Solomon Dedicates the Temple – 1 Kings 8-9

Joy: You’re listening to Season 2 of the Lifting Her Voice podcast.   This is Episode #105 and today we’ll read 1 Kings chapters 8 & 9 together.   Solomon dedicates the Temple in part with a beautiful prayer.  The Lord makes it clear that He heard Solomon’s prayer and responds.  

Welcome

Welcome to the Lifting Her Voice podcast, Season 2!  I’m your host, Joy Miller, and I invite you to grab your Bible and join me – from the beginning – simply reading God’s word together.  We built some spiritual muscles in 2020 with just the New Testament.  But this year we’re going all out, cover-to-cover, Old Testament and New.  So, whether with your first cup in the morning, your commute to work, or as the last thing on your mind before sleep, God’s Word will equip you for every good work.  I’m really glad you’re here!

1 Kings Chapter 8

Solomon’s Dedication of the Temple

At that time Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, all the tribal heads and the ancestral leaders of the Israelites before him at Jerusalem in order to bring the ark of the Lord’s covenant from the city of David, that is Zion. So all the men of Israel were assembled in the presence of King Solomon in the month of Ethanim, which is the seventh month, at the festival.

All the elders of Israel came, and the priests picked up the ark. The priests and the Levites brought the ark of the Lord, the tent of meeting, and the holy utensils that were in the tent. King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel, who had gathered around him and were with him in front of the ark, were sacrificing sheep, goats, and cattle that could not be counted or numbered, because there were so many.

The Priests Brought the Ark

The priests brought the ark of the Lord’s covenant to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the temple, to the most holy place beneath the wings of the cherubim. For the cherubim were spreading their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim covered the ark and its poles from above. The poles were so long that their ends were seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary, but they were not seen from outside the sanctuary; they are still there today. Nothing was in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites when they came out of the land of Egypt.

When the priests came out of the holy place, the cloud filled the Lord’s temple, and because of the cloud, the priests were not able to continue ministering, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple.

Solomon Blesses the Congregation

Then Solomon said:

The Lord said that he would dwell in total darkness.

I have indeed built an exalted temple for you,

a place for your dwelling forever.

The king turned around and blessed the entire congregation of Israel while they were standing. He said:

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel!

He spoke directly to my father David,

and he has fulfilled the promise by his power.

He said,

“Since the day I brought my people Israel out of Egypt,

I have not chosen a city to build a temple in

among any of the tribes of Israel,

so that my name would be there.

But I have chosen David to rule my people Israel.”

My father David had his heart set

on building a temple for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

But the Lord said to my father David,

“Since your heart was set on building a temple for my name,

you have done well to have this desire.

Yet you are not the one to build it;

instead, your son, your own offspring,

will build it for my name.”

The Lord has fulfilled what he promised.

I have taken the place of my father David,

and I sit on the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised.

I have built the temple for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

I have provided a place there for the ark,

where the Lord’s covenant is

that he made with our ancestors

when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.

Solomon’s Prayer

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in front of the entire congregation of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven. He said:

Lord God of Israel,

there is no God like you

in heaven above or on earth below,

who keeps the gracious covenant

with your servants who walk before you

with all their heart.

You have kept what you promised

to your servant, my father David.

You spoke directly to him

and you fulfilled your promise by your power

as it is today.

Therefore, Lord God of Israel,

keep what you promised

to your servant, my father David:

You will never fail to have a man

to sit before me on the throne of Israel,

if only your sons take care to walk before me

as you have walked before me.

Now Lord God of Israel,

please confirm what you promised

to your servant, my father David.

But will God indeed live on earth?

Even heaven, the highest heaven, cannot contain you,

much less this temple I have built.

Listen to your servant’s prayer and his petition,

Lord my God,

so that you may hear the cry and the prayer

that your servant prays before you today,

so that your eyes may watch over this temple night and day,

toward the place where you said,

“My name will be there,”

and so that you may hear the prayer

that your servant prays toward this place.

Solomon Pleads for the Lord to Hear

Hear the petition of your servant

and your people Israel,

which they pray toward this place.

May you hear in your dwelling place in heaven.

May you hear and forgive.

When a man sins against his neighbor

and is forced to take an oath,

and he comes to take an oath

before your altar in this temple,

may you hear in heaven and act.

May you judge your servants,

condemning the wicked man by bringing

what he has done on his own head

and providing justice for the righteous

by rewarding him according to his righteousness.

When your people Israel are defeated before an enemy,

because they have sinned against you,

and they return to you and praise your name,

and they pray and plead with you

for mercy in this temple,

may you hear in heaven

and forgive the sin of your people Israel.

May you restore them to the land

you gave their ancestors.

When the skies are shut and there is no rain,

because they have sinned against you,

and they pray toward this place

and praise your name,

and they turn from their sins

because you are afflicting them,

may you hear in heaven

and forgive the sin of your servants

and your people Israel,

so that you may teach them to walk on the good way.

Solomon Pleads for the Land

May you send rain on your land

that you gave your people for an inheritance.

When there is famine in the land,

when there is pestilence,

when there is blight or mildew, locust or grasshopper,

when their enemy besieges them

in the land and its cities,

when there is any plague or illness,

every prayer or petition

that any person or that all your people Israel may have —

they each know their own affliction —

as they spread out their hands toward this temple,

may you hear in heaven, your dwelling place,

and may you forgive, act, and give to everyone

according to all their ways, since you know each heart,

for you alone know every human heart,

so that they may fear you

all the days they live on the land

you gave our ancestors.

Even for the foreigner who is not of your people Israel

but has come from a distant land

because of your name —

for they will hear of your great name,

strong hand, and outstretched arm,

and will come and pray toward this temple —

may you hear in heaven, your dwelling place,

and do according to all the foreigner asks.

Then all peoples of earth will know your name,

to fear you as your people Israel do

and to know that this temple I have built

bears your name.

When your people go out to fight against their enemies,

wherever you send them,

and they pray to the Lord

in the direction of the city you have chosen

and the temple I have built for your name,

may you hear their prayer and petition in heaven

and uphold their cause.

Solomon Pleads for Mercy

When they sin against you —

for there is no one who does not sin —

and you are angry with them

and hand them over to the enemy,

and their captors deport them to the enemy’s country —

whether distant or nearby —

and when they come to their senses

in the land where they were deported

and repent and petition you in their captors’ land:

“We have sinned and done wrong;

we have been wicked,”

and when they return to you with all their heart and all their soul

in the land of their enemies who took them captive,

and when they pray to you in the direction of their land

that you gave their ancestors,

the city you have chosen,

and the temple I have built for your name,

may you hear in heaven, your dwelling place,

their prayer and petition and uphold their cause.

Solomon’s Blessing

When Solomon finished praying this entire prayer and petition to the Lord, he got up from kneeling before the altar of the Lord, with his hands spread out toward heaven, and he stood and blessed the whole congregation of Israel with a loud voice: “Blessed be the Lord! He has given rest to his people Israel according to all he has said. Not one of all the good promises he made through his servant Moses has failed. May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our ancestors. May he not abandon us or leave us so that he causes us to be devoted to him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commands, statutes, and ordinances, which he commanded our ancestors.

May my words with which I have made my petition before the Lord be near the Lord our God day and night. May he uphold his servant’s cause and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires. May all the peoples of the earth know that the Lord is God. There is no other! Be wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord our God to walk in his statutes and to keep his commands, as it is today.”

Many Burnt Offerings

The king and all Israel with him were offering sacrifices in the Lord’s presence. Solomon offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings to the Lord: twenty-two thousand cattle and one hundred twenty thousand sheep and goats. In this manner the king and all the Israelites dedicated the Lord’s temple.

On the same day, the king consecrated the middle of the courtyard that was in front of the Lord’s temple because that was where he offered the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the fat of the fellowship offerings, since the bronze altar before the Lord was too small to accommodate the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the fat of the fellowship offerings.

Solomon and all Israel with him — a great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath to the Brook of Egypt — observed the festival at that time in the presence of the Lord our God, seven days, and seven more days — fourteen days. On the fifteenth day he sent the people away. So they blessed the king and went to their homes rejoicing and with happy hearts for all the goodness that the Lord had done for his servant David and for his people Israel.

1 Kings Chapter 9

The Lord’s Response

When Solomon finished building the temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and all that Solomon desired to do, the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time just as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. The Lord said to him:

I have heard your prayer and petition you have made before me. I have consecrated this temple you have built, to put my name there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there at all times.

As for you, if you walk before me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and in what is right, doing everything I have commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and ordinances, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David: You will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.

If you or your sons turn away from following me and do not keep my commands — my statutes that I have set before you — and if you go and serve other gods and bow in worship to them, I will cut off Israel from the land I gave them, and I will reject the temple I have sanctified for my name. Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples.

Though this temple is now exalted, everyone who passes by will be appalled and will scoff. They will say, “Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?” Then they will say, “Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt. They held on to other gods and bowed in worship to them and served them. Because of this, the Lord brought all this ruin on them.”

King Hiram’s Twenty Towns

At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon had built the two houses, the Lord’s temple and the royal palace —  King Hiram of Tyre having supplied him with cedar and cypress logs and gold for his every wish — King Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in the land of Galilee. So Hiram went out from Tyre to look over the towns that Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them. So he said, “What are these towns you’ve given me, my brother?” So he called them the Land of Cabul, as they are still called today. Now Hiram had sent the king nine thousand pounds of gold.

Solomon’s Forced Labor

This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon had imposed to build the Lord’s temple, his own palace, the supporting terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He then burned it, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and gave it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. Then Solomon rebuilt Gezer, Lower Beth-horon, Baalath, Tamar in the Wilderness of Judah, all the storage cities that belonged to Solomon, the chariot cities, the cavalry cities, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, or anywhere else in the land of his dominion.

As for all the peoples who remained of the Amorites, Hethites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not Israelites —  their descendants who remained in the land after them, those whom the Israelites were unable to destroy completely — Solomon imposed forced labor on them; it is still this way today. But Solomon did not consign the Israelites to slavery; they were soldiers, his servants, his commanders, his captains, and commanders of his chariots and his cavalry. These were the deputies who were over Solomon’s work: 550 who supervised the people doing the work.

Solomon’s Other Activities

Pharaoh’s daughter moved from the city of David to the house that Solomon had built for her; he then built the terraces.

Three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar he had built for the Lord, and he burned incense with them in the Lord’s presence. So he completed the temple.

King Solomon put together a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom. With the fleet, Hiram sent his servants, experienced seamen, along with Solomon’s servants. They went to Ophir and acquired gold there — sixteen tons — and delivered it to Solomon.

Close

What a powerful prayer Solomon prayed in chapter 8.  And if you’ve read the Bible before, you know that it covered pretty much the entire history of ancient Israel that Solomon would never see.  No doubt the Spirit was filling his mouth during that dedication.  

After the dedication, however, God came to Solomon a second time in chapter 9.   The covenant He laid out before Solomon was reminiscent of the one He made with the Israelites thru Moses.  God wanted to be clear with Solomon.  As beautiful as it was, God would destroy that new Temple in a minute if the Israelites failed to follow all of His statutes and commands.  Spoiler Alert:  Later we’ll see that’s exactly what happens.

It seems like Solomon tried to pull a fast one on King Hiram.  Apparently these cities were unsettled and not of great quality, which we learn in 2 Chronicles 8:2 when King Hiram gave them back to Solomon. What’s your take on that?  Let me know at Lifting Her Voice.com, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Thank you for joining me here today.  I pray that by spending time in His Word every day, you will by changed.  Visit me at Lifting Her Voice.com with your comments and questions.  And don’t forget to visit the Blog page while you’re there.  If you like the podcast, it would be great if you’d give it a five-star review and share it with everyone you know.  Don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.  See you tomorrow!

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Christian Standard Bible(r), Copyright (c) 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible(r) and CSB(r) are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.