It had taken Solomon (and his workers) seven years to build the Temple. The narrative now steps aside to describe how Solomon built palaces for himself and his wife, before continuing with the completion of the Temple
It is suggested that the Palace complex was adjoining the Temple, on the south side. Both Temple and palaces occupied space within what is now the Temple Mount site in Jerusalem – and therefore no excavations are allowed.
There is an interesting website with proposed drawings at
https://www.ritmeyer.com/2012/10/01/what-happened-to-solomons-palace-in-jerusalem/
Read 1 Kings 7:1-12
1 It took Solomon thirteen years, however, to complete the construction of his palace. 2 He built the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon a hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high, (45m x 23m x 14m, 147ft x 75ft x 46 ft) with four rows of cedar columns supporting trimmed cedar beams. 3 It was roofed with cedar above the beams that rested on the columns – forty-five beams, fifteen to a row. 4 Its windows were placed high in sets of three, facing each other. 5 All the doorways had rectangular frames; they were in the front part in sets of three, facing each other.
6 He made a colonnade fifty cubits long and thirty wide. In front of it was a portico, and in front of that were pillars and an overhanging roof.
7 He built the throne hall, the Hall of Justice, where he was to judge, and he covered it with cedar from floor to ceiling. 8 And the palace in which he was to live, set farther back, was similar in design. Solomon also made a palace like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter, whom he had married.
9 All these structures, from the outside to the great courtyard and from foundation to eaves, were made of blocks of high-grade stone cut to size and smoothed on their inner and outer faces. 10 The foundations were laid with large stones of good quality, some measuring ten cubits and some eight. 11 Above were high-grade stones, cut to size, and cedar beams. 12 The great courtyard was surrounded by a wall of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams, as was the inner courtyard of the temple of the Lord with its portico.
We now return to the Temple. Once it had been completed it still needed furnishing; so probably while his palaces were under construction he hired in another craftsman.
Read 1 Kings 7:13-14
13 King Solomon sent to Tyre and brought Huram, 14 whose mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali and whose father was from Tyre and a skilled craftsman in bronze. Huram was filled with wisdom, with understanding and with knowledge to do all kinds of bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all the work assigned to him.
There is now a lot of reading and little comment – but it is worth simply trying to understand the immense wealth that was given for the worship of God.
Read 1 Kings 7:15-40
15 He cast two bronze pillars, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in circumference. 16 He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars; each capital was five cubits high. 17 A network of interwoven chains adorned the capitals on top of the pillars, seven for each capital. 18 He made pomegranates in two rows encircling each network to decorate the capitals on top of the pillars. He did the same for each capital. 19 The capitals on top of the pillars in the portico were in the shape of lilies, four cubits high. 20 On the capitals of both pillars, above the bowl-shaped part next to the network, were the two hundred pomegranates in rows all around. 21 He erected the pillars at the portico of the temple. The pillar to the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz. 22 The capitals on top were in the shape of lilies. And so the work on the pillars was completed.
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23 He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure round it. 24 Below the rim, gourds encircled it – ten to a cubit. The gourds were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea.
25 The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were towards the centre. 26 It was a handbreadth in thickness, and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held two thousand baths.
27 He also made ten movable stands of bronze; each was four cubits long, four wide and three high. 28 This is how the stands were made: they had side panels attached to uprights. 29 On the panels between the uprights were lions, bulls and cherubim – and on the uprights as well. Above and below the lions and bulls were wreaths of hammered work. 30 Each stand had four bronze wheels with bronze axles, and each had a basin resting on four supports, cast with wreaths on each side. 31 On the inside of the stand there was an opening that had a circular frame one cubit deep. This opening was round, and with its basework it measured a cubit and a half. Around its opening there was engraving. The panels of the stands were square, not round. 32 The four wheels were under the panels, and the axles of the wheels were attached to the stand. The diameter of each wheel was a cubit and a half. 33 The wheels were made like chariot wheels; the axles, rims, spokes and hubs were all of cast metal.
34 Each stand had four handles, one on each corner, projecting from the stand. 35 At the top of the stand there was a circular band half a cubit deep. The supports and panels were attached to the top of the stand. 36 He engraved cherubim, lions and palm trees on the surfaces of the supports and on the panels, in every available space, with wreaths all around. 37 This is the way he made the ten stands. They were all cast in the same moulds and were identical in size and shape.
38 He then made ten bronze basins, each holding forty baths and measuring four cubits across, one basin to go on each of the ten stands. 39 He placed five of the stands on the south side of the temple and five on the north. He placed the Sea on the south side, at the south-east corner of the temple. 40 He also made the pots and shovels and sprinkling bowls.
So Huram finished all the work he had undertaken for King Solomon in the temple of the Lord:
It now seems that Huram presented his invoice and it is copied here:-
Read 1 Kings 7:41-47
41 the two pillars;
the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars;
the two sets of network decorating the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars;
42 the four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates for each network decorating the bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars);
43 the ten stands with their ten basins;
44 the Sea and the twelve bulls under it;
45 the pots, shovels and sprinkling bowls.
All these objects that Huram made for King Solomon for the temple of the Lord were of burnished bronze. 46 The king had them cast in clay moulds in the plain of the Jordan between Sukkoth and Zarethan. 47 Solomon left all these things unweighed, because there were so many; the weight of the bronze was not determined.
We now move to the items of gold. The next verse says that Solomon made them but I expect it was actually the work of his craftsmen.
Read 1 Kings 7: 48-51
48 Solomon also made all the furnishings that were in the Lord’s temple:
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the golden altar; the golden table on which was the bread of the Presence;
49 the lampstands of pure gold (five on the right and five on the left, in front of the inner sanctuary);
the gold floral work and lamps and tongs;
50 the pure gold dishes, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes and censers;
and the gold sockets for the doors of the innermost room, the Most Holy Place, and also for the doors of the main hall of the temple.
51 When all the work King Solomon had done for the temple of the Lord was finished, he brought in the things his father David had dedicated – the silver and gold and the furnishings – and he placed them in the treasuries of the Lord’s temple.
Interesting that although the original tabernacle furnishings had been carefully preserved and passed on by David for the new Temple, Solomon may have considered them too precious to use, so he had everything made again. The old items had been dedicated to God for his service, so they were stored in the treasuries of the Temple.
Or perhaps Solomon wanted to make his own personal contribution to the Temple and paid for the new items himself. Besides these, you could read verse 51 to mean that Solomon had also not touched the vast amounts of gold and silver dedicated by David for the new temple, and he actually paid for the whole Temple himself.
The bronze that David had provided was used however - 1 Chronicles 18:8
Now read 1 Kings 8:1-5
1 Then King Solomon summoned into his presence at Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Zion, the City of David. 2 All the Israelites came together to King Solomon at the time of the festival in the month of Ethanim, the seventh month.
3 When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the ark, 4 and they brought up the ark of the Lord and the tent of meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The priests and Levites carried them up, 5 and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted.
It's so easy to get so carried along with the narrative that we gloss over what we just read! Perhaps someone could look at the second part of verse 5 and describe the scene to me!
(Unlikely – but it will get people’s imaginations working!)
Now read 1 Kings 8:6-9
6 The priests then brought the ark of the Lord’s covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim. 7 The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and overshadowed the ark and its carrying poles. 8 These poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are still there today. 9 There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt.
I find that an odd comment as it suggests that someone had looked in it, and had discovered that the (gold) pot containing Manna and Aaron’s rod that had budded had been removed. Odd because 1 Samuel 6:19 says ‘But God struck down some of the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh, putting seventy of them to death because they looked into the ark of the Lord.’ – and surely taking items out of it should also have attracted a similar punishment?
(Much has been imagined concerning the eventual fate of the Ark but there is no actual evidence anywhere!)
At this point we need to step sideways and look at the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 5:13
The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang: ‘He is good; his love endures for ever.’ Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud
I was struck by the song they sang. Surely not the 2001 version ‘Forever’ written by Chris Tomlin:
Give thanks to the Lord, our God and King
His love endures forever
For He is good, He is above all things
His love endures forever . . .
No – it was more likely the Psalm possibly written by Solomon's father a few years before:
Psalm 136 (or 106, 107, 118) !
Back to 1 Kings 8:10-13
10 When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. 11 And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple.
12 Then Solomon said, ‘The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; 13 I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell for ever.’
We might feel that Solomon was boasting, but I think that would be unfair. I picture him overcome with emotion and speaking first without putting his brain in gear – rather like Peter at the Transfiguration of Jesus (Matthew 17:4)
And before we move on, look again at verse 11 - I wonder what was going on in the minds of the priests who had carefully produced an order of service - only for God himself to come and take over!
Read 1 Kings 8:14-21
14 While the whole assembly of Israel was standing there, the king turned round and blessed them. 15 Then he said:
‘Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who with his own hand has fulfilled what he promised with his own mouth to my father David. For he said, 16 “Since the day I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city in any tribe of Israel to have a temple built so that my Name might be there, but I have chosen David to rule my people Israel."
17 ‘My father David had it in his heart to build a temple for the Name of the Lord, the God of Israel. 18 But the Lord said to my father David, “You did well to have it in your heart to build a temple for my Name. 19 Nevertheless, you are not the one to build the temple, but your son, your own flesh and blood – he is the one who will build the temple for my Name."
20 ‘The Lord has kept the promise he made: I have succeeded David my father and now I sit on the throne of Israel, just as the Lord promised, and I have built the temple for the Name of the Lord, the God of Israel. 21 I have provided a place there for the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord that he made with our ancestors when he brought them out of Egypt.’
We will leave this study there. Solomon had fulfilled all that his father David had asked of him. The Temple had been completed and The Lord had confirmed his acceptance by filling it with the cloud of his presence.
What next? Now he will pray – but that will have to wait for next time.
