8:12 Then spake Solomon, The LORD said that…
1Ki 8:12 Then spake Solomon, The LORD said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.
Ver. 12. The Lord hath said that he would dwell.] {Lev 16:1-2 Psa 18:11-12; Psa 97:2} He hath said it, and he hath often done it, for man’s sake, who can far less look upon God in his excellency, than he can upon the sun in rota, in the circle wherein it runneth. These words therefore Solomon uttereth in the rapture of his joy for that glorious sight of God which he beheld from the brazen scaffold that was built for him in the outward court. {2Ch 6:13}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 65, 66 Perceiving both priests and people struck with horror and…
Perceiving both priests and people struck with horror and wonder at this darkness, he minds them that this was no sign of God’s dislike or disfavour, as some of them might possibly imagine; but a token of his approbation, and grace, and special presence among them.
The Lord said; not in express words, but by plain consequence, because he hath declared, both by his words and actions, that he would manifest his presence with and dwelling among his people by a dark cloud, in which he would appear. See Exo 13:21,22; 24:16; 40:35; Num 9:15; Deu 4:11; 5:22; Psa 18:12; 97:2.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv12, 22, 54, 62 Here, I. Solomon encourages the priests, who came out…
Here, I. Solomon encourages the priests, who came out of the temple from their ministration, much astonished at the dark cloud that overshadowed them. The disciples of Christ feared when they entered into the cloud, though it was a bright cloud (Luk 9:34), so did the priests when they found themselves wrapped in a thick cloud. To silence their fears, 1. He reminds them of that which they could not but know, that this was a token of God's presence (Kg1 8:12): The Lord said he would dwell in the thick darkness. It is so far from being a token of his displeasure that it is an indication of his favour; for he had said, I will appear in a cloud, Lev 16:2. Note, Nothing is more effectual to reconcile us to dark dispensations than to consider what God hath said, and to compare his word and works together; as Lev 10:3, This is that which the Lord hath said. God is light (Jo1 1:5), and he dwells in light (Ti1 6:16), but he dwells with men in the thick darkness, makes that his pavilion, because they could not bear the dazzling brightness of his glory. Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself. Thus our holy faith is exercised and our holy fear is increased. Where God dwells in light faith is swallowed up in vision and fear in love. 2. He himself bids it welcome, as worthy of all acceptation; and since God, by this cloud, came down to take possession, he does, in a few words, solemnly give him possession (Kg1 8:13): "Surely I come," says God. "Amen," says Solomon, "Even so, come, Lord,. The house is thy own, entirely thy own, I have surely built it for thee, and furnished it for thee; it is for ever thy own, a settled place for thee to abide in for ever; it shall never be alienated nor converted to any other use; the ark shall never be removed from it, never unsettled again." It is Solomon's joy that God has taken possession; and it is his desire that he would keep possession. Let not the priests therefore dread that in which Solomon so much triumphs.
II. He instructs the people, and gives them a plain account concerning this house, which they now saw God take possession of. He spoke briefly to the priests, to satisfy them (a word to the wise), but turned his face about (Kg1 8:14) from them to the congregation that stood in the outer court, and addressed himself to them largely.
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1. He blessed them. When they saw the dark cloud enter the temple they blessed themselves, being astonished at it and afraid lest the thick darkness should be utter darkness to them. The amazing sight, such as they had never seen in their days, we may suppose, drove every man to his prayers, and the vainest minds were made serious by it. Solomon therefore set in with their prayers, and blessed them all, as one having authority (for the less is blessed of the better); in God's name, he spoke peace to them, and a blessing, like that with which the angel blessed Gideon when he was in a fright, upon a similar occasion. Jdg 6:22, Jdg 6:23, Peace be unto thee. Fear not; thou shalt not die. Solomon blessed them, that is, he pacified them, and freed them from the consternation they were in. To receive this blessing, they all stood up, in token of reverence and readiness to hear and accept it. It is a proper posture to be in when the blessing is pronounced.
2. He informed them concerning this house which he had built and was now dedicating.
(1.) He began his account with a thankful acknowledgment of the good hand of his God upon him hitherto: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, Kg1 8:15. What we have the pleasure of God must have the praise of. He thus engaged the congregation to lift up their hearts in thanksgivings to God, which would help to still the tumult of spirit which, probably, they were in. "Come," says he, "let God's awful appearances not drive us from him, but draw us to him; let us bless the Lord God of Israel." Thus Job, under a dark scene, blessed the name of the Lord. Solomon here blessed God, [1.] For his promise which he spoke with his mouth to David. [2.] For the performance, that he had now fulfilled it with his hand. We have then the best sense of God's mercies, and most grateful both to ourselves and to our God, when we run up those streams to the fountain of the covenant, and compare what God does with what he has said.
(2.) Solomon is now making a solemn surrender or dedication of this house unto God, delivering it to God by his own act and deed. Grants and conveyances commonly begin with recitals of what has been before done, leading to what is now done: accordingly, here is a recital of the special causes and considerations moving Solomon to build this house. [1.] He recites the want of such a place. It was necessary that this should be premised; for, according to the dispensation they were under, there must be but one place in which they must expect God to record his name. If, therefore, there were any other chosen, this would be a usurpation. But he shows, from what God himself had said, that there was no other (Kg1 8:16): I chose no city to build a house in for my name; therefore there is occasion for the building of this. [2.] He recites David's purpose to build such a place. God chose the person first that should rule his people (I chose David, Kg1 8:16) and then put it into his heart to build a house for God's name, Kg1 8:17. It was not a project of his own, for the magnifying of himself; but his good father, of blessed memory, laid the first design of it, though he lived not to lay the first stone. [3.] He recites God's promise concerning himself. God approved his father's purpose (Kg1 8:18): Thou didst well, that it was in thy heart. Note, Sincere intentions to do good shall be graciously approved and accepted of God, though Providence prevent our putting them in execution. The desire of a man is his kindness. See Co2 8:12. God accepted David's good will, yet would not permit him to do the good work, but reserved the honour of it for his son (Kg1 8:19): He shall build the house to my name; so that what he had done was not of his own head, nor for his own glory, but the work itself was according to his father's design and his doing it was according to God's designation. [4.] He recites what he himself had done, and with what intention: I have built a house, not for my own name, but for the name of the Lord God of Israel (Kg1 8:20), and set there a place for the ark, Kg1 8:21. Thus all the right, title, interest, claim, and demand, whatsoever, which he or his had or might have in or to this house, or any of its appurtenances, he resigns, surrenders, and gives up, to God for ever. It is for his name, and his ark. In this, says he, the Lord hath performed his word that he spoke. Note, Whatever good we do, we must look upon it as the performance of God's promise to us, rather than the performance of our promises to him. The more we do for God the more we are indebted to him; for our sufficiency is of him, and not of ourselves.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv12–63 And then spake Solomon,.... Perceiving by this symbol that…
And then spake Solomon,.... Perceiving by this symbol that the Lord was come into his house, to take up his dwelling in it, and seeing the priests and people in consternation at it, spake the following words to their comfort:
the Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness; and now was fulfilling his promise, and therefore to be considered not as a token of his displeasure, but of his gracious presence; this was done for the greater awe of the divine Majesty, and to denote the darkness of the former dispensation; reference may be had to Lev 16:2 or rather this was now said by the Lord, that is, it appeared to be his resolution and determination to dwell in this manner; the Targum is,
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"the Lord is pleased to cause his Shechinah or divine Majesty to dwell in Jerusalem,''
in the temple there. This was imitated by the Heathens; hence the Lacedemonians had a temple dedicated to Jupiter Scotitas, or the dark, as Pausanias (u) relates; and the Indian Pagans to this day affect darkness in their temples, and are very careful that no light enter into them but by the door, which is commonly strait and low, and by little crevices in the windows (w).
(u) Laconica, sive, I. 3. p. 178. (w) Agreement of Customs between the East-Indians and Jews, art. 5. p. 35.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv12, 14, 16, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 48, 49, 55, 56, 58, 61, 63, 64, 65, 66 Then spake - Perceiving both priests and people struck…
Then spake - Perceiving both priests and people struck with wonder at this darkness, he minds them, that this was no sign of God's disfavour, as some might possibly imagine; but a token of his approbation, and special presence among them. Said - He hath declared, that he would manifest his presence with, and dwelling among his people, by a dark cloud, in which he would appear.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv12, 13, 14, 16, 21, 22, 24, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 37, 41, 44, 46, 50, 55, 59, 61, 63, 64, 65, 66 Verse 12. The Lord said - he would dwell]…
Verse 12. The Lord said - he would dwell] It was under the appearance of a cloud that God showed himself present with Israel in the wilderness; see Ex 14:19-20. And at the dedication of the tabernacle in the wilderness, God manifested himself in the same way that he did here at the dedication of the temple; see Ex 40:34-35.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 50, 53, 55, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 65 1Ki 8:12. Then spake Solomon — Perceiving both priests…
1Ki 8:12. Then spake Solomon — Perceiving both priests and people to be struck with consternation and horror at this supernatural and sudden darkness, he uttered the words which follow, to compose their minds and comfort them. The Lord said he would dwell in the thick darkness — This dark cloud, therefore, is not a sign of his displeasure, as some may imagine, but rather a token of his special presence with us, and approbation of us, and that he owns this for his house, and will dwell in it, according to his declaration respecting the tabernacle, that he would appear in a cloud upon the mercy-seat, Lev 16:2. See also Deu 4:11; Deu 5:22; Psa 97:2; Exo 40:35.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv12, 14, 15, 16, 22, 23, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 36, 37, 38, 41, 42, 43, 47, 50, 51, 54, 58, 61, 63, 64, 65, 66 Rather, “The Lord spake of dwelling in the thick…
Rather, “The Lord spake of dwelling in the thick darkness” (margin reference). Solomon sees in the cloud the visible symbol of God’s presence, and accepts the token as a proof that He has taken possession of the house built for Him, and will thenceforth dwell there 1Ki 8:13.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv12, 13, 14, 15, 22, 25, 27, 29, 31, 32, 34, 37, 38, 39, 41, 44, 47, 51, 59, 63, 64, 65, 66 Cloud. He alludes to Leviticus xvi. 2. (Menochius) ---…
Cloud. He alludes to Leviticus xvi. 2. (Menochius) --- God had so frequently appeared in this manner, that Solomon was authorized to consider it as the symbol of his presence, Exodus xiv. 19., xxiv. 16., and xl. 32., and Psalm xvii. 12. This luminous cloud filled the whole temple, to convince all that the Lord was pleased with the devotion of the king, and of his people. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv12, 13, 14, 22, 62, 63, 64, 65 SOLOMON'S BLESSING. (Kg1 8:12-21)
SOLOMON'S BLESSING. (Kg1 8:12-21)
Then spake Solomon--For the reassurance of the priests and people, the king reminded them that the cloud, instead of being a sign ominous of evil, was a token of approval.
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The Lord said--not in express terms, but by a continuous course of action (Exo 13:21; Exo 24:16; Num 9:15).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv12, 13, 14, 15, 22, 23, 27, 31, 32, 37, 38, 41, 43, 44, 46, 51, 54, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66 12. The Lord said — A reference to such…
12. The Lord said — A reference to such Scriptures as Exo_19:9; Exo_20:21; Lev_6:2; Deu_4:11; Deu_5:22. In some divine communication of his will to Solomon, like that recorded in 1Ki_6:11-13, Jehovah may also have repeated this declaration. The temple, like the tabernacle, was built according to Divine directions.
He would dwell in the thick darkness — He would have the most holy place, in which the symbol of his presence was to dwell, concealed in utter darkness. This fact had its typical significance, indicating that the depths of mystery in the Divine nature and power are past finding out. See on 1Ki_6:31; Psa_18:11; Psa_97:2.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 65, 66 12–21. Solomon’s opening blessing (2Ch_6:1-11)
12–21. Solomon’s opening blessing (2Ch_6:1-11)
12. The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness] Better, as in 2Ch_6:1, ‘The Lord hath said, &c.’ The king’s words are called forth by what he sees: the house enveloped in a thick cloud such that none could remain within nor enter. The allusion is to Lev_16:3, where God says ‘I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.’ Cf. Psa_97:2, ‘Clouds and darkness are round about Him.’ So too God speaks of coming to Moses ‘in a thick cloud,’ Exo_19:9; Exo_20:21.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv12, 14, 15, 16, 21, 23, 25, 27, 31, 33, 35, 37, 41, 44, 50, 51, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 63, 65 (12) The Lord said . . .—The words of…
(12) The Lord said . . .—The words of Solomon, though—as is natural in a moment of mingled awe and thankfulness—somewhat broken and abrupt, are clear enough in their general meaning and connection. He refers to the frequent declarations made in old time that the cloud is the symbol of God’s indwelling presence (such as Exo_19:9, and Lev_16:2);
he recognises in the appearance of the cloud the sign that the Divine presence is granted to the Temple; and accordingly he exults in the proof that his foreordained work is accomplished by the building of a house, a “settled habitation” for the Lord. The description of the cloud as “thick darkness,” in no way contradicts the idea of the glory shining through it; for human eyes are easily “darkened by excess of light.” This mingled light and darkness symbolises—perhaps more strikingly than even the literal darkness of the Most Holy Place—the mystery which veils the presence of God, known to be, and to be infinitely glorious, but in its nature incomprehensible.
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Thenius, from a single Chaldee version, suggests for “thick darkness” the correction “Jerusalem;” dwelling on the closer harmony of the reading with 1Ki_8:16, quoting the promise of Psa_132:13-14 (closely connected there with the great promise of David), and urging the likelihood of the citation of this promise by Solomon, and the greater simplicity thus given to his whole utterance. The suggestion is ingenious; but it lacks authority, both external and internal. The LXX., in the Alexandrine MS. (for the Vatican MS. omits the whole), and the Vulg. agree with the Hebrew text; and Josephus, though he gives a verbose paraphrase of the prayer, evidently had our reading before him, for he contrasts the mystery and ubiquity of the Divine presence with the material shrine. Nor is it easy to conceive how from a passage so simple and prosaic, as this would be with the reading “Jerusalem,” the more difficult, but far more striking, reading of the present text could have arisen.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv12–66 Then spake Solomon in a transport of emotion at…
Then spake Solomon in a transport of emotion at the sight. The cloud and the glory proved that his pious work was accepted. These blessed tokens assured him that "the Lord was there"; (Eze_48:35) that the incomprehensible Godhead had entered the earthly shrine he had prepared, and would dwell there, The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. Heb. lpr lit., darkness of clouds. When did God speak of dwelling in dark cloud? The reference, probably, is to Exo_19:9 Exo_20:21,de Exo_4:11 Exo_5:22 (note that, in the three last cited passages, this same word is used, and in the last two in connexion with cloud, which would appear to be a practically synonymous term), but especially to Lev_16:2, "I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat." Solomon had thus every warrant for connecting a theophany with the thick dark cloud. Cf. Psa_18:11 Psa_97:2. The words cannot refer to "the holy of holies not lighted by windows" (Wordsworth).
Chap. 6. ver. 7, and chap. 8. ver. 12.
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The Silence and the Darkness.
In the first of these passages we are told that the house, built for the habitation of the Most High, was reared in profound silence; in the second, that the Most High Himself dwelleth in the thick darkness.
Now observe, first, that darkness stands in the same relation to sight that silence does to hearing. In the one, nothing is seen; in the other, nothing is heard. And, secondly, that the cloud and the house were alike the shrine and the dwelling place of Deity: the cloud the inner, the temple the outer abode. We learn, therefore, that the God who appears in the cloud Lev_16:2), and dwells in the thick gloom of the oracle, is One who shrouds Himself in silence and darkness. Hence, let us learn
I THAT HE IS A GOD THAT HIDETH HIMSELF. (Isa_45:15) "No man hath seen God at any time". (Joh_1:18 Mat_11:27 Deu_4:12) "Thick darkness is under his feet" Psa_18:9, Hebrews "Darkness is his secret place; dark waters and thick clouds his pavilion". (1Ki_8:11; of. Psa_97:2) And He hides Himself, not as Eastern kings have done (comp. Est_1:14, and Heb 3:84), to enhance their renown and dignity, and to increase the awe and reverence of their subjects omne ignotum pro magnifico but because we cannot see His face and live. (Exo_33:20) "Whom no man hath seen or can 1Ti_6:16). "Dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto" (ib.) Cf. Act_22:11.
II THAT WE CANNOT BY SEARCHING FIND OUT GOD. (Job_11:7) In one sense those are not so far wrong who speak of Him as "the Unknowable." The Quicunque vult describes Him as "Incomprehensible" (Latin, immensus, i.e., immeasureable). Man cannot understand the mysteries of his own existence, how much less the being of the Godhead. If we could understand God, we should be intellectually equal with God. (Gen_3:22) It is no argument against the doctrine of the Trinity, or the eternal generation of the Son, or the procession of the Holy Ghost, that each is a mystery. How could it be otherwise? We have "nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.
III THAT HIS WAYS ARE WRAPPED IS DARKNESS. See Rom_2:3 Deu_29:29 Ecc_11:5. His judgments are an abyss of which we cannot see the bottom. (Psa_36:6) His footsteps are not known. (Psa_77:19) As He dwells in the thick cloud, so are His judgments far above out of sight. (Psa_10:5) "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing". (Pro_25:2) Hence it is that His dealings are often so mysterious and painful, because what He does we know not now. (Joh_13:7) The disciples" feared when they entered into the cloud". (Luk_9:8) "Now we know in part." We only see, it has been said, as it were, the underside of the carpet, and so life is a confused and meaningless mixture. It is not God"s will that we should see the plan and pattern yet. Cf. (Col_1:26 Eph_3:9)
IV THAT HIS WORKS ARE WROUGHT IN SILENCE. He is Himself a God that keepeth silence; Psa_1:3 recognizes this. If silence be golden, the Eternal has observed this golden rule. Men blaspheme Him, defy Him, challenge Him to smite them dead as a well known atheist is said to have done etc., and He keeps silence. Amid "earth"s many voices," amid its everlasting Babel, His voice is never heard. Similarly, He works in the silence. At the creation, "He spake and it was done." "God said, Let there be light, and there was light." Creation moves in silence. We speak of "the music of the spheres; but it is buts beautiful conceit. On the contrary, "there is no speech, no language; their voice is not heard" Psa_19:8, Heb. Much truer is that exquisite conception
"And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth.
The fact is that,
"In solemn silence, all Move round this dark terrestrial ball.
And in silence, too, is this planet sustained and ordered. How
"silently the springtime Her crown of verdure weaves, And all the trees on all the hills Open their thousand leaves.
Or as another, not less beautifully, puts it
"Soundless as chariots on the snow The saplings of the forest grow To trees of mighty girth: Each nightly star in silence burns, And every day in silence turns The axle of the earth.
"The silent frost, with mighty hand, Fetters the rivers and the land With universal chain; And, smitten by the silent sun, The chain is loosed, the rivers run, The lands are free again.
But for the discordant din of men, and but for the voices of beasts and birds, this earth would be a temple of silence. And it is in the silence that God reveals Himself. Not in the great and strong wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in the still small voice. (1Ki_19:12, 1Ki_19:18) "Let us be silent," says one, "that we may hear the whispers of the gods." In the silence, too, His Church has grown. His kingdom "cometh not with observation". (Luk_17:20) As silently as the seed grows, day and night, in the soil; as silently as the leaven works in the meal. And in the silence our Holy Lord will come again as a thief in the night, as a snare, as the lightning.
V THAT ALL THE EARTH SHOULD KEEP SILENCE BEFORE HIM. (Hab_2:20) It is not meant to preach here "the eternal duty of silence," nor that all worship should be "of the silent sort;" but that, in realizing the awful presence of God, men should be hushed into the profoundest awe. When we do "take upon ourselves to speak unto our Lord," we should remember that "we are but dust and ashes". (Gen_18:27) Our finger on our lips, our lips in the dust. It was this feeling, in part, led Solomon to build the temple in silence. And the feeling which found this expression in act he has elsewhere translated in words. (see Ecc_5:1, Ecc_5:2) It was with a similar feeling that our Lord acted. (Mar_11:16) And it is significant that we read of "silence in heaven". (Rev_8:1)
VI THAT GOD"S WORK MUST BE DONE IN SILENCE. "All real work is quiet work. It must be unobtrusive if it is to be fruitful. "The temple was thrown down with axes and hammers, and they that did it roared in the midst of the congregation, (Psa_74:4, Psa_74:6) but it was built up in silence" (M. Henry). A temple of the Lord, a temple of "living stones," is now being built. "O God, that the axes of schism or the hammers of furious contention should be heard within Thy sanctuary" (Hall). It is because of our unseemly cries and wranglings, because of the clash of controversy and the shouts of heated partizans, that this temple has made such poor progress. Not until we have been first hushed into silence can the headstone be brought forth with shouting. (Zec_4:7)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv17, 22, 24, 27, 29, 30, 33, 53, 55, 57, 59, 66 And it was in the heart of David my…
1Ki_8:17-19
And it was in the heart of David my father to build an house for the name of the Lord God of Israel.
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Unaccomplished aims
We are often conscious of inability to carry into effect cherished designs of the soul. As David vainly wished to build the temple, so do all noble souls project service which the limitations of this poor life forbid. Our plans are many and grand, our performances few and small at best. It is a perilous voyage from desire to realisation, and many a gracious speculation is shipwrecked ere it reaches port. Therefore are we often fretted, and regard these unrealised aspirations as a disheartening phase of experience. Why was David prevented from carrying this gracious thought into effect? His purpose seemed in harmony with the Divine commandment: When He giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety; then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause His name to dwell there. Further, Davids purpose seemed altogether pure and generous. David was forbidden to build the house. God saw an unfitness in him for this particular service which had escaped other eyes. There was an impropriety in the red hands of War building the temple of Peace and Mercy, so God excluded His servant from this ministry. Thus we may believe that God often sees deep and cogent reasons for putting aside His servants, even when they contemplate desirable and magnanimous service. The reasons may not be apparent; may never in this life be discovered, and yet such reasons may exist. Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick (2Ti_4:20). Another grand source of practical failure is here touched. How many broken-down servants of God are there to-day, who have proved their sincerity, but whose thin hand can do little or nothing in raising the stones of the shrine they so passionately desire to build. As in the busiest thoroughfares of great cities we behold wistful faces looking down from hospital windows, longing to share in the strong life of the streets; so are there frail, broken watchers of the work of God who long to share the toil and sacrifice of Gods workmen. And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue (Exo_4:10). Physical and educational defects are often real limitations of practical service. Gifted, warm, aggressive souls, without the orators tongue or scholars pen, do what they can and sorrowfully wish it more. Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia; how that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves (2Co_8:1-3). Here is another example of restricted power. Out of much poverty the Macedonians revealed a rich generosity, and would have gone still further, but their power fell behind their will. My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart (Job_17:11). Job views his life as at an end ,and in consequence of the premature ending, his cherished designs frustrated. My heart-purposes are broken off; my profoundest hopes disappointed. This limitation is felt by all genuine vehement natures--the longest]ire not being long enough to realise all the great, gracious ideas which spring up in the soul under the brooding of Gods Spirit. And here we may distinguish between those who have a real interest in the consolatory teaching of the text and those who have none. Folks of a certain order are very ready to infer how differently they would have acted if their fortune had been different, whilst they give no proof of sincerity by doing what is possible to them; in fancy they are ministering cups of wine, whilst in fact they deny the cup of cold water. There are several sources of consolation which ought not to be overlooked by sorrowing souls denied the service on which they have set their affection. Life is not so cruel as it seems, and with all these high aims and great failures, these epic purposes and fragmentary results, it is well to remember several compensations.
1. God knows and accepts the generous purpose of the heart. God is a Spirit, and all within the realm of mind is most real to Him. He knows as a fact whatever is felt in the heart, sanctioned by the judgment, determined by the will, anticipated by the imagination. In the count of God, thoughts are things, desires deeds, purposes performances. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he; and God knows not only the tangible world, but that ampler, richer world which is veiled to the senses. The artist knows that his glowing picture tracing the line of beauty with purple of Tyre and gold of Ophir is but a soiled, blurred reproduction of his dream. So is it with all life. We feel a thousand times, and some baffled ones feel with special grief, how the practical life has come short of the large purpose. The contrast is depressing indeed. But the grand truth in all this is the ideal, is the real; the intentional, the actual; and all these non-suits of life stand accepted and rewarded before Him.
2. Again, the sense of unrealised desire is an index of character we may regard with some satisfaction. We live in the presence of a world of infinite need; the infinite love of Christ expands our heart; and we feel the hope and inspiration of immortality. What wonder that purposes should be born of such sentiments transcending the possibilities of this encumbered life and inelastic world! The power of an endless life works in us, and it is not strange that our desires and designs should outrun these narrow means, rude instruments and fading years.
3. Another manifest consolation in the midst of unfinished work is, what we are not allowed to do will yet be done. David was not to build the temple, but God had a builder in reserve.
4. Finally, wounded by disappointment may we not be comforted in this: that our apparently abortive desires really facilitate the work we have at heart? David proposed and Solomon executed; and this is frequently the order still. One man schemes and another operates; one generation invents and another executes; and if one had not dreamed the other had not executed. It has been said that Lord Falklands life was sacrificed in an indecisive action; so thousands of the noblest servants of the race have fallen in indecisive actions, but if they had not fought bravely and fallen thus, we had never celebrated the decisive battles, the magnificent victories! (W. L. Watkinson.)
Unwrought purposes
I. That men often leave our world with the great purposes of their heart unwrought. David was sincere in his purpose, and God approved of it; but it was nevertheless unaccomplished. With many, the brightest ideals of life are unfulfilled. Life with most is only a broken column--e.g., man of business, student, minister, philanthropist, patriot, politician, etc. By this we are taught the mystery of Providence and the incompleteness of human life. Among the things which contribute to such disappointments are:
(1) want of means,
(2) ill-health,
(3) lack of opportunity.
The Masters life is the only exception. He could say, It is finished.
II. That God is pleased to accept the sincere, though unwrought, purposes of the heart. David did not withhold or withdraw. In his heart and mind he saw in intention a beautiful temple erected to the honour and glory of God, and God accepted the will for the deed, because nothing more than purpose was within his power. Many poor, devoted, godly men and women have resolved to do great things, if only, etc.; weak ones, if only they had strength given; enthusiastic workers, if only doors should open, etc. But the purposes have remained unaccomplished, and God has said to each and all, Thou didst well that it was in thine heart.
III. That the good purposes unwrought by one man may be taken up and completed by another. Solomon did what David could not. He completed what David began. No man is indispensable. Workers die, but Gods work goes on. We enter into other mens labours, are heirs of the affluence of the ages. Responsibility is commensurate with privilege and opportunity. Let us, above all, seek to have our hearts right with God, filled with love for His works, ways, and word. (F. W. Brown.)
Success in failure
All of us have failed, especially those who have been really in earnest. We started full of hope and of high purpose; but the heroic proved too hard, and now in poignant regret it is our portion to contrast what has been with what might have been. We lament that the prizes of life are so few and the blanks so many; but is it not best that it should be so? While it is true that some who have attained success are great men, it is also true that the great majority of those who succeeded are by no means great men. Be it said with all needful reservation, success does not usually develop the best qualities of a man. It frequently vulgarises, and generally hardens, Failed! But, why did they fail? There are ignoble failures: yes, but they are not so numerous as the ignoble successes.
1. The finest things in this worlds history have been the worlds great failures. Nor should you be surprised to hear that spoken in church, where we worship a crucified Man. There are some failures more beautiful and useful to mankind than a thousand triumphs. It is impossible to weigh the value or to judge the legitimacy of a hopeless but heroic sacrifice. Those who die in a forlorn hope are remembered long years after their attempts have failed.
2. Then, be it remembered, failures have made success possible. One success comes after many failures, one victory after many defeats. The work of every great discoverer and inventor, every legislator and reformer, rests on the unrecognised work of unknown predecessors. Our national liberties were won for us, less by the men whose names are blazoned on our historic rolls than by the men who dared too much and were beaten, who died and made no sign.
3. Again I say that the men who succeed are not the men who deserved most, or contributed most. We speak of Solomons Temple, and but few remember that it was David who gathered the materials. Solomons was but the executant hand the son administered the fathers will. Davids ideal became the accomplished work of his successor. And we call it Solomons Temple, but its foundations were laid in Davids heart. The way of the world is to render tribute to the man who lays the coping-stone. Men lightly say of the idealists and would-be reformers, Their efforts went for nothing; things got no better for all their trying. Not so. No true work perishes; the good of it remains. Every noble life (as Ruskin so finely says) leaves the fibre of it interwoven for ever in the work of the world. Oh, there is a fine rebuke to despondency, if you will but take a long view of the past.
4. Finally, failure will put iron into your blood, and make a man of you. I suppose that David was all the better man because he had cherished an ideal that was never to be realised by himself. I suppose that it helped to purge the blood of battle from his robes, and to mellow his old age. I am sure that it lifted and purified his thoughts. He did well that it was in his heart, The best thing in your life is your finest failure. That is the Trinity-high-water-mark of your life: not the greatest thing done, but the greater thing that you tried to do and could not do. Thank God, this worlds judgment is not the final court of appeal. Wordsworth did not feel himself a failure because the British public would not read his poetry: he bated not one jot of heart or hope, but pressed right onward. (B. J. Snell, M. A.)
The will for the deed
I. Our master is most generous with His appreciation. He does not seem to be afraid of spoiling us. He is too good and wise a Father to pamper us, but He is not niggardly with His commendations, as if there were fear of puffing us up, or making us presumptuous. He has other ways of preventing those excesses, but wherever He sees an opportunity to praise, the praise is ungrudgingly given.
1. God did not blame David for any error of judgment. A harder master would have found fault with his servant for his ignorance. Nor does He charge him with presumption. There is no sort of blame. God regarded the motive; since that was pure He approved, so far, the purpose. David thought that it seemed incongruous that while he dwelt in a house of cedar, God should abide within mere curtains. He was jealous for the Lord his God.
2. Moreover, it is evident from this that God never despises the day of small things. So far, it was only in the heart, and, as we know, it was to get very little further. Only in the heart, and yet God could approve, though He Himself knew that the purpose was now to be restrained. You have in your heart many a holy desire, many a blessed aspiration, many a noble ambition. God says to you that He does not despise the day of small things. This is just a seed-corn in the heart, and it may seem to die, to spring up to glorious harvest, or it may actually die. It matters little which if God is in it.
3. Notice next that God actually commends what He eventually forbids.
II. God always us some perfectly righteous reason for disappointing His people. It must he admitted that Davids plan appeared not only honourable and reasonable, but most commendable. Nathan, who was a prophet of the living God, a specially far-seeing and faithful prophet, approved the plan. This he did, not because it was the king s plan, for when occasion demanded he could rebuke King David to his face. Said he, Do all that is in thine heart, for God is with thee. Yet for all that, God steps in and says, No. Can you understand this? Of one thing we are certain; God does not break off our threads just out of caprice. It is something other than whim that causes God to step in and blast our gourds. He is not arbitrary. You know that in Davids case there were reasons. The time had not fully come, for one thing. The throne was not sufficiently established yet; peace was not by this time perfectly secured. But there was also a personal unfitness. God said to David, Thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood. That was Gods reason, and a sufficient one. In any ease you like to quote there is a reason, though it may not be apparent. There is a reason, a right good reason in every case, why the Lord says, No, I prefer that this purpose of yours shall be nipped in the bud. You would like to see it grow, but I like to have some buds on My table sometimes. There is a charm about a half-grown flower, is there not? I wonder who of all this congregation needs just such a word as this. You hoped for a nobler service. You did well that it was in your heart, but the Lord is right, you are better in the humbler position; be content to serve Him there.
III. The Lord never leaves His disappointed ones without compensation. He never takes away a blessing without giving another in return. If He empties one hand, He fills the other; if He does not allow the plan to come to maturity, He gives some blessing that more than makes up for the denial. None like He can interweave mercy with judgment. What did David get? We have seen what he missed and might have mourned.
1. He gave him credit for originating and cherishing this holy des. Thou didst well that it was in thine heart. Gods Well done is the best compensation that even heaven can give.
2. Then David had the pleasure of preparing for the erection of the temple, the special joy of collecting the material and, as I suppose of designing the building and certain of the vessels.
3. God gives a corresponding blessing to that which He removes. David said, Lord, I want to build Thee a house, and God replied, Tis good, David, that is a kind thought. It cannot be, however, but I tell you what--I will build you a house instead. God said, I will build thee a house, not a structure of stone and wood and gold and silver, but a living house, a posterity that should ever sit upon His throne. God pays us in our coin sometimes, and if He seems to rob us with one hand He pays us with the other, and pays us in a corresponding fashion.
4. Then the greatest compensation of all was this, the assurance that the work that David could not do should nevertheless be done. Nevertheless thou shalt not build the house, but thy son that shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build the house unto My name. That sufficed; there could be no murmuring after that. (T. Spurgeon.)
Davids purpose to build the house of God
I. It was well that David in his prosperity remembered God as the author of all prosperity. This proved Davids own piety. But others, besides himself, were concerned in what David did. He was a king, and had the interests of a people to promote. And it was well that such were his thoughts, because it proved that David knew the real foundation of happiness; that happiness of his subjects, which it was his duty to consider. The house of God is the main instrument of religion. Without it, religion can hardly exist, certainly can only be in a languid state, unless there is a place where the word of God be regularly proclaimed, to teach the ignorant, to satisfy the inquirer, to warn the careless, to edify the devout and godly. And without religion, what is human life? We might compare it to a dream, except for the awful difference, that a dream leaves no consequence behind. David, therefore, judged well, rightly understood the welfare of his subjects, when he resolved to build an house to Gods name, and so provided, as far as in him lay, that the rich among his people should walk in the fear of God, and live to his glory.
II. It was well, because he thus gave proof, understood his wealth and honour to be talents for which he must give account. It was well that he did not incur the reproof due to one who is rich to himself, and is not rich towards God. And, further, it was well, it showed a right state of mind, a concern for the real welfare of the community under his charge, that he desired to raise a temple where the rich and the poor might meet together, and worship the Maker of them all.
III. The divine testimony to a character. Judge concerning yourselves by this analogy. All religion must be judged of by its fruits; by the conduct to which it leads. David was approved, because he set himself strenuously to promote Gods glory; because, having been placed upon the throne of Israel his first thought was to honour the God that is above. (J. B. Sumner, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v62 1Ki_8:62-66; 1Ki_9:25
THE TEMPLE SACRIFICES
1Ki_8:62-66; 1Ki_9:25
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"I have chosen this house to Myself for a house of sacrifice."
- 2Ch_7:12
"Gifts and sacrifices, that cannot, as touching the conscience make the worshipper perfect, being only carnal ordinances, imposed until a time of reformation."
- Heb_9:9-10
THE whole sacrificial system with which our thoughts of Judaism are perhaps erroneously, and much too exclusively identified, furnishes us with many problems.
Whether it was originally of Divine origin, or whether it was only an instinctive expression, now of the gratitude, and now of the guilt and fear, of the human heart, we are not told. Nor is the basal idea on which it was founded ever explained to us. Were the ideas of "atonement" or propitiation (Kippurim) really connected with those of substitution and vicarious punishment? Or was the main conception that of self-sacrifice, which was certainly most prominent in the burnt offerings? Doubtless the views alike of priests and worshippers were to a great extent indefinite. We are not told what led Cain and Abel to present their sacrifices to God; nor did Moses-if he were its founder-furnish any theories to explain the elaborate system laid down in the book of Leviticus. The large majority of the Jews probably sacrificed simply because to do so had become a part of their religious observances, and because in doing so they believed themselves to be obeying a Divine command. Others, doubtless, had as many divergent theories as Christians have when they attempt to explain the Atonement. The "substitution" theory of the "sin offering" finds little or no support from the Old Testament; not only is it never stated, but there is not a single clear allusion to it. It is emphatically asserted by later Jewish authorities, such as Rashi, Aben Ezra, Moses ben-Nachman, and Maimonides, and is enshrined in the Jewish liturgy. Yet Dr. Edersheim writes: "The common idea that the burning, either of part or the whole of the sacrifice, pointed to its destruction, and symbolized the wrath of God and the punishment due to sin, does not seem to accord with the statements of scripture." Sacrifices were of two kinds, bloody (Zebach), or unbloody (minchah, korban). The latter were oblations. Such were the cakes of shewbread, the meal and drink offerings, the first sheaf at Passover, the two loaves at Pentecost. In almost every instance the minchah accompanied the offering of a sacrificial victim. The two general rules about all victims for sacrifice were,
(1) that they should be without blemish and without spot, as types of perfectness; and
(2) that every sacrifice should be salted with salt, as an antiseptic, and therefore a type of incorruption. {Mar_9:49}
Sacrificial victims could only be chosen from oxen, sheep, goats, turtle doves; and young pigeons-the latter being the offering of the poor who could not afford the costlier victims. Sacrifices were also divided generally
(1) into free, or obligatory;
(2) public, or private; and
(3) most holy or less holy,
of which the latter were slain at the north and the former at the east side of the altar. The offerer, according to the Rabbis, had to do five things-to lay on hands, slay, skin, dissect, and wash the inwards. The priest had also to do five things at the altar itself-to catch the blood, sprinkle it, light the fire, bring up the pieces, and complete the sacrifices. Sacrifices are chiefly dwelt upon in the Priestly Code; but nowhere in the Old Testament is their significance formally explained, nor for many centuries was the Levitic ritual much regarded. {See Jdg_6:19-21 1Sa_2:13, 1Ki_19:21 2Ki_5:17}
The sacrifices commanded in the Pentateuch fall under four heads.
(1) The burnt offering (Olah, Kalil), which typified complete self-dedication, and which even the heathen might offer;
(2) the sin offering (Chattath), which made atonement for the offender;
(3) the trespass offering (Asham), which atones for some special offence, whether doubtful or certain, committed through ignorance; and
(4) the thank offering, eucharistic peace offering (Shelem), or "offering of completion," which followed the other sacrifices, and of which the flesh was eaten by the priest and the worshippers.
The oldest practice seems only to have known of burnt offerings and thank offerings, and the former seem only to have been offered at great sacrificial feasts. Even in Deuteronomy a common phrase for sacrifices is "eating before the Lord," which is almost ignored in the Priestly Code. Of the sin offering, which in that code has acquired such enormous importance, there is scarcely a trace-unless Hos_4:8 be one, which is doubtful-before Ezekiel, in whom the Asham and Chattath occur in place of the old pecuniary fines. {2Ki_12:16} Originally sacrifice was a glad meal, and even in the oldest part of the code {Leviticus 18-26} sacrifices are comprised under the Olam and Zebach. The turning-point of the history of the Sacrificial system is Josiahs reformation, of which the Priestly Code is the matured result.
It is easy to see that sacrifices in general were eucharistic, dedicatory, and expiatory.
The eucharistic sacrifices (the meal and peace offerings) and the burnt offerings, which indicated the entire sacrifice of self, were the offerings of those who were in communion with God. They were recognitions of His absolute supremacy. The sin and trespass offerings were intended to recover a lost communion with God and thus the sacrifices were, or ultimately came to be, the expression of the great ideas of thanksgiving, of self-dedication, and of propitiation. But the Israelites, "while they seem always to have retained the idea of propitiation and of eucharistic offering, constantly ignored the self-dedication, which is the link between the two, and which the regular burnt offering should have impressed upon them as their daily thought and duty." Had they kept this in view they would have been saved from the superstitions and degeneracies which made their use of the sacrificial system a curse and not a blessing. The expiatory conception, which was probably the latest of the three, expelled the others, and was perverted into the notion that God was a God of wrath, whose fury could be averted by gifts and His favor won by bribes. There was this truth in the notion of propitiation-that God hates, and is alienated by, and will punish, sin; and yet that in His mercy He has provided an Atonement for us. But in trying to imagine how the sacrifice affected God, the Israelites lost sight of the truth that this is an inexplicable mystery, and that all which we can know is the effect which it can produce on the souls of man. If they had interpreted the sacrifices as a whole to mean this only - that man is guilty and that God is merciful; and that though mans guilt separates him from God, reunion with him can be gained by confession, penitence, and self-sacrifice, by virtue of an Atonement which he had revealed and would accept-then the effect of them would have been spiritually wholesome and ennobling. But when they came to think that sacrifices were presents to God, which might be put in the place of amendment and moral obedience, and that the punishment due to their offences might be thus mechanically diverted upon the heads of innocent victims, then the sacrificial system was rendered not only nugatory but pernicious. Nor have Christians been exempt from a similar corruption of the doctrine of the Atonement. In treating it as vicarious and expiatory they have forgotten that it is unavailing unless it be also representative. In looking upon it as the atonement for sin they have overlooked that there can be no such atonement unless it be accompanied by redemption from sin. They have tacitly and practically acted on the notion, which in the days of St. Paul some even avowed, that "we may continue in sin that grace may abound." But in the great work of redemption the will of man cannot be otiose. He must himself die with Christ. As Christ was sacrificed for him, he, too, must offer his body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. "Without the sin offering of the Cross," says Bishop Barry, "our burnt offering (of self-dedication) would be impossible; so also without the burnt offering the sin offering will, to us, be unavailing."
Many of the crudities, and even horrors, which, alike in Jewish and Christian times, have been mixed up with the idea of bloody sacrifices, would have been removed if more attention had been paid to the prominence and real significance of blood in the entire ritual. As taught by some revivalists the doctrine of the blood adds the most revolting touches to theories which assimilate God to Moloch; hut the true significance of the phrase and of the symbol elevates the entire doctrine of sacrifice into a purer and more spiritual atmosphere.
The central significance of the whole doctrine lies in the ancient opinion that "the blood" of the sacrifice was "its life." This was why an expiatory power was ascribed to the blood. There was certainly no transfer of guilt to the animal, for its blood remained clean and cleansing. Nor was the animal supposed to undergo the transgressors punishment; first, because this is nowhere stated, and next, because had that been the case, fine flour would certainly not have been permitted (as it was) as a sin offering. {Lev_5:11-13} Moreover, no willful offence, no offense "with uplifted hand," i.e., with evil premeditation, could be atoned for either by sin or trespass offerings; -though certainly so wide a latitude was given to the notion of sin as an involuntary error as to tend to break down the notion of moral responsibility. The sin offering was further offered for some purely accidental and ceremonial offences, which could not involve any real consciousness of guilt. The "blood of the covenant" {Exo_24:4-8} was not of the sin offering, but of peace and burnt offerings; and though, as Canon Cook says, we read of blood in paganism as a propitiation to a hostile demon, "we seem to seek in vain for an instance in which the blood, as a natural symbol for the soul, was offered as an atoning sacrifice." "The atoning virtue of the blood lies not in its material substance, but in the life of which it is the vehicle," says Bishop Westcott. "The blood always includes the thought of the life preserved and active beyond death. It is not simply the price by which the redeemed were purchased, but the power by which they were quickened so as to be capable of belonging to God." "To drink the blood of Christ," says Clement of Alexandria, "is to partake of the Lords incorruption."
Besides the points to which we have alluded, there is a further difficulty created by the singular silence respecting sin offerings of any kind, except in that part of the Old Testament which has recently acquired the name of the Priestly Code.
The word Chattath, in the sense of sin offering, occurs in Exodus 29, 30, and many times in Leviticus and Numbers, and six times in Ezekiel. Otherwise in the Old Testament it is barely mentioned, except in the post-exilic Books of Chronicles {2Ch_29:24} and Ezra. {Ezr_8:25} It is not mentioned in any other historic book; nor in any prophet except Ezekiel. Again as we have seen, the Day of Atonement leaves not a trace in any of the earlier historic records of Scripture, and is found only in the authorities above mentioned. Through all the rest of Scripture the scapegoat is unmentioned, and Azazel is ignored. Dr. Kalisch goes so far as to say that there is conclusive evidence to prove that the Day of Atonement was instituted considerably more than a thousand years after the death of Moses and Aaron. For even in Ezekiel, who wrote B.C. 574, there is no Day of Atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month, but on the first and seventh of the first month (Abib, Nisan). He thinks it utterly impossible that, had it existed in his time, Ezekiel could have blotted out the holiest day of the year, and substituted two of his own arbitrary choice. The rites, moreover, which he describes differ wholly from those laid down in Leviticus. Even in Nehemiah there is no notice of the day of Atonement, though a day was observed on the twenty-fourth of the month. Hence this learned writer infers that even in B.C. 440 the Great Day of Atonement was not yet recognized, and that the pagan element of sending the scapegoat to Azazel, the demon of the wilderness, proves the late date of the ceremony.
It is interesting to observe how utterly the sacrificial priestly system, in the abuses which not only became involved in it, but seemed to be almost inseparable from it, is condemned by the loftier spiritual intuition which belongs to phases of revelation higher than the external and the typical.
Thus in the Old Testament no series of inspired utterances is more interesting, more eloquent, more impassioned and ennobling, than those which insist upon the utter nullity of all sacrifices in themselves, and their absolute insignificance in comparison with the lightest element of the moral law. On this subject the Prophets and the Psalmists use language so sweeping and exceptionless as almost to repudiate the desirability of sacrifices altogether. They speak of them with a depreciation akin to scorn. It may be doubted whether they had the Mosaic system with all its details, as we know it, before them. They do not enter into those final elaborations which it assumed, and not one of them so much as alludes to any service which resembles the powerfully symbolic ceremonial of the Great Day of Atonement. But they speak of the ceremonial law in such fragments and aspects of it as were known to them. They deal with it as priests practiced it, and as priests taught-if they ever taught anything-respecting it. They speak of it as it presented itself to the minds of the people around them, with whom it had become rather a substitute for moral efforts and an obstacle in the path of righteousness, than an aid to true religion. And this is what they say:-
"Hath the Lord as great delight in sacrifice," asks the indignant SAMUEL, "as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." {1Sa_15:22}
"I hate, I despise your feasts," says Jehovah by Amos, "and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer Me your burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Turn thou away from Me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." {Amo_5:21-23}
"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord," asks MICAH, "and bow myself before the most high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good: and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" {Mic_6:6-8}
HOSEA again in a message of Jehovah, twice quoted on different occasions by our Lord, says: "I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." {Hos_6:6} ISAIAH also, in the word of the Lord, gives burning expression to the same conviction: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of lambs, arid the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hands, to trample My courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto Me; new moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies, -I cannot away with iniquity and the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hateth: they are a cumbrance unto Me; I am weary to bear them Wash you, make you clean!" {Isa_1:11-16}
The language of JEREMIAHS message is even more startling: "I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: but this thing I commanded them, saying, Obey My voice." And again-in the version of the LXX, given in the margin of the Revised Version for the unintelligible rendering of the Authorized Version-he asks: "Why hath the-beloved wrought abomination in My house? Shall vows and holy flesh take away from thee thy wickedness, or shalt thou escape by these?" {Jer_7:22, Jer_11:15} Jeremiah, is, in fact the most anti-ritualistic of the prophets. So far from having hid and saved the Ark, he regarded it as entirely obsolete. {Jer_3:16} He cares only for the spiritual covenant written on the heart, and very little, if at all, for Temple services and Levitic scrupulosities. {Jer_7:4-15; Jer_31:31-34} THE PSALMISTS are no less clear and emphatic in putting sacrifices nowhere in comparison with righteousness:-"I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; Nor for thy burnt offerings which are continually before Me. I will take no bullock out of thine house, Nor he-goats out of thy folds."
"Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanksgiving; And pay thy vows unto the Most High." {Psa_50:8-14}
And again:-
"For Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it Thee: Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise." {Psa_51:16-17}
And again:-
"Sacrifice and offering Thou hast no delight in; Mine ears hast thou opened: Burnt offering and sin offering hast Thou not required." {Psa_40:6}
And again:-
"To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice." {Pro_21:3}
And again:-
"I will praise the name of God with a song, And magnify it with thanksgiving. This also shall please the Lord rather than a bullock that hath horns and hoofs." {Psa_69:30-31}
Surely the most careless and conventional reader cannot fail to see that there is a wide difference between the standpoint of the prophets, which is so purely spiritual, and that of the writers and redactors of the Priestly Code, whose whole interest centered in the sacrificial and ceremonial observances. Nor is the intrinsic nullity of the sacrificial system less distinctly pointed out in the New Testament. The better-instructed Jews, enlightened by Christs teaching, could give emphatic testimony to the immeasurable superiority of the moral to the ceremonial. The candid scribe, hearing from Christs lips the two great commandments, answers, "Of a truth, Master, Thou hast well said that He is one; and there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart and to love his neighbor as himself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."
And our Lord quoted Hosea with the emphatic commendation, "Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice." {Mat_9:13} And on another occasion: "But if ye had known what this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless." {Mat_12:7}
The presenting of our bodies, says St. Paul, as a living sacrifice is our reasonable service; and St. Peter calls all Christians a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifice. {1Pe_2:5}
It is impossible, says the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins; and he speaks of the priests daily offering the same sacrifice, the which can never take away sins." {Heb_10:4; Heb_10:11} And again:-"To do good and to distribute forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." {Heb_13:16}
The wisest fathers of Jewish thought in the post-exilic epoch held the same views. Thus the son of Sirach says: "He that keepeth the law bringeth offerings enough." (Ecclus. 35:1-15) And Philo, echoing an opinion common among the best heathen moralists from Socrates to Marcus Aurelius, writes, "The mind, when without blemish, is itself the most holy sacrifice, being entirely and in all respects pleasing to God."
And what is very remarkable, modern Judaism now emphasizes its belief that "neither sacrifice nor a Levitical system belong to the essence of the Old Testament," Such was the view of the ancient Essenes, no less than of Maimonides or Abarbanel. Modern Rabbis even go so far as to argue that the whole system of Levitical sacrifice was an alien element, introduced into Judaism from without, tolerated indeed by Moses, but only as a concession to the immaturity of his people and their hardness of heart.
Such, too, was the opinion of the ancient Fathers of the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, of Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, Jerome, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Cyril, and Theodoret, who are followed by such Roman Catholic theologians as Petavius and Bellarmine.
This at any rate is certain-that the Judaic system is not only abrogated, but rendered impossible. Whatever were its functions, God has stamped with absolute disapproval any attempt to continue them. They are utterly annulled and obliterated forever.
"I am come to repeal the sacrifices." Such is the aypatyov 807^0 ascribed to Christ; "and unless ye desist from sacrificing, the wrath of God will not desist from you." The argument of St. Paul in the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, and of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, show us why this was inevitable; and they were but following the initiative of Christ and the teaching of His Spirit. It is a mistake to imagine that our Lord merely repudiated the inane pettinesses of Pharisaic formalism. He went much further. There is not the slightest trace that He personally observed the requirements of the ceremonial law. It is certain that He broke them when he touched the leper and the dead youths bier. The law insisted on the centralization of worship, but Jesus said, "The day cometh, and now is, when neither in Jerusalem, nor yet in this mountain, shall men worship the Father. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." The law insisted, with extreme emphasis, on the burdensome distinctions between clean and unclean meats. Jesus said that it is not that which cometh from without, but that which cometh from within which defileth a man, and this He said "making all meats clean." {Mar_7:19} St. Paul, when the types of Mosaism had been forever fulfilled in Christ, and the antitype had thus become obsolete and pernicious, went further still. Taking circumcision, the most ancient and most distinctive rite of the Old Dispensation, he called it "concision" or mere mutilation, and said thrice over, "Circumcision, is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but a new creature"; "but faith working by love," "but the keeping of the commandment of God." The whole system of Judaism was local, was external, was minute, was inferior, was transient, was a concession to infirmity, was a yoke of bondage: the whole system of Christianity is universal, is spiritual, is simple, is un-sacrificial, is un-sacerdotal, is perfect freedom. Judaism was a religion of a temple, of sacrifices, of a sacrificial priesthood: Christianity is a religion in which the Spirit of God
"Doth prefer before all temples the upright heart and pure."
It is a religion in which there is no more sacrifice for sin, because the one perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction, has been consummated for ever. It is a religion in which there is no altar but the Cross; in which there is no priest but Christ, except so far as every Christian is by metaphor a priest to offer up spiritual sacrifices which alone are acceptable to God.
The Temple of Solomon lasted only four centuries, and they were for the most part years of dishonor, disgrace, and decadence. Solomon was scarcely in his grave before it was plundered by Shishak. During its four centuries of existence it was again stripped of its precious possessions at least six times, sometimes by foreign oppressors, sometimes by distressed kings. It was despoiled of its treasure by Asa, by Jehoash of Judah, by Jehoash of Israel, by Ahaz, by Hezekiah, and lastly by Nebuchadnezzar. After such plunderings it must have completely lost its pristine splendor. But the plunder of its treasures was nothing to the pollutions of its sanctity. They began as early as the reigns of Rehoboam and Abijah. Ahaz gave it a Syrian altar, Manasseh stained it with impurities, and Ezekiel in its secret chambers surveyed "the dark idolatries of alienated Judah."
And in the days when Judaism most prized itself on ritual faithfulness, the Lord of the Temple was insulted in the Temple of the Lord, and its courts were turned by greedy priests and Sadducees into a cowshed, and a dovecot, and a fair, and a usurers mart, and a robbers den.
From the first the centralization of worship in the Temple must have been accompanied by the danger of dissociating religious life from its daily social environments. The "multitudes who lived in remote country places would no longer be able to join in forms of worship which had been carried on at local shrines. Judaism, as the prophets so often complain, tended to become too much a matter of officialism and function, of rubric and technique, which always tend to substitute external service for true devotion, and to leave the shell of religion without its soul."
Even when it had been purified by Josiahs reformation, the Temple proved to be a source of danger and false security. It was regarded as a sort of Palladium. The formalists began to talk and act as though it furnished a mechanical protection, and gave them license to transgress the moral law. Jeremiah had sternly to warn his countrymen against this trust in an idle formalism. "Amend your ways and your doings," he said. "Behold, ye trust in lying words which cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye have not known, and come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, We are delivered; that ye may do all these abominations?"
The Temple of Solomon was defaced and destroyed and polluted by the Babylonians, but not until it had been polluted by the Jews themselves with the blood of prophets, by idolatries, by chambers of unclean imagery. It was rebuilt by a poor band of disheartened exiles to be again polluted by Antiochus Epiphanes, and ultimately to become the headquarters of a narrow, arrogant, and intriguing Pharisaism. It was rebuilt once more by Herod, the brutal Idumean usurper, and its splendor inspired such passionate enthusiasm that when it was wrapped in flames by Titus, it witnessed the carnage of thousands of maddened and despairing combatants.
"As mid the cedar courts and gates of gold
The trampled ranks in miry carnage rolled
To save their Temple every hand essayed,
And with cold fingers graspd the feeble blade;
Through their torn veins reviving fury ran
And lifes last anger warmd the dying man."
Yet that last Temple had been defiled by a worse crime than the other two. It had witnessed the priestly idols and the priestly machinations which ended in the murder of the Son of God. From the Temple sprang little or nothing of spiritual importance. Intended to teach the supremacy of righteousness, it became the stronghold of mere ritual. For the development of true holiness, as apart from ceremonial scrupulosity, its official protectors rendered it valueless.
We are not surprised that Christianity knows no temple but the hearts of all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth; and that the characteristic of the New Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband, is:-
"And I saw no temple therein." {Rev_21:22}
Abundantly was the menace fulfilled in which Jehovah warned Solomon after the Feast of Dedication that if Israel swerved into immorality and idolatry, that house should be an awful warning-that its blessing should be exchanged into a curse, and that every one who passed by it should be astonished and should hiss.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv14, 22, 54, 62 1Ki_8:14. King turned his face about—with his back upon…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
1Ki_8:14. King turned his face about—with his back upon the people; he and they had been watching the movements of the glory cloud; now he faced the awed concourse 1Ki_8:15-21 contain Solomon’s address to the people, who listen standing, in which the king gratefully records that he undertook and completed the temple in obedience to Jehovah’s word. 1Ki_8:22-53. The Royal Prayer of Dedication—“Solomon stood before the altar” on a brazen platform erected for the occasion (2Ch_6:13) in front of the altar of burnt offering; there, too, be knelt (1Ki_8:54), and with uplifted hands (1Ki_8:22) presented this sublime prayer before Jehovah.
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HOMILETICS OF 1Ki_8:14-21
THE JOY OF AN ACCOMPLISHED PURPOSE
The human mind abhors incompleteness. When Charles Leslie died, he left upon his easel an unfinished painting of Titania, from the Midsummer Night’s Dream, that was to be another pictorial realization of Shakespearian creations with which the fame of Leslie is inseparably connected. But the busy brain ceased to work, the pencil dropped from the facile fingers, and the deserted fragment retains but a dim promise of the artistic genius which the completed picture would have revealed. It is impossible to gaze upon an incomplete work like that without feeling disappointment and regret. The crumbling ruins of a structure that was once complete is more satisfying to the mind than an unfinished building abandoned to decay without having served any useful purpose. How great, then, is the joy of seeing accomplished a purpose which has cost so much anxiety and thought, and which has been in progress for years! Such a joy was realized by Solomon at this time, when he witnessed the greatest work of his life completed, and that it was accepted of God. Observe—
I. The joy of an accomplished purpose is expressed in devout thanksgiving (1Ki_8:14-15). The heart of the king was full of joyous gratitude, and under its influence he blessed the people, and blessed the Lord God of Israel. Sharing in the gladness and solemnity of the occasion, the whole congregation stood up, as if eager to receive the benediction. The first moments of a realized good, long hoped and worked for, are full of unutterable emotion. The ecstacy is sometimes fraught with peril. In his last days the Venerable Bede was engaged in a translation of the New Testament on which he had set his heart. He dictated to one of his disciples the last verse in the Gospel of John. “It is finished, master,” said the scribe. “It is finished,” replied the dying saint. “Lift up my head, let me sit in my cell, in the place where I have so often prayed. And now, glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.” And, with these words, as if the rapture of having accomplished a patiently prosecuted purpose was too much for him, his spirit fled. It is said, on one occasion when Sir Isaac Newton was engaged in some calculations to prove the extent of his elaborated theory of terrestrial gravitation, that, as he drew to the close and foresaw the absolute certainty of the theory they would inevitably prove, he became so agitated that he was obliged to desire a friend to finish them. A genuine joy overflows in thanksgiving.
II. The joy of an accomplished purpose is intensified by a review of the varied steps by which it is consummated (1Ki_8:15-21). These verses contain an appropriate narration of the most interesting facts connected with the planning and building of the temple, and without such narration the services of the dedication would have been incomplete.
1. This purpose was divinely suggested. “The Lord God of Israel spake with His mouth unto David my father” (1Ki_8:15). Our best thoughts and holiest inspirations come from God: and the most successful work in connection with His Church is that which is done on the lines projected by His Word. Moses was directed to build the Tabernacle according to the pattern showed him in the Mount (Heb_8:5).
2. Its accomplishment was greatly needed. For years the ark was migratory, and Jehovah had no settled place for His worship. Under a theocratic government it was important there should be some spot specially set apart in which the Lord could record His name. Jehovah first chose the person who should rule His people, and then put it into his heart to build a house for His worship (1Ki_8:17). If any other city than Jerusalem had been divinely chosen for the Temple, then this would be regarded as a usurpation. But it is expressly stated that God “chose no city to build an house” (1Ki_8:16); therefore, there was the more urgent need for the building of this.
3. It was cherished by one who was not permitted to carry it out (1Ki_8:17-19). It was the life-purpose of David to build a temple for Jehovah, and he made extensive preparations accordingly. It would have been an unspeakable joy to him had he been permitted to build and consecrate the temple; and the occasion would have called into exercise the highest genius of his poetic nature. But this honour was denied him; partly, because the ancient nomadic form of worship was not yet to be abandoned; and because the wars of David unfitted him to be the founder of a seat of peaceful worship (2Sa_6:6; 2Sa_6:11; 1Ch_22:8). But a solemn assurance was given that his dynasty should last for ever to continue the work: and the glory of building and consecrating the most celebrated temple of antiquity fell to the lot of Solomon (2Sa_7:13; 1Ch_22:9). Jehovah approved and accepted the good intentions of David, though he did not permit him to put them into execution. This Divine approval was implied by God’s acceptance of the design, with only the difference that it should be executed by the son instead of the father, and also by the various promises by which He rewarded the pious wish of His servant (2Sa_7:10-16).
4. It was brought to its final accomplishment by Divine assistance. “The Lord hath performed His word that He spake” (1Ki_8:20), “Hath with His hand fulfilled it” (1Ki_8:15). Solomon was the instrument; but Jehovah, as in all truly great enterprises, was the moving power. The son was but completing the plan which had been preconceived and arranged by his father. It is instructive to observe how the unfinished works of a previous age are continued and completed by succeeding generations. M. Lesseps, in constructing the Suez Canal, has only completed the work commenced by Pharoah-Necho; while the Mount Cenis engineers, in tunnelling a way though the Alps, have finished the work of Hannibal. The Pacific Railroad, and the new line of steamers from Hong Kong to San Francisco, have accomplished the grand vision of Columbus of a direct trade between Europe and Asia by the Western, instead of the Eastern route. Russia, by her present efforts to make Sarmacand a great centre of traffic, is filling in the grand outline bequeathed to her by Tamerlane; while, by choosing the Oxus as the great commercial highway of Central Asia, she is merely treading in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. Every age has its own special mission; and it should strive to maintain and extend the civil and religious blessings handed down to it by our suffering and heroic forefathers. The Divine side of the work remains unchangeably the same. God never yet “suffered His faithfulness to fail, nor altered the thing that went out of His mouth” (Psa_89:33). Witness the constant and concurrent experience of saints in all ages—not one instance to the contrary.
III. The joy of an accomplished purpose is based on the assurance of its harmony with the Divine covenant (1Ki_8:21). The tables of stone laid up in the ark were enduring witnesses of the covenant into which Jehovah had entered with His people. The erection and consecration of the Temple was another evidence of the faithfulness of God to His part of the covenant; and this thought would augment the joy of Solomon on the occasion. There can be no solid satisfaction in doing anything that we know is not in harmony with the Divine will: Whatever good we do, we must look upon it as the performance of God’s promise to us, rather than the performance of our promise to Him. The more we do for God, the more we are indebted to Him; for our sufficiency is of Him, and not of ourselves.” We have more need to be concerned about our own fidelity than that of God.
LESSONS:—
1. No purpose can prosper that is not conceived in a humble and grateful spirit.
2. It is an unspeakable privilege, and a great responsibility, to be allowed to take any part in the work of God.
3. The joy of an accomplished good outweighs the suffering and toil encountered in its achievement.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1Ki_8:16.—The choice of God is no blind preference of one and prejudice against another, but aims at the salvation of both. As from amongst all nations He chose Israel for its salvation, so out of all the tribes of Israel He chose the city of David for the blessing of the whole kingdom.—Lange.
1Ki_8:17. How many individuals, as well as whole congregations, have the means and the power wherewith to build a church, to repair a ruinous one, or to enlarge one which has become too small; but nothing can be further from their mind.
1Ki_8:18. Unrealized ideals not useless.
1. The character of an individual life is influenced and shaped by the ideal after which it continually aspires.
2. The ideal of a holy and useful life should be constructed in harmony with the requirements of the Divine will.
3. If the ideal of life is not realized, the effort after its attainment will confer a reflex benefit on the sincere aspirant.
4. Ideals of goodness, though unrealized, call forth the Divine commendation.
5. Unrealized ideals in the present life become the bases of still loftier ideals in the future.
—He who purposes to do a good work, but is hindered therein not by his own fault, but by Divine decree, has yet “well done.” God regards his intentions as the deed itself.
—On maintaining a high ideal.
1. By a high ideal is meant, not something vast and vague and unattainable, but what each, by God’s help, in the full development of his own nature, may attain. To aim at less would be to be sluggish, undutiful, unfaithful. To aim at more would be to enter the mist, and become unreal. Speaking generally, it will be found that whatever can be intelligently and conscientiously aimed at, can be attained. In the very ideas we entertain, and in the endeavours we make, God gives us the assurance that what we thus think of and strive after may be attained. It was the notion of Plato that each individual human creature is an offspring or product of an eternal form or idea in the Divine mind. Something of this kind must be supposed in reason: something of this kind is indeed taught by the Christian revelation. God thus, as we may say, keeps the secret of every life, its true image and proportions, and opens that secret to each as he comes to Him. He has a picture in his own mind of which each may be, through His grace, a living reflex. O beautiful, inspiring thought! touching us with fear, and yet raising us to rapture—that each of us can find himself truly, only in his God, and that the discovery is certain to be eternal advancement and salvation.
2. To maintain the ideal high, we must be continually striving to enlarge it. Our moral conception of our own proper nature must either grow larger and more luminous, or fade down into narrowness and darkness. Nothing on earth, mental or material, can continue in one stay. There is a sense in which our best thoughts and noblest purposes are passing away and dying; and our only safety lies in raising still better thoughts and still nobler purposes from the ashes of those that have died. Swift and subtle and sure is the passing away of our most etherial thought, our most glowing emotion. Swift and sure also is the reproduction and expansion of them, so that while there is dying and coming into life perpetually, there shall yet be to our consciousness only an unbroken continuity, and a going on of our life from strength to strength.”
3. In seeking to maintain and still enhance this spiritual and great idea of our own life, we shall be much assisted by an assured belief that it is the very thing which God wishes and will help us to realize and be. If God will not help us in this by the breath of His own infinite sympathy, by the uplifting of the light of His countenance upon us, our life is indeed a dark and hopeless thing. It never can expand into summer breadth and beauty. How it pleases a father, or a strong elder brother, to take the hand of some youthful climber and help him up the rocks and along the giddy and perilous ridge towards some sunny and safe elevations of the mountains! Will it please the Heavenly Father less to help those who, already called and quickened by His grace, are aiming, as they can, after entire conformity to the very image of their Father?
4. If we would maintain a high sentiment and a pure idea about our own life, we must learn to believe in the actual goodness of others as well as in the possible growth of our own. To use technical but perfectly appropriate language, we must learn to believe that God has a people in the world. Look for goodness, and it will shine out upon you, unless you yourself are evil. Look for the love and tenderness of Christ, which yet are found in so many human hearts, and you will soon be refreshed by the breathing of that love and tenderness as though He Himself were near.
5. The contemplation of goodness in others will be found, in the case of most young persons, to operate powerfully in the same direction—towards raising and keeping the standard and tone of life pure and high. Nothing touches life so deeply and sensibly as life. Nothing moves it to finer issues. Is it not certain that, looking, we shall become like? being changed by the subtle, benignant laws of grace into the same image we thus see and admire—“from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
6. Above all, we must maintain a constant, vital connection—a connection by faith, love, admiration—with Jesus Christ. None among us, old or young, can maintain a high ideal of our life without Him. We need Him—for our reverence and for our admiration, and for our enthusiasm and for our love! and for our frailties, oh! how much! and for our great unworthiness. A human life is simple, pure, and high, when it is a “growing up into Him in all things who is the head.”—A. Raleigh (condensed from the Sunday Magazine for 1873).
1Ki_8:20. The fairest prerogative of him whom God has placed upon a throne is, that he has power to work for the glory of God’s name, and to watch over the extension of the Divine Kingdom amongst His people. Every son who succeeds to the inheritance of his father should feel obliged, first of all, to take up the good work whose completion was denied to his father, and perfect it with love and zeal.—Lange.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv54, 59, 60 1 Kings
1 Kings
THE KING ‘BLESSING’ HIS PEOPLE
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1Ki 8:54 - 1Ki 8:63.
The great ceremonial of dedicating the Temple was threefold. The first stage was setting the ark in its place, which was the essence of the whole thing. God’s presence was the true dedication, and that was manifested by the bright cloud that filled the sanctuary as soon as the ark was placed there. The second stage was the lofty and spiritual prayer, saturated with the language and tone of Deuteronomy, and breathing the purest conceptions of the character and nature of God, and all aglow with trust in Him. Then followed, thirdly, this ‘Blessing of the Congregation.’ The prayer had been uttered by the kneeling king. Now he stands up, and, with ringing tones that reach to the outskirts of the crowd, he gathers the spirit of his prayer into two petitions, preceded by praise for national blessings, and followed by exhortation to national obedience. A huge sacrifice of unexampled magnitude closes the whole.
I. Note the thankful retrospect of the nation’s past {1Ki 8:56}.
Solomon ‘blessed the congregation’ when, in their name, he lifted up his voice to bless the Lord, prayed that God would incline their hearts to keep His law, and would maintain their cause, and exhorted them to keep their hearts perfect with Him. We bless each other when we ask God to bless, and when we draw each other nearer Him. Standing there in the new Temple, with a united nation gathered before him, the cloud filling the house, and peace resting on all his land to its farthest border, the king looks back on the long road from Sinai and the desert, and sums up the whole history in one sentence. The end has vindicated the methods. There had been many a dark time when enemies had oppressed, and many a hard-fought field had been stained with Israel’s blood; but all had tended to this calm hour, when Israel’s multitudes were gathered in worship, and their unguarded homes were safe. There had been many heroes in the long line.
‘Time would fail’ him ‘to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David and Samuel . . . who . . . turned to flight armies of aliens.’ One name alone is worthy to be named,-the name of the true Deliverer and Monarch. It is the Lord who ‘hath given rest unto His people.’ We look on the past most wisely when we see in it all the working of one mighty Hand, and pass beyond the great names of history or the dear names which have made the light of our homes, to the ever-living God, who works through changing instruments; and ‘the help that is done on earth, He doeth it Himself.’ We read the past most truly when we see in all its vicissitudes God’s unchanging faithfulness, and recognise that the foes and sorrows which often pressed sore upon us were no breach of His faithful promises, but either His loving chastisement for our faithlessness, or His loving discipline meant to perfect our characters. We read the past best from the vantage-ground of the Temple. From its height we understand the lie of the land. Communion with God explains much which is else inexplicable. Solomon’s judgment of Israel’s checkered history will be our judgment of our own when we stand in the higher courts of the heavenly home, and look from that height upon all the way by which the Lord our God hath led us. In the meantime, it is often a trial for faith to repeat these words; but the blessing that comes from believing them true is worth the effort to stifle our tears in order to say them.
II. Note the prayer for obedient hearts {1Ki 8:57 - 1Ki 8:58}. The proper subject-matter of this petition is ‘that He may incline our hearts to walk in His ways,’ and God’s presence is invoked as a means thereto. The deepest desire of a truly religious soul is for the felt nearness of God. That goes before all other blessings, and contains them all. Nothing is so needful or so sweet as that The presence of God is the absence of evil, the evil both of pain and of sin, as surely as the rising sun is the routing of night’s black hosts. ‘The best of all is, God is with us.’ The prayer again looks back to the past, and asks that the ancient experiences may be renewed. The generations of those who trust in God are knit together, and the wonders of old time are capable of repetition to-day. Faith can say with deeper meaning than the Preacher, ‘That which hath been is that which shall be.’ However varying may be the forms, the fact of a divine presence and help according to need is invariable, and they that have gone before have not exhausted the fountain, which will fill the vessel of the latest comer as it did that of the first. How beautifully the abiding God and the fleeting series of ‘our fathers’ is contrasted! A moment of triumph, when some work, like that of building the Temple, which has for ages been looked forward to, and into which the sacrifices and aspirations of a long line of dead toilers are built, brings strongly before all thoughtful men the continuity of a nation or a Church, and the transiency of its individual members. It should suggest the abiding God yet more strongly than it does the passing fathers. The mercy remains the same, while the receivers change. The sunshine and the tree are the same, though the leaves which glisten and grow in the light have but one summer to live.
But Solomon desires that God may be with him and his people for one specific purpose. Is it to bring outward prosperity, or to extend their territory, or to give them victory? As in his choice in his dream, so now, he asks, not for these things, but for an inward influence on heart and will. What he wants most for himself and them is moral conformity to God’s will. All must be right if that be right. The prayer implies that, without God’s help, the heart will wander from the paths of duty. The weakness of human nature, and the consequent necessity for God’s grace in order to obedience, were as deeply felt by the devout men of the Old Testament as by Apostles. They are felt by every man who has honestly tried to measure the sweep and inwardness of God’s law, and to realise it in life. We need go but a very short way on the road to discover that temptations to diverge lie so thick on either side, and that our feet grow weary so soon, that we shall make but little progress without help from above.
The synonyms for the law are worthy of notice. Why are there so many of these in the Old Testament? For the same reason that there are so many for ‘money’ in English,-because those who made the language thought so much about the thing, and delighted in it so much. As ‘commandments,’ it was solemnly imposed by rightful authority, and obedience was obligatory. The word rendered ‘statutes’ means something engraved, or written, and recalls the tables inscribed by God’s finger. ‘Judgments’ are the divine decisions or sentences as to what is right, and therefore the infallible clue to the else bewildering labyrinth. To obey these commandments, to read that solemn writing, and to accept these decisions as our guides, is man’s perfection and blessedness; and for that God’s felt presence is indispensable.
III. Note the prayer for God’s defence {1Ki 8:59 - 1Ki 8:60}. The proper subject-matter of this petition is that God would maintain the cause of king and nation; and it is preceded by a petition that, to that end, the preceding prayer may be answered, and is followed by the desire that thereby the knowledge of God may fill the earth. The prayer for outward blessings comes after the prayer for inward heart-obedience. Is not that the right order? Our prayers need to be prayed for, and a true desire is not contented with one utterance. To ask that what we have asked may be given is no vain repetition, nor a sign of weak faith, or undue anxiety. How bold the figure in asking that the prayer may lie before God day and night, like some suppliant at the foot of His throne!
Note the grand aim of God’s help of Israel,-the universal diffusion of His name among all the peoples of the earth. Solomon understood the divine vocation of Israel, and had risen above desiring blessings only for his own or his subjects’ sake. Later ages fell from that elevation of feeling, and hugged their special privileges without a thought of the obligations which they involved. God’s choice of Israel was not meant for the exclusion of the Gentiles, but as the means of transmitting the knowledge of God to them. The one nation was chosen that God’s grace might fructify through it to all. The fire was gathered into a hearth, that the whole house might be warmed. But selfishness marred the divine plan, and Israel became a nonconductor, and the privileges selfishly kept became corrupt; as the miser’s corn stored in his barns in famine breeds weevils. Christians need no more solemn lesson of what comes from selfishly hoarding spiritual blessings than the fate of Israel. God hath shined into our hearts, that we may give to others who sit in the dark the light which we possess; and if we fail to do so, the light will darken within us.
IV. The blessing ends with one brief, all-comprehensive charge to the people, which seems based, by its ‘therefore,’ on the preceding thought of Jehovah as the only God. The only attitude corresponding to His sole and supreme Majesty is the entire devotion of heart, which leads to thoroughgoing obedience to His commandments. The word rendered ‘perfect’ literally means ‘entire’ or ‘sound,’ and here expresses the complete devotion of the whole nature. Solomon meant that it should be complete, in contradistinction to any sidelong glances to idolatry. The principle underlying that ‘therefore’ is that, God being what He is, our only God and refuge, the only adequate hope and object of our nature, we should give our whole selves to Him. We, too, are tempted to bring Him divided hearts, and to carry some of our love and trust as offerings at other shrines. But if there be ‘one God, and none other but He,’ then to serve Him with all our heart and strength and mind is the dictate of common sense, and the only service which He can accept, or which can bring to our else distracted natures peace and satisfaction. His voice to us is, ‘My son, give Me thy whole heart.’ Our answer to Him should ever be that prayer, ‘Lord, . . . unite my heart to fear Thy name.’ A divided heart is misery. Partial trust is distrust. ‘Love me all in all, or not at all,’ is the requirement of all deep, human love; and shall God ask less than men and women ask from and give to one another?
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv40, 61 (See Scofield "Psa 19:9").
fear
(See Scofield "Psa 19:9").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv12, 22, 54 Solomon’s Address
Solomon’s Address
v. 12. Then spake Solomon, evidently from the platform which he had prepared in the midst of the court, 2Ch 6:13, The Lord said that He would dwell in the thick darkness, Exo 19:9; Lev 16:2. The cloud which he beheld was to Solomon a sign that Jehovah had come down to dwell in the Temple.
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v. 13. I have surely built Thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for Thee to abide in forever, a firmly established Sanctuary, He had in mind the merciful relation of Jehovah to the true Israel as it would continue, according to the Messianic promises, throughout eternity.
v. 14. And the king, who had uttered this exclamation with face turned toward the Sanctuary, turned his face about, and blessed all the congregation of Israel; (and all the congregation of Israel stood, out in the great court toward the east;)
v. 15. and he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which spake with His mouth unto David, my father, and hath with His hand fulfilled it, saying, Cf 2Sa 7:5-13,
v. 16. Since the day that I brought forth My people Israel out of Egypt, I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel to build an house that My name might be therein, He had ordered only the Tabernacle to be built for His warship; but I chose David to be over My people Israel, under whom Israel entered into the full and quiet possession of the Promised Land.
v. 17. And it was in the heart of David, my father, to build an house for the name of the Lord God of Israel, 2Sa 7:2.
v. 18. And the Lord said unto David, my father, Whereas it was in thine heart to build an house unto My name, thou didst well that it was in thine heart.
v. 19. Nevertheless, thou shalt not build the house, but thy son that shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build the house unto My name. Cf 2Sa 7:4-16; 1Ch 22:6-11; 1Ch 28:2-7.
v. 20. And the Lord hath performed His word that He spake, and I am risen up in the room of David, my father, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised, and have built an house for the name of the Lord God of Israel. This explanation was given in such detail in order that the people might understand the situation exactly and appreciate the goodness and mercy of Jehovah.
v. 21. And I have set there a place for the ark wherein is the covenant of the Lord, for the Ten Commandments on the two tables of stone represented the core, or nucleus, of the entire covenant between Jehovah and Israel, which He made with our fathers when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. "It is worthy of notice that at the beginning and the conclusion of the address the building of the Temple is placed in relation to the deliverance from Egypt. " (Lange. )
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv12, 14, 17, 20, 22, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 41, 44, 46, 48, 49, 51, 54, 57, 59, 62, 64, 65 Yahweh has said ... darkness
Yahweh has said ... darkness
Solomon speaks to Yahweh as if he were speaking to someone else to show that he respects Yahweh. (See: First, Second, or Third Person)
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lofty residence
beautiful building in which someone very important lives
translationWords
life
darkness
eternity
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv12, 14, 22, 23, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 41, 44, 46, 52, 54, 57, 62, 65 8:12-21 Solomon began with prayer (8:12-13), then blessed the…
8:12-21 Solomon began with prayer (8:12-13), then blessed the people while praising God for fulfilling his promises (8:14-21). As in many praise psalms, Solomon elevated God, subordinated himself, and testified to God’s great goodness.
8:12-13 thick cloud of darkness: Solomon recognized the cloud filling the inner sanctuary as a manifestation of God’s presence, but he also understood that God could not be contained in a man-made Temple (see 8:27). Solomon fulfilled his commission to build the Temple (8:19; 1 Chr 28:10), believing the promises that God would dwell in the sanctuary (see Exod 15:17).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.