ride and arrogancy,” taken to himself the glory due to God alone!
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Chap. 2 - The Temple and Its Dedication
The long-cherished plan of David to erect a temple to the Lord, Solomon
wisely carried out. For seven years Jerusalem was filled with busy workers
engaged in leveling the chosen site, in building vast retaining walls, in
laying broad foundations,—“great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones,”—in
shaping the heavy timbers brought from the Lebanon forests, and in erecting the
magnificent sanctuary. 1 Kings 5:17.
Simultaneously with the preparation of wood and stone, to which task many
thousands were bending their energies, the manufacture of the furnishings for
the temple was steadily progressing under the leadership of Hiram of Tyre, “a
cunning man, endued with understanding, ... skillful to work in gold, and in
silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine
linen, and in crimson.” 2 Chronicles 2:13, 14.
Thus as the building on Mount Moriah was noiselessly
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upreared with “stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there
was neither hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it
was in building,” the beautiful fittings were perfected according to the patterns
committed by David to his son, “all the vessels that were for the house of God.”
1 Kings 6:7; 4:19. These included the altar of incense, the table of shewbread,
the candlestick and lamps, with the vessels and instruments connected with the
ministrations of the priests in the holy place, all “of gold, and that perfect gold.”
2 Chronicles 4:21. The brazen furniture,—the altar of burnt offering, the great
laver supported by twelve oxen, the lavers of smaller size, with many other
vessels,—“in the plain of Jordan did the king cast them, in the clay ground
between Succoth and Zeredathah.” 2 Chronicles 4:17. These furnishings were
provided in abundance, that there should be no lack.
Of surpassing beauty and unrivaled splendor was the palatial building which
Solomon and his associates erected for God and his worship. Garnished with
precious stones, surrounded by spacious courts with magnificent approaches,
and lined with carved cedar and burnished gold, the temple structure, with its
broidered hangings and rich furnishings, was a fit emblem of the living church
of God on earth, which through the ages has been building in accordance with
the divine pattern, with materials that have been likened to “gold, silver, precious
stones,” “polished after the similitude of a palace.” 1 Corinthians 3:12; Psalm
144:12. Of this spiritual temple Christ is “the chief Cornerstone; in whom all
the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.”
Ephesians 2:20, 21.
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At last the temple planned by King David, and built by Solomon his son,
was completed. “All that came into Solomon’s heart to make in the house of the
Lord,” he had “prosperously effected.” 2 Chronicles 7:11. And now, in order
that the palace crowning the heights of Mount Moriah might indeed be, as David
had so much desired, a dwelling place “not for man, but for the Lord God” (1
Chronicles 29:1), there remained the solemn ceremony of formally dedicating it
to Jehovah and his worship.
The spot on which the temple was built had long been regarded as a
consecrated place. It was here that Abraham, the father of the faithful, had
revealed his willingness to sacrifice his only son in obedience to the command
of Jehovah. Here God had renewed with Abraham the covenant of blessing,
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which included the glorious Messianic promise to the human race of deliverance
through the sacrifice of the Son of the Most High. See Genesis 22:9, 16-18.
Here it was that when David offered burnt offerings and