Temple
Dedication: Praying the Premises; 1 Kings 8:12-30
1
Kings 8:12 NASB “Then Solomon said, ‘The LORD has said that
He would dwell in the thick cloud.’” This is a special word in the Hebrew which
refers to a thick cloud, an enshrouding cloud, thick darkness. The priests
couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces. It is a word that is used
sometimes to refer to a stormy sea and it is typically a word used in passages
that refer to the end time judgment of God coming in thick clouds, especially
during the time of the day of the Lord. Cf. Jeremiah 13:16; Ezekiel 34:12; Joel
2:2; Zephaniah 1:15. So it is an indication of the presence of God and His
approval of the Solomonic temple, referred to as the
first temple.
1
Kings 8:13 NASB “I have surely built You a
lofty house, A place for Your dwelling forever.” “Built” is the Hebrew word banah,
the word that is used for the creation of the woman in Genesis 2:22, but more importantly there is a repetition of the verb, a
qal infinitive construct plus a qal perfect. This doesn’t have the idea of
doing something and then doing it. This is the same construction as in Genesis
2:17: If you “eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
you will certainly, surely die.” That is the idea there; it is not “Dying, you
will die.” If we were to translate this grammar the same way we would say,
“Building, I have built.” It doesn’t make sense; it is poor grammar and doesn’t
mean anything. The repetition of the verb in the Hebrew is designed to
intensify the meaning, and indicates that this is something that has definitely
and purposely been accomplished. The word for “lofty” is the Hebrew word
meaning that which is magnificent or lofty. It is an exalted dwelling. It is used
three times in the Scriptures to describe the dwelling place of God. Cf. Isaiah
63:15.
The other word that is interesting
in this passage is the word “dwell.” It is the Hebrew word shaken which means to settle, to occupy,
to lie down or set in place, but it has a primary meaning of dwelling. This
becomes the basis for the later rabbinic term “shekinah,”
the shekinah glory. Really what we are saying is that it is the dwelling glory,
the glory of the dwelling of God. This comes over etymologically into Greek as skene and is used in John 1 where John
writes that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
1
Kings 8:14 NASB “Then the king faced about and blessed all the
assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel was standing.” This begins
a section of about eight verses where Solomon turns around and articulates a
blessing upon the people. This is an introduction to what is an extremely
formal type of ceremony. Verse 14 is simply a summary of what he is going to
say in the next seven verses. It says he blessed the people, then the next
verse tells about how he goes about doing this. The word is barach,
here in the piel (intensive) imperfect, and it has
the idea of blessing which can mean praise, thanksgiving, to kneel, to salute
or greet. In the context here this is when Solomon is first addressing the
assembly of the elders and the people, and this is his opening salutation. So
here the word “bless” has more of the meaning of initial greeting of the
people, and in that he is going to focus their attention on God and what God
has done in the history of Israel, and what God has provided for them. The
whole focus of this section, vv. 14-66, is one of the great chapters in the
Bible that talk about prayer, public prayer—the prayer is actually a
claiming of a promise, so it helps us to understand what it means to claim a
promise or to pray through promises that God has given us in His Word. It is
also a tremendous example of one form of corporate worship. Note their posture.
The assembly of Israel is standing. Then we see what the reading consists of:
[15] “He said, ‘Blessed [qal passive of barach, i.e. God is the recipient
of the blessing; here it has the nuance of praise or thankfulness] be the LORD, the God of
Israel, who spoke with His mouth to my father David and has fulfilled {it} with
His hand, saying.” This is a rehearsal of what God has done in the history of
Israel and how God has provided graciously for Israel. So what follows is a
statement of praise focusing on God.
We
should note the way he refers to God. He refers to Him as Yahweh Elohim
in the Hebrew. Yahweh
is the Tetragrammaton that is the name of God associated with His entering into
the Mosaic covenant. This is important because everything that Solomon says is
associated with the exodus event and God’s redemption in the Mosaic covenant
and, secondly, the Davidic covenant. He has thought through these two
covenants, specifically the blessing and the cursing sections, the divine
discipline sections, of the Mosaic covenant, and that forms the core of his
prayer and dedication. Then in the initial part, the introduction, and then in
vv. 22-30, that focuses more on the Davidic covenant. It shows how these
promises that God has instilled into these two covenants have been the focal point
of Solomon and they have really taken root in his soul. The statements that he
is making and the prayers he is uttering are an outgrowth of His meditation on
God’s promises. The phrase “spoke with His mouth” indicates how important David
was to God. Only one other time do we have this kind of verbiage of God
speaking mouth-to-mouth with someone, and that is in Numbers 12:8 with
reference to Moses NASB “With him I speak mouth to mouth, Even
openly, and not in dark sayings, And he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were
you not afraid To speak against My servant, against
Moses?”
“…and has fulfilled {it} with His hand, saying.” This an anthropomorphic idiom in the Hebrew. The “hand of
God” is an idiom for the power of God. The example of the power of God that he
goes to is when He brings the Jews out of Egypt. 1 Kings 8:16 NASB
“Since the day that I brought My people Israel from Egypt, I did not choose a
city out of all the tribes of Israel {in which} to build a house that My name
might be there, but I chose David to be over My people Israel.” Solomon is
rehearsing what God said to David. Bringing the Jews out of Egypt is a picture
of the regeneration, the redemption, the salvation of the nation from slavery
in Egypt.
1
Kings 8 and 2 Chronicles 6 are parallel passages. But there are little
differences and that has to do with the purpose of the writer. The writer of
Chronicles is writing after the exile to sort of rebuild the nation’s
confidence in the Davidic promises. So the focus in Chronicles is only on the
southern kingdom and what God is doing to the house of David, whereas in Kings
the focus is a little more on the northern kingdom but it is dealing with the
reasons why there is a split between the north and the south and why God is
bringing about the judgment of the Assyrian captivity and the Babylonian
captivity.
In
2 Chronicles we read the almost identical statement: “Since the day that I brought My people from the land of
Egypt, I did not choose a city out of all the tribes of Israel {in which} to
build a house that My name might be there…” But it adds, “nor did I choose
any man for a leader over My people Israel; but I have
chosen Jerusalem that My name might be there…” The Chronicles statement
probably gives us a fuller statement of what Solomon said. The Kings writer
leaves some of this out because it doesn’t fit his purpose, whereas the writer
of Chronicles wants to get it in there because it focuses on Jerusalem and on
the house of David.
Solomon
is speaking in 1 Kings 8:17 NASB “Now it was in the heart of my
father David to build a house for the name of the LORD, the God of
Israel. [18] But the LORD said to my father David, ‘Because
it was in your heart to build a house for My name, you did well that it was in
your heart.” The meaning of the word “heart” is really talking about the centre
of a person’s being, then core of their soul. In most places the word has to do
with the core thinking in a person’s soul, so it is a thought word. So Solomon
is saying that it was in the thinking of his father what he wanted to do. It
involved his volition, his desire: that he wanted to build a temple for name of
the Lord God of Israel. But God prevented that. Principle: God recognises many
times our desire to do certain things but in His sovereignty He doesn’t allow
us circumstantially to be able to do it. David is going to get some recognition
for his right motivation and his right desire.
1
Kings 8:19 NASB “Nevertheless you shall not build the house, but
your son who will be born to you, he will build the house for My name.” So this goes back to the Davidic covenant, 2
Samuel 7, and 1 Chronicles 17 deals with this where God specifically promised
David that it would be his direct descendant, and later, long before the Adonijah rebellion, He told David that He was referring to
Solomon. So what Solomon is doing here in this introduction is focusing the
attention of the people on the past act of God in delivering them from Egypt
and primarily on the Davidic covenant and the specific promise of God to David
that his son would build the temple. The reason for emphasising this is the
structure and the basis for this whole prayer is that Solomon is taking these
promises that God made to David and is claiming them. So it is a picture of the
faith-rest drill.
Promises: a) A promise is something
that is made with a view to fulfilling it. It is not something that is said
that may or may not be fulfilled or something that is said and easily broken.
b) A promise is a guarantee,
but the guarantee is only as good as the character of the person who is making
the promise. c) Promises are
made to different groups of people or individuals and it is very important to
identify who a promise is made to. If a promise is made to one person then
someone else doesn’t have the right to come along and say, Well
you need to fulfil that promise to me. The most obvious distinction here is
that of God has made a promise to Israel then the church can’t come along and
claim that promise for herself. We have to be careful when we handle certain
Old Testament promises because they are not given to the church and there is
not even a cross-over application to the church. Romans 9:4 says
that the covenants and the promises belong to Israel. So there are certain
promises that are specifically directed only to Abraham and his descendants,
Israel. There are promises to the church, promises to the disciples, Old
Testament believers only, church age believers only, Tribulation believers
only, etc.
1
Kings 8:20 NASB “Now the LORD has fulfilled His word which He spoke;
for I have risen in place of my father David and sit on the throne of Israel,
as the LORD promised, and
have built the house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel.” Solomon said the
Lord promised one thing, and this is exactly what happened. [21] “There I have
set a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of the LORD, which He made
with our fathers when He brought them from the land of Egypt.”
Solomon
stands before the people. 1 Kings 8:22 NASB “Then Solomon stood
before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread
out his hands toward heaven.” At this point there is another verse added in
Chronicles that was left out here and which fills in the setting a little bit.
2 Chronicles 6:13 NASB “Now Solomon had made a bronze platform, five
cubits long, five cubits wide and three cubits high, and had set it in the
midst of the court; and he stood on it, knelt on his knees in the presence of
all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven.”
The
key verse in this section is 1 Kings 8:23 NASB “He said, “O LORD, the God of
Israel, there is no God like You in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping
covenant and {showing} lovingkindness to Your
servants who walk before You with all their heart.” That is the core of his
prayer. There are three elements here. The first is that he is addressing the
Lord God of Israel, and this reminds us that this is the God who entered into a
covenant with Israel. Second, he indicates the uniqueness of God. What is
interesting is that when we trace the key words here this phrase is almost
always used, and is restricted in its uses, to Davidic covenant
passages—2 Samuel 7; 1 Chronicles 17; Psalm 89. So even in this sentence
we see how saturated Solomon’s soul is with the language of the Davidic
covenant. Third, “keeping covenant and {showing} lovingkindness
to Your servants who walk before You with all their
heart.” There are two ideas here that are parallel: keeping your covenant and lovingkindness. The word for “lovingkindness”
is the Hebrew word chesed which has to do with loyal or
faithful love, and is sometimes referred to as God’s covenant love because it
is grounded in this legal contract. 1 Kings 8:30 NASB “Listen to the
supplication of Your servant and of Your people Israel, when they pray toward
this place; hear in heaven Your dwelling place; hear and forgive.” Everything
from verse 22 down to verse 30 is a set-up for making that request. That
request, then, is going to be based on promises God made in the Mosaic
covenant, specifically the blessing and cursing passages of Leviticus 26 &
27 and Deuteronomy 30.