CHAPTER 8

(1004 B.C.)

BRINGING THE ARK INTO THE TEMPLE

¹Then Solomon assembled the Elders of Israel, and all the heads of the Tribes, the chief of the fathers of the Children of Israel, unto king Solomon in Jerusalem, that they might bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD out of the city of David, which is Zion. (The Eighth Chapter portrays the dedication of the Temple, and also prefigures the origination of worship in the coming Kingdom Age. Approximately a year would lapse between the completion of the Temple and its dedication. This great event would occur in the Year of Jubilee, during the Feast of Tabernacles, and in connection with the Great Day of Atonement. The Feast of Trumpets, which was a type in Jewish history of the Rapture of the Church, would be extended to last for some seven days. This would be followed by the Great Day of Atonement, which prefigures the cleansing of Israel at the beginning of the Kingdom Age. Then following the Great Day of Atonement was the Feast of Tabernacles, which, within itself, symbolizes the Kingdom Age. These three great Jewish Feast days have not yet been fulfilled in type. They will be fulfilled when the great Millennial Temple is built, as is recorded in Ezekiel, Chapters 40 through 48, of which Solomons Temple was a Type. All of this took place in the month of October.

For many years [over 100], the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle had been separated. The Tabernacle was now at Gibeon with the other of its holy vessels, while the Ark of the Covenant was elsewhere in Jerusalem.)

²And all the men of Israel assembled themselves unto king Solomon at the feast in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month (October).

³And all the Elders of Israel came, and the Priests took up the Ark (the Priests alone were set apart to carry the Ark [Deut. 10:8]; Solomon, therefore, did not make the mistake David had made by seeking to bring it to Jerusalem on a cart).

⁴And they brought up the Ark of the LORD, and the Tabernacle of the congregation, and all the holy vessels that were in the Tabernacle, even those did the Priests and the Levites bring up (as far as we know, none of these vessels, with the exception of the Ark of the Covenant, were used; they were simply preserved as treasures of the past, and placed in the treasury of side-chambers).

⁵And king Solomon, and all the congregation of Israel, that were assembled unto him, were with him before the Ark, sacrificing sheep and oxen, that could not be told nor numbered for multitude (the sacrifice of all of these animals proclaims the fact that, despite the gold and glamour of the great Temple, the most expensive structure ever built, still, Calvary was the foundation for everything, of which all of these sacrifices were Types; the Cross has always been the Foundation for everything).

⁶And the Priests brought in the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD unto His Place, into the Oracle of the house, to the Most Holy Place, even under the wings of the Cherubims (these were the two huge Cherubims that were made of olive wood and overlaid with gold; their wingspan spread from one wall to the other wall; the two wings covering the Ark were the inner wings of the Cherubim that touched each other in the center of the room; each Cherubim had two sets of wings, with the outside wings reaching to the back wall, and the front set of wings reaching forward, touching the wings of the opposite Cherubim; the wingspread of each was about 15 feet; the Ark rested under all of this).

⁷For the Cherubims spread forth their two wings over the place of the Ark, and the Cherubims covered the Ark and the staves thereof above (the Ark of the Covenant rested in complete darkness, under the outstretched wings of the Cherubims; God dwelt here between the Cherubims and the Mercy Seat, which, in effect, was the lid of the Ark).

⁸And they drew out the staves, that the ends of the staves were seen out in the Holy Place before the Oracle, and they were not seen without: and there they are unto this day (the two staves, which went into the rings on either side of the Ark, were partially taken out, so that the ends could be seen from the Holy Place, which was the room immediately in front of the Holy of Holies, but not from the porch outside the Holy Place; this way, the Ark never needed to be handled, as the staves could easily be put back into the rings without even touching the Ark; it seems that it was unlawful to take them wholly out of the rings; pulling the staves out so the ends could be seen indicated the Ark had found its resting place in the Temple, and was not to be carried anymore; it had a permanent house, not a tent, as before).

⁹There was nothing in the Ark save the two tables of stone (the Ten Commandments), which Moses put there at Horeb (over 500 years before), when the LORD made a Covenant with the Children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt. (In Hebrews 9:4, Paul mentioned the golden pot of Manna and Aarons rod being in the Ark. He was speaking of the Ark while in the Tabernacle instead of the Temple. It is not known when these two things were removed; it was either by the Philistines when they had the Ark, or when the events of I Sam., Chpts. 5 and 6, took place. At any rate, whatever did happen, God did not allow the two tables of stone containing the Ten Commandments to be taken. There was a reason for this.

Aarons rod and the pot of Manna were Types of Christ, which in type would not be necessary with the advent of Christ Himself; however, the Ten Commandments were a Type of the Word of God, which endures forever. For the Law of God was hidden in the Messiahs Heart [Ps. 119:11], as it was hidden in the Ark. The Law will be the basis and rule of Righteousness which will govern the Millennium in the coming Kingdom Age.)

¹⁰And it came to pass, when the Priests were come out of the Holy Place, that the cloud filled the House of the LORD (the cloud represented the Glory of God and, thereby, signified the Presence of God),

¹¹So that the Priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the Glory of the LORD had filled the House of the LORD. (It simply means that the Power of God was so strong that the knees of the Priests buckled. The Glory is the secret of the Church, without which the Church is nothing more than a human institution; however, with this, the cloud, the Church is a living organism, different than anything on the face of the Earth. Regrettably, the modern Church knows precious little about the Glory of God.)

SOLOMONS MESSAGE

¹²Then spoke Solomon, The LORD said that He would dwell in the thick darkness (is probably referring to Ex. 19:9 and 20:21).

¹³I have surely built You an House to dwell in, a settled place for You to abide in forever (the Temple was more than anything a shrine for the Ark, between the Cherubims of the Mercy Seat [where God dwelt]; due to the Cross, He now abides within the heart and life of the Believer [I Cor. 3:16]).

¹⁴And the king turned his face about, and blessed all the congregation of Israel: (and all the congregation of Israel stood;)

¹⁵And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, which spoke with His Mouth unto David my father, and has with His hand fulfilled it, saying,

¹⁶Since 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; but I chose David to be over My People Israel (Satan would fight this choice, as he ever fights all of Gods choices).

¹⁷And it was in the heart of David my father to build an House for the Name of the LORD God of Israel.

¹⁸And the LORD said unto David my father, Whereas it was in your heart to build an House unto My Name, you did well that it was in your heart.

¹⁹Nevertheless you shall not build the House; but your son who shall come forth out of your loins, he shall build the House unto My Name (Solomon did not mention here the reason for this [II Sam. 7:11-12]).

²⁰And the LORD has performed His Word that He spoke, 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.

²¹And I have set there a place for the Ark, wherein is the Covenant of the LORD, which He made with our fathers, when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.

SOLOMONS PRAYER

²²And Solomon stood before the Altar of the LORD in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven (actually Solomon was close by the Brazen Altar of Sacrifice, on a platform about 4 feet high; all these rites took place in the open air):

²³And he said, LORD God of Israel, there is no God like You, in heaven above, or on Earth beneath, Who keeps Covenant and Mercy with Your Servants who walk before You with all their heart (the meaning is: the God of Israel stands Alone, and Alone is God):

²⁴Who has kept with Your servant David my father that You promised him: You spoke also with Your Mouth, and have fulfilled it with Your Hand, as it is this day (Solomon sees in this a special pledge of Gods Faithfulness and Truth).

²⁵Therefore now, LORD God of Israel, keep with Your servant David my father that You promised him, saying, There shall not fail you a man in My sight to sit on the throne of Israel; so that your children take heed to their way, that they walk before Me as you have walked before Me (God keeping His Promise was contingent on their keeping His Commandments).

²⁶And now, O God of Israel, let Your Word, I pray You, be verified, which You spoke unto Your servant David my father.

²⁷But will God indeed dwell on the Earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain You; how much less this house that I have built? (Solomon never denies for a moment that the Temple was a real habitation of Jehovah, or that a real Presence was manifested there. He only denies that the Deity can be contained in earthly Temples. He had no unworthy ideas, such as were prevalent in that age, of God as a local deity, limited to space. His words clearly prove his grasp of the Omnipresence and Infinity of God.)

²⁸Yet have You respect unto the prayer of Your servant, and to his supplication, O LORD my God, to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer, which Your servant prays before You today:

²⁹That 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: that You may hearken unto the prayer which Your Servant shall make toward this place (now that God has revealed His Presence in the Temple, the Jew, wherever he might be, would, and, as a matter of fact, did, pray toward it [Dan. 6:10; Ps. 5:7; Jonah 2:4]).

³⁰And hearken You to the supplication of Your servant, and of Your People Israel, when they shall pray toward this Place: and hear You in Heaven Your Dwelling Place: and when You hear, forgive.

³¹If any man trespass against his neighbour, and an oath be laid upon him to cause him to swear, and the oath come before Your Altar in this House (the Altar of Sacrifice is meant; in fact, every prayer to the Lord must come via Calvary; all of our worship must go through Calvary; all of our position in Christ must be at Calvary):

³²Then hear You in Heaven, and do, and judge Your servants, condemning the wicked, to bring his way upon his head; and justifying the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness.

³³When Your people Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against You, and shall turn again to You, and confess Your Name, and pray, and make supplication unto You in this House:

³⁴Then hear You in Heaven, and forgive the sin of Your people Israel, and bring them again unto the land which You gave unto their fathers.

³⁵When heaven 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:

³⁶Then hear You in Heaven and forgive the sin of Your servants, and of Your people Israel, that You teach them the good way wherein they should walk, and give rain upon Your land, which You have given to Your people for an inheritance (forgive, because they have learned the lesson Your discipline of drought was meant to teach; the chastisement has fulfilled its purpose).

³⁷If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpillar; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be;

³⁸What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all Your people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this House:

³⁹Then hear You in Heaven Your Dwelling Place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart You know; (for You, even You only, know the hearts of all the children of men;)

⁴⁰That they may fear You all the days that they live in the land which You gave unto our fathers (Solomon anticipates that a Godly fear will be the result of Forgiveness and Restoration).

⁴¹Moreover concerning a stranger (Gentile), who is not of Your people Israel, but comes out of a far country for Your Names sake;

⁴²(For they shall hear of Your great Name, and of Your strong hand, and of Your stretched out arm;) when he shall come and pray toward this house (Solomon is continuing to speak of Gentiles);

⁴³Hear You in Heaven Your Dwelling Place, and do according to all that the stranger calls to You for: that all people 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.

⁴⁴If Your people go out to battle against their enemy, whithersoever You shall send them, and shall pray unto the LORD toward the city which You have chosen (Jerusalem), and toward the house (the Temple) that I have built for Your Name (these words clearly imply that the war, whether defensive or offensive [for the chastisement of other nations], is one which had Gods sanction and, indeed, was waged by His appointment; they have gone Gods Way, they may, therefore, look the way of Gods House for help; executing Gods Commission, they might justly expect His Blessing):

⁴⁵Then hear You in Heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.

⁴⁶If they sin against You, (for there is no man who sins not [the question is not if man sins; the question is when man sins; even for the best of us, whoever that might be, were it not for the constant intercession of Christ, we wouldnt last a day],) and You be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy (because they have sinned), so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near;

⁴⁷Yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land where they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto You in the land of them who carried them captives, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness (that which the Lord demands [I Jn. 1:9]);

⁴⁸And so return unto You with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, which led them away captive, and pray unto You toward their land, which You gave unto their fathers, the city which You have chosen, and the House which I have built for Your Name (under the New Covenant, we do not pray toward Jerusalem, because the Lord no longer dwells in a building made by hands, but rather within the heart and life of each respective Believer [Jn. 14:16-17]; we now pray directly to the Father in Heaven [Mat. 6:9-13]):

⁴⁹Then hear You their prayer and their supplication in Heaven Your Dwelling Place, and maintain their cause (even though God is everywhere, still, His Dwelling Place is Heaven; in fact, God the Father is in Heaven, while God the Holy Spirit would occupy the Temple, residing between the Mercy Seat and the Cherubim, functioning on the premise of what God the Son would do at Calvary, typified by the Sacrifices; and yet there is only One God, but manifested in Three Persons),

⁵⁰And forgive Your people who have sinned against You, and all their transgressions wherein they have transgressed against You, and give them compassion before them who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them (this Verse shouts forgiveness and compassion, which are the hallmarks of the great Grace of God):

⁵¹For they be Your people, and Your inheritance, which You brought forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron (only the Lord can deliver; so to have His Deliverance, we must function according to His Directions, which, in reality, is Faith in Christ and what He did for us at the Cross, which then gives us the help of the Holy Spirit [Ex. 12:13; Rom. 6:3-14; 8:1-2, 11]):

⁵²That Your eyes may be open unto the supplication of Your servant, and unto the supplication of Your people Israel, to hearken unto them in all that they call for unto You.

⁵³For You did separate them from among all the people of the Earth, to be Your inheritance, as You spoke by the hand of Moses Your servant, when You brought our fathers out of Egypt, O LORD God (there is a constant recurrence throughout the Old Testament to Israels great deliverance from Egypt; and with good reason, for it was the real birthday of the Nation, and was also a pledge of future health and favor).

SOLOMON BLESSED GOD

⁵⁴And it was so, that when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication unto the LORD, he arose from before the Altar of the LORD (the huge Brazen Altar situated immediately in front of the Temple), from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up to heaven.

⁵⁵And he stood, and blessed all the congregation of Israel with a loud voice, saying (the words of blessing given here prove that Solomon did not assume Priestly functions in putting a blessing upon the people, which only the Priests, who were Types of Christ, could do [Num. 6:27]; he rather blessed the Lord, which all of us should do, and constantly),

⁵⁶Blessed be the LORD, Who has given rest unto His People Israel, according to all that He promised: there has not failed one word of all His good Promise, which He promised by the hand of Moses His Servant (Lev. 26:3-13; Deut. 28:1-14; Josh. 21:44).

⁵⁷The LORD our God be with us, as He was with our fathers: let Him not leave us, nor forsake us:

⁵⁸That He may incline our hearts unto Him, to walk in all His Ways, and to keep His Commandments, and His Statutes, and His Judgments, which He commanded our fathers (these were the conditions on which Gods Blessings were guaranteed).

⁵⁹And let these my words, wherewith I have made supplication before the LORD, be near unto the LORD our God day and night, that He maintain the cause of His servant, and the cause of His people Israel at all times, as the matter shall require:

⁶⁰That all the people of the Earth may know that the LORD is God, and that there is none else (the thoughts of Solomon now go not only to Israel, but to the entirety of the world; the House now dedicated, he prays that the Gentiles will come to its Light [Isa. 2:2-3]).

⁶¹Let your heart (the hearts of the people of Israel) therefore be perfect with the LORD our God, to walk in His Statutes, and to keep His Commandments, as at this day.

SOLOMON OFFERS UP SACRIFICES

⁶²And the king, and all Israel with him, offered Sacrifice before the LORD (proclaiming the fact that Israels safety, protection, blessing, and prosperity depended solely upon the shed Blood of the Lamb).

⁶³And Solomon offered a Sacrifice of Peace Offerings, which he offered unto the LORD, two and twenty thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the Children of Israel dedicated the House of the LORD. (The tremendous number of Sacrifices offered typified the great Sacrifice of Christ. But yet, even though all these sheep and oxen were offered, they still were insufficient to take away sin. They only covered sin until Christ would come [Heb. 10:4], Who would take sin away [Jn. 1:29].)

⁶⁴The same day did the king hallow the middle of the Court that was before the House of the LORD: for there he offered Burnt Offerings, and Meat Offerings, and the fat of the Peace Offerings: because the Brasen Altar that was before the LORD was too little to receive the Burnt Offerings, and Meat Offerings, and the fat of the Peace Offerings. (In fact, the great Altar was thirty feet wide and thirty feet long, actually the same size as the Holy of Holies, signifying that His Answer to sin, which is the Cross, is as great as His Throne, signified by the Holy of Holies. But yet, even the great Altar was too small to receive all the Offerings, so the entirety of the Court was used, at least for the slaughter. No doubt, this lasted for several days.)

⁶⁵And at that time Solomon held a feast, and all Israel with him, a great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt, before the LORD our God, seven days and seven days, even fourteen days. (All the people were required to eat their portion of the Peace Offerings, which signified that Peace with God had been restored, now that the proper Burnt Offerings had been sacrificed. The Burnt Offerings signified that the Lord would give His all, His Perfection, to the people. The Sin and Trespass Offerings signified that the people would give their sin and trespasses to the Lord.)

⁶⁶On the eighth day he sent the people away (on the eighth day of the second feast, which, together with the first feast, totaled fourteen days): and they blessed the king, and went unto their tents joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the LORD had done for David His servant, and for Israel His people. (This typifies the coming Kingdom Age, when Christ will personally reign supreme from Jerusalem, and do so over the entirety of the world. Then there will be joy and gladness of heart for all people [Jer., Chpts. 30-31; Zech. 12:4-14; Chpts. 13-14].)