A House for the Name of the Lord

The priests step back out of the holy place, and a cloud rolls in behind them. It fills the whole building. The priests can't even stand to do their work. The glory of the Lord has filled the house.

For centuries, Israel had worshipped God at a tent, the tabernacle, carried through the wilderness and set up in the land. King David longed to build God a permanent house. But God told him no. Your son will build it. Now that son, Solomon, is king. There is peace on every side. And Solomon says, now is the time.

First, he needs wood. The best in the world. So he writes to Hiram, king of Tyre, on the coast to the north. Everyone knows, says Solomon, that nobody can cut timber like the people of Sidon. Hiram is delighted. My men will bring cedar and cypress down from Lebanon to the sea, he says. We'll tie the logs into rafts and float them down the coast to wherever you say. In return, Solomon sends wheat and olive oil, year after year. He raises a workforce of thousands, taking turns, one month in Lebanon and two months at home. And in the hills, stonecutters quarry great blocks of fine stone for the foundations.

Then, four hundred and eighty years after Israel came out of Egypt, the building begins. And here is a remarkable detail. Every stone is shaped and finished at the quarry. So on the building site itself, no hammer, no axe, no iron tool is heard. The temple rises in near silence. It is sixty cubits long, about ninety feet, and twenty cubits wide. Inside, the stone walls are lined with cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers, and overlaid with gold. At the back is the most holy place, a perfect cube. There, two great cherubim of olive wood, covered in gold, spread their wings from wall to wall. Out front stand two bronze pillars, and a huge bronze basin called the sea. It takes seven years.

Then Solomon gathers all Israel to Jerusalem. The priests lift the ark of the covenant, the gold-covered chest that holds the two stone tablets Moses received at Sinai. They carry it into the most holy place and set it beneath the wings of the cherubim. And as they come out, the cloud fills the house of the Lord.

Solomon stands before the altar, spreads out his hands toward heaven and prays. “Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you.” And then he asks a question. “But will God really live on the earth? Heaven, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this house that I have built!” So he asks God to hear from heaven whenever anyone prays toward this place. When people sin and turn back. When there is drought or famine or sickness. And even when a foreigner comes from a far country, because they have heard of your great name. Hear them too, Solomon prays, so that all the peoples of the earth may know you. Then the king blesses the people, and they celebrate for days. And they go home, the Bible says, joyful and glad of heart.

Hiram's offer to float timber down the coast fits what we know of the Phoenicians, the great seafaring people of Tyre and Sidon. The cedars of Lebanon were famous across the ancient world. Centuries after Solomon, an Assyrian king decorated his palace at Khorsabad with stone reliefs showing Phoenician boats hauling logs through the water, some towed behind, some piled on deck. Long afterwards, when the temple was rebuilt after the exile, cedar was again brought by sea to Joppa.

The building of Solomon's temple is told in First Kings, chapters 5 to 8. Solomon built a magnificent house, and then admitted that God is far too great to be contained in any building. Yet God still chose to meet his people there. So here is something to think about. If God is that big, why do you think he still wants to be close to us?